"Spur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will feel as I felt for my darling, And will say as I said for her— "Dear child, she wanted to help me, And love for me was the spur; ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... all the time. So I forced myself from my lethargy of despair and grief; and this thought, the sweetest thought of all my life, may or may not have been my unrealized stimulus ere now; it was in very deed my most conscious and perpetual spur henceforth ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... volcanic ground," Cyrus Harding had said, and his companions following him began to ascend by degrees on the back of a spur, which, by a winding and consequently more accessible path, joined ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... further he walked the hungrier he naturally became. Short of trailing home, there were 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 ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... had before been as unknown to me as the Mountains of the Moon, and now my memory became wonderfully quickened. I recalled the rough map of my possessions, the first careless ride round their boundaries. Yes, the land on which I stood—for miles, to the spur of those farther mountains—the land was mine, and, beneath its surface, there was gold! I closed my eyes; for some moments visions of boundless wealth, and of the royal power which such wealth could command, swept athwart my brain. But my heart ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the grain which in Hindoostan is called jow[a]r. The remaining portion of our journey to Hazree Soolt[a]n, which was a distance of eighteen miles, was nothing but a barren waste with occasional patches of low jungle. We were now evidently on the farthest spur of the Hindoo Khoosh; the hills were low and detached, gradually uniting into the endless plain which bounded the horizon to the north and west. On the road we met a messenger who was on his way to Sir Alexander Burnes at K[a]bul, ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... mud, till the rain cleared off, the mountains looked through the mist, the augmented Kinugawa thundered below, and enjoyment became possible, even in my half-fed condition. Eventually I mounted a pack-saddle, and we crossed a spur of Takadayama at a height of 2100 feet on a well-devised series of zigzags, eight of which in one place could be seen one below another. The forest there is not so dense as usual, and the lower mountain slopes are sprinkled with noble Spanish ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... supplementary legislation to the Reconstruction Act which had been passed over the President's veto only two days before the new Congress assembled. That Act, from a variety of circumstances, had been forced through at the last under whip and spur. Upon close examination by the leading Republicans of both Senate and house it was found to be defective in many important respects, and especially to lack the detail necessary to give life and vigor to proceedings ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... obstacle that caused us to rein up and reflect. Some wheeled their horses, and commenced riding back, while half a dozen of us, better mounted, among whom were Saint Vrain and my voyageur Gode, not wishing to give up the chase so easily, put to the spur, ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... side to prevent his fastening upon another. But Hector contrived to give her precaution the slip, for, as he was on horseback, he lingered behind the carriages until they had fairly turned the corner in the road to Knockwinnock, and then, wheeling his horse's head round, gave him the spur ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... young leafage shimmered like a veil of golden gauze, the poplar buds were pink and brown, the chestnuts had all their candles afire; larks by dozens were abroad in the clear sky. Below the old Rocca del Capitan Vecchio—a grizzled and blind block of masonry on a spur of limestone, which held not a few of Ezzelin's secrets—two miles from Nona, stood a company of boys and girls in white garments, their laps full of flowers. Their shrill song of welcome hailed the riders, and to the same hopeful ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... more of grinding apprenticeship, he had in mind something much bigger than the slender volume of verse,—an adventure into authorship more suited to his metal,—a story for which an intense personal sympathy would furnish fitting atmosphere, with the final spur to his ambition a letter from the Atlantic even at the moment stowed safely ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... frankly and simply. For once Ralston was outwitted. Dick Linforth had Violet Oliver to defend, and the defence was well done. Ralston was left without a suspicion that Linforth had any reason beyond the mere truth of the facts to spur him to ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... comrades, actuated by the same principles as himself, will be bound by the sacred and priceless law of mutual support. Accordingly, both he and all his fellows fix their minds on acting with zeal and judgment upon the spur of the moment, and with the certainty that they will not be deserted. Experience shows, on the contrary, that a Frenchman or a Spaniard, working under a system which leans to formality and strict order ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... off, on the spur of the moment, toward the gates, before the rest of the party well knew what was being done. It was too late for Mr. Carlyle to stop her and repeat that the servant should go, for Barbara was already up with Mr. Tom Herbert. The latter had seen her running toward ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... undertaken under the spur of the moment, I protest it was indeed a brave deed, and I cannot but wonder how many young gentlemen of sixteen there are to-day who, upon a like occasion, would act as well as ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... thought. His uncertain course brought him at last to the waterfront, and he idled along the black, odorous docks until he came to a pier where a ship was under steam, making ready to put out to sea. The spur touched the heart of Harrigan. The urge never failed to prick him when he heard the scream of a steamer's horn as it put to sea. It brought the thoughts of far ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... Mrs. Furze had made her proposal on the spur of the moment. She, in her ignorance, had not thought an altar-cloth a very costly affair, and now she remembered that she had no friends who were not Dissenters. Moreover, to be on the committee was the object of her ambition, and it was clear that not only had nobody thought of putting ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... love for the Demoiselle de Puysange; and, to himself, he swore gloomily that if she had a mind to Hugues she must have Hugues, come what might. Having reached this conclusion, Adhelmar wheeled upon his men, and cursed them for tavern-idlers and laggards and flea-hearted snails, and bade them spur. ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... pavement of the Via Triumphalis, which wanders grass-grown and untrodden through the woods. A convent, however, which nothing spoils is that of Palazzuola, to which I paid my respects on this same occasion. It rises on a lower spur of Monte Cavo, on the edge, as we have seen, of the Alban Lake, and though it occupies a classic site, that of early Alba Longa, it displaced nothing more precious than memories and legends so dim ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... her policy as you have yours. Now there is as much need for tact as for kindliness in your behavior, in order to inculcate in her, without her knowing it, a feeling of security, which will lead her to lay back her ears, and prevent you from using rein or spur ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... 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
... that all was lost, in proof of which he pointed to scattered bodies of our men flying from the field in all directions. Yes, we were defeated; that was plain to see, and I needed little encouragement from my fellow-runaways to spur my horse to its utmost speed. Had the falcon eye of Santa Coloma rested on me at that moment he might have added to the list of Oriental traits he had given me the un-English faculty of knowing when I was beaten. I ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... applied whip and spur, the waiters shouted, the hostlers cheered, and away they went, fast ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... they should confess themselves outdone by the benefits bestowed by their children? Unless we decide the matter thus, we give children an excuse, and make them less eager to repay their debt, whereas we ought to spur them on, saying, "Noble youths, give your attention to this! You are invited to contend in an honourable strife between parents and children, as to which party has received more than it has given. Your fathers have not necessarily won the day because ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... Flodden Hill, a low spur of the Cheviots, 6 m. S. of Coldstream, between James IV. of Scotland and the English under the Earl of Surrey on the 9th of September 1513, which resulted in the crushing defeat of the Scots, who lost their king and the flower of their nobility, an event celebrated in Jean Elliot's "Flowers of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... however, would scarcely of themselves have done more than raise him to a respectable rank amongst the farmers of West Virginia. A spur was wanting to urge him beyond the limits of so contracted an existence, and that spur was supplied by an honourable ambition. Penniless and dependent as he was, he still remembered that his ancestors had been distinguished beyond the confines ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... rose of course from his seat. By nature he was not a coward, but he was unready, and knew not what to do or to say on the spur of the moment. "I did not come here ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... Matthieu, with the residue of his band, arrived in camp. He had a disastrous story to relate. After parting with Captain Bonneville in Green River Valley he had proceeded to the westward, keeping to the north of the Eutaw Mountains, a spur of the great Rocky chain. Here he experienced the most rugged travelling for his horses, and soon discovered that there was but little chance of meeting the Shoshonie bands. He now proceeded along Bear River, a stream much ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... to the left—must have followed the wrong spur," Elliot explained. "Probably we can cut across the face of ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... The hunter may be after bear at the time, or he may be after blacktail deer or elk, the common game in most of the haunts of the grisly; or he may merely be travelling through the country or prospecting for gold. Suddenly he comes over the edge of a cut bank, or round the sharp spur of a mountain or the shoulder of a cliff which walls in a ravine, or else the indistinct game trail he has been following through the great trees twists sharply to one side to avoid a rock or a mass of down timber, and behold he surprises ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... thus in arms? And whither bent? From whence, to whom, and on what errand sent?" Silent they scud away, and haste their flight To neighb'ring woods, and trust themselves to night. The speedy horse all passages belay, And spur their smoking steeds to cross their way, And watch each entrance of the winding wood. Black was the forest: thick with beech it stood, Horrid with fern, and intricate with thorn; Few paths of human feet, or tracks of beasts, were worn. The darkness of the shades, his heavy prey, And ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... him; whereas the greater relaxation on the lower notes might cause him to regard the problem as too easy. At the same time the higher note, still lying within the easy singing range, does not call for a strain but simply acts as a spur. ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... lingers of the smile that died On the sweet pale lip where his kisses were ... Yet still she turns her delicate head aside, If she may hear him come with jingling spur Through the fresh fairness of the Spring to ride, As in the old days ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow
... two things—the sheltering spur which answered as a dyke, and the great valley on the other side which rapidly engulfed whatever mounted—our own little platform in the canyon must have been already buried a hundred feet in salt and poisonous air. As it was, the interest of the scene entirely ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was a tremendous crowd, and thirty runners were saddled for the big race. Spur was favorite, and even in such a big field he touched four to one an hour before the race. Another well backed was Manifest, while Hooker, Bird, and half a dozen more had plenty of friends. Bandmaster stood at ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... double festival: his silver wedding and the completion of his castle, Franzensruhe, which he had built outside the gates of Marktbreit, on the slope of one of the hills, which, as the last western spur of the Steigerwald, roll in a gradual descent to the bank of the Main. The castle was a magnificent edifice, in the Renaissance style—of course. Red sandstone and white marble had been used, with a beautiful effect of colour, for the facade, which made a lavish display of pilasters ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... unrest, that first told her Millville was mean, shabby, and an unfit place for an ambitious girl to try to exist in. Her very love for her mother and father, to say nothing of her affection for the other members of her family, seemed a spur to her ambition "to get away and ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... at once; but Hsi Jen smiled and said: "Please stop, miss. Here's a slip of paper, and see what there is on it!" and speedily taking what Pao-y had written a short while back, she handed it over to Tai-y to examine. Tai-y, on perusal, discovered that Pao-y had composed it, at the spur of the moment, when under the influence of resentment; and she could not help thinking it both a matter of ridicule as well as of regret; but she hastily explained to Hsi Jen: "This is written for fun, and there's nothing of any consequence in it!" and having concluded ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... leader of our English strength, Never so needful on the earth of France, Spur to the rescue of the noble Talbot, Who now is girdled with a waist of iron, And hemm'd about with grim destruction. To Bordeaux, warlike Duke! to Bordeaux, York! Else, farewell, Talbot, France, ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... soldiers wore in their caps and buttonholes withered flowers and sprigs of green which their womenfolk had given in farewell. The women were just as Spartan as the Spartans; perhaps more so. If any soldier lacked innate courage, the spur of public opinion drove him forward in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... treated as I treated Simpkins this afternoon without feeling a little sorry for him. I bumped his head in the most frightful manner when I was dragging him down. No; I think it's all right now as far as Miss King is concerned. I'll go in and see Simpkins to-morrow and spur him on a ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... man. "It's fine talking, but it's mighty near God's truth all the same!" He moved restlessly, then took his crutch and beat a measure upon the sunken floor. His faded blue eyes, set in a thousand wrinkles, stared down upon and across the great view of ridge and spur and lovely valleys in between. The air at this height was clear and strong as wine, the noon sunshine bright, not hot, the murmur in the leaves and the sound of Thunder Run rather crisp and gay than slumbrous. "If it had to come," said Tom, "why couldn't it ha' come when I was younger? If 't weren't ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... the moment you stir it, up it blazes, much higher and brighter than if no coals had been put on. I knew a horse that was not naturally good-tempered, and bad usage had made him much worse: he was then bought by a gentleman, who gave him enough of the whip, and spur, and sharp iron bit to cure him, if that could have done it; but it only made him cunning and revengeful. Poor beast! a little patient kindness would have gone much farther. I will tell ...
— Kindness to Animals - Or, The Sin of Cruelty Exposed and Rebuked • Charlotte Elizabeth
... believed, at the moment of his panic-terror, that he saw Edmund Woodley fall, and had at once taken flight, without attempting to afford him any assistance. The story of the brains had, of course, been invented on the spur of the moment, by way of excusing his flight, and he was obliged to persist in the falsehood he had once uttered, though he was not by any means certain that it had been his master whom he saw killed, especially ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Zeb picked up the reins, though Jim needed no guidance of any sort. The horse was still smarting from the sharp claws of the invisible bears, and as soon as he was on land and headed toward the mountain the thought that more of those fearsome creatures might be near acted as a spur and sent him galloping along in a way that ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... And to spur her on and to stimulate her, Mr. Barrett published several volumes of her poems. It was immature, pedantic work, but still it had a certain glow and gave promise of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... early morning air, on which was borne to them the scent of something they feared. On reaching them, their fear seemed not the least appeased, and my partner and I had our curiosity sufficiently aroused to ride forward to the cause of their alarm. As we rounded the spur of the hill, there in plain view grazed a band of about twenty buffalo. We were almost as excited as the horses over the discovery. By dropping back and keeping the hill between us and them, then ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... who are dissatisfied, who realize your needs and lacks, I say: Do not be discouraged. God means by this very feeling of dissatisfaction with yourself to spur you on to seek diligently for higher and better attainments. If you allow yourself to be discouraged, it will only hinder you. God will help you to obtain that which you need. Do not falter because your need seems great; God's supply is more abundant than your need. ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... the Fire King flames on; Now he pulls up to snatch Some fodder. The stable's in danger. His whip is a torch, and each spur is a match, And over the horse's left eye is a patch, To keep it ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... means. He thought that the real sign of talent in a boy, 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
... hesitation, to design such machines as the circumstances or the situations demand. With regard to works of defence, it is not necessary to write, since the enemy do not construct their defences in conformity with our books, but their contrivances are frequently foiled, on the spur of the moment, by some shrewd, hastily conceived plan, without the aid of machines, as is said to have been ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... not relish the notoriety. Others thought that it betokened irritation in him, and that a man in his high position ought not to punish persons who were presumably trustworthy by branding them so conspicuously. In fact, I suppose, he sometimes applied the brand too hastily, under the spur of sudden resentment. The most-open of men himself, he had no hesitation in commenting on anybody or any topic with the greatest indiscretion. For he took it for granted that even the strangers who heard him would hold his remarks as confidential. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... disease, characters are occasionally transferred from the male to the female, as when, in certain breeds of the fowl, spurs regularly appear in the young and healthy females. But in truth they are simply developed in the female; for in every breed each detail in the structure of the spur is transmitted through the female to her male offspring. Many cases will hereafter be given, where the female exhibits, more or less perfectly, characters proper to the male, in whom they must have been first developed, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... the land of Roum and were now in the enemy's country. So he rode on alone along the valley, till a fourth part of the night was passed, when he grew weary and sleep overcame him, so that he could no longer spur his horse. Now he was used to sleep on horseback; so when drowsiness got the better of him, he fell asleep and the horse paced on with him half the night and entered a forest; but Sherkan awoke not, till the steed smote the earth with his ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... yellow, crimson, deep maroon, Blending all colors in one dazzling blaze; There orchards bend beneath their luscious loads; Here vineyards climb the hills thick set with grapes; There rolling pastures spread, where royal mares, High bred, and colts too young for bit or spur, Now quiet feed, then, as at trumpet's call, With lion bounds, tails floating, neck outstretched,[5] Nostrils distended, fleet as the flying wind They skim the plain, and sweep in circles wide— Nature's Olympic, copied, ne'er excelled. ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... across the boat on top the ice-rim? Then he recollected the great final effort he had made. But why had he made it? he asked himself. It had not been fear of death. He had not been afraid, that was sure. Then he remembered the hunch and the big strike he believed was coming, and he knew that the spur had been his desire to sit in for a hand at that big game. And again why? What if he made his million? He would die, just the same as those that never won more than grub-stakes. Then again why? But the blank stretches ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... Martin will with a trice bestride my shoulders. Well, if he ride me, let the fool sit fast, for my wit is very hickish: which if he spur with his copper reply, when it bleeds, it will ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... alike distinguished by his genius, misfortunes, and misconduct, published this year a poem, called The Race, by 'Mercurius Spur, Esq.[88],' in which he whimsically made the living poets of England contend for pre-eminence of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... "How is it possible," continued he, "that thou who wast but yesterday loyal to the King, a friend to us, and the companion of our journey, shouldst have secretly nourished such hatred in thy heart? and now, far from restraining the people from rushing to their ruin, shouldst spur them wildly on? For thy own sake, for that of thy country, return to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... trail became a road over which one might have marched a field battery, so broad and firm and good was it: we were nearing Kiangan. Presently we turned a low spur to the left, and the Ifugao town burst upon our view. It was the headquarters of a Spanish Comandancia in the old days, and here Padre Juan Villaverde lived and worked, seeking to convert the people, and to teach ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... of the plant came in through the open window. A freight car was being loaded with finished shells. As fast as it was filled, another car was shunted along the spur to take its place. Over in Germany, in hundreds of similar plants, similar shells were being hurried to the battle line, to be hurled against the new army that was soon to cross ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the places I have seen—in this land or any other—the most absolutely beautiful is Vissarion. It stands at the ultimate point of the promontory—I mean the little, or, rather, lesser promontory—that continues on the spur of the mountain range. For the lesser promontory or extension of the mountain is in reality vast; the lowest bit of cliff along the sea-front is not less than a couple of hundred feet high. That point of rock is really very ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... thousand feet higher above the valley floor than Clouds Rest above the Yosemite. Down the slopes of the Monarch Divide, seemingly from its turreted summits, cascaded many frothing streams. The Eagle Peaks, Blue Canyon Falls, Silver Spur, the Gorge of Despair, Lost Canyon—these were some of the romantic and appropriate titles we found on ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... agreed, was to act promptly. A deputation, half the length of the street—its whole length, if you include the tagrag and bobtail that attended behind—set off on the spur of the moment to the office of Mr. Carlyle. They found that gentleman about to leave it for the evening, to return home to dinner; for, in the discussion of the all-important topic, the meeting had suffered time to run on to a late hour; those gentlemen who ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the last remnant of an old, and noble, and once powerful family. My fathers were lords of a broad domain in the neighbourhood of Brindisi, among the wild and rugged mountains which form the eastern spur of the Appenines, and abut on the shores of the Adriatic. They first rose and flourished in the days when the sword of the strong hand could win lands and power, and when, whatever was lost by the extravagance or folly of one, was easily replaced by the bravery and ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... most unorthodox thing for Ingred to blurt out family affairs, and Father and Mother would have been justly indignant had they known, but she was impulsive, and without much worldly wisdom, and Mr. Hardcastle seemed sympathetic, so on the spur of the moment she told him the urgency of Athelstane's need, and how she was trying to meet it. He sat quite quiet for a short time, staring into the fire, then he ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... the Address to the Electors of Bristol ranks in the political classics of England. As a debater in the House Mr. Davis may well be cited as an exemplar. He had no boastful reliance upon intuition or inspiration or the spur of the moment, though no man excelled him in extempore speech. He made elaborate preparation by the study of all public questions, and spoke from a full mind with complete command of premise and conclusion. In all that pertained to the graces of oratory ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... as suddenly as he had begun, and, touching his horse lightly with the spur, went on ahead up the trail. Evidently he was thinking of the old times and the boy had wisdom enough not to disturb him. As the afternoon drew on the foothills were left behind and the open road became more and more enclosed, until at last it was simply a trail through the forest. The ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... here," she said, "for the purpose of hearing you on both sides, and of considering the matter on its own merits. Therefore, reply to the speech of Sieur de Beze which you have just heard." "The speech was too long for us to undertake to answer it on the spur of the moment," responded Tournon, in a more tractable tone; but he promised that, if a copy of it were given to them in writing, a suitable refutation would soon be forthcoming on the part of the prelates.[1128] Thus the conference broke up ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... Deucalion. And mark you, I fought my utmost. I was not her creature then; and when I set out (because they wanted to spur me to the uttermost) the High Council of the priests pointed out my prospects. The King we had known so long, was ailing and wearily old; he was so wrapped up in the study of the mysteries, and the joy of closely knowing them, that earthly matters had ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... thou the Spirit of some Angel World, For grave rebellion banished from thy peers, Compelled to watch the calm, immortal stars, Circling in rapture the celestial void, While the avenger follows in thy train To spur ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... friendship's shrine the fame of the unpublished story grew and grew. It's a long, long lane that has no end, but some lanes end in the Potter's field; Smith to Brown had been more than friend: patron, protector, spur and shield. Poor, loving-wistful, dreamy Brown, long and lean, with a smile askew, Friendless he wandered up and down, gaunt as a wolf, as hungry too. Brown with his lilt of saucy rhyme, Brown with his tilt of tender mirth Garretless in the gloom and grime, singing ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... on the spur of the moment. With clenched fists and blazing eyes he stood between the drover and the bound man. For a moment there was silence except for the moaning of the tortured man. Mick looked at Sax and said, with a cruel smile: "Well, and who told you ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... at that time little of Russian history, I suspected that the last assertion was invented on the spur of the moment, in order to satisfy my troublesome curiosity, and accordingly I determined not to accept it without verification. The result showed how careful the traveller should be in accepting the testimony of "intelligent, well-informed ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... obeyed the spur, and he rode on and into the city, the gates of which were deserted. There he beheld on all sides that the Lord had indeed put the besom of destruction into the hands of the Reformers; and that not one of all the buildings which had been polluted ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... his rider's angry stir, His flattering 'Holla', or his 'Stand, I say'? 284 What cares he now for curb or pricking spur? For rich caparisons or trapping gay? He sees his love, and nothing else he sees, Nor nothing else with his proud sight ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... flames; the awful loss of property, and perhaps of life, if the fire should gain the mastery, and the urgent need there is for hurrying all the disposable force in London to the spot without delay, if the victory is to be gained—all these circumstances and considerations act as an unusually sharp spur to men, who, however, being already willing at all times to do their utmost, can only force themselves to gain a few additional moments of time by their most ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... player is required, which the majority do not as a general rule possess; but to excel in base running such mental qualifications are required as only a small minority are found to possess. Presence of mind, prompt action on the spur of the moment; quickness of perception, and coolness and nerve are among the requisites of a successful base runner. Players habitually accustomed to hesitate to do this, that or the other, in attending to the varied points of a game, can never ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... single file they galloped along the path, until they found themselves by noon, at the foot of a spur of mountains that extended from the main coast range to the ocean. Jim regarded this barrier in their ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... a clatter of hoofs, the chink of the spur, intermingled with a few oaths; and then the two representatives of the King came in noisily. They gazed admiringly at Gretchen as she poured out their beer. She saw the rage in my eyes. She was aggravating with her promiscuous smiles. The elder ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... 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, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... variety; cares not what lady's favour he belies, or great man's familiarity: a good property to perfume the boot of a coach. He will borrow another man's horse to praise and back him as his own. Or, for a need can post himself into credit with his merchant, only with the gingle of his spur and the jerk of his wand[134]." Allowing for the exaggeration of satire, we cannot doubt that this portrait is in the main correct. It indicates a man who follows fashion, even in swearing, to the excess of foppery, who delights in scandal, ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... may make growth enough to spur-bud this summer. The ordinary plate-bud does not take freely with the olive. Some of them may do this; other seedlings may be slow and have to be budded in the second summer. Watch the size and the sap flow so that the bark will lift well - which may not be at just the time that ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... there were stones laid on the planks at each end, I could see nothing save a black expanse all round me. Hesitating a moment, I summoned my courage and dug my heels into old Sol's sides. He went forward till his feet touched the first planks. There he stopped and snorted. I gave him the spur. He leaped forward and seemed to strike his feet on planks. But, as was afterwards ascertained, some of them were washed out, and all of them were afloat. At his next spring his legs went down among them. Then the full force of the current struck him, he rolled over sidewise, and ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... incarcerated and only liberated upon producing plans for the immediate creation of an aerial fleet suited to the nation's needs. If, however, the Liberty motor shall prove the complete success which at the moment the government believes it to be, it will be such a spur to the development of the airplane in peace and war, as could not otherwise be applied. For the motor is the true life of the airplane—its heart, lungs, and nerve centre. The few people who still doubt the wide adoption ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... and partly wooded height or range of heights on the left or east (1) of the valley road, and nearly parallel with it. Thoburn occupied the most advanced spur overlooking the mouth of the creek, while on his left and rear Hayes and Kitching faced toward the Shenandoah with their backs to the road. As the road descended to cross Cedar Creek by the bridge (2) ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... hastily compiled lectures of Foch, the teacher of the Ecole de Guerre, recall the fugitive but impressive words of Foch, the soldier, uttered on the spur of the moment, filled with homely phrase, and piquant figure and underlying all, one encounters the same integral conception of war and of the relation of the moral to the physical, which fills the all too scanty pages ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... with spur the martial pair Raise their proud horses nimbly from the ground; And having broke their spears, with faulchions bare Return, to bandy fierce and cruel wound. Wheeling with wondrous mastery, here and there, The bold and ready coursers in a round, The warriors with ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... silent again; and she went on with her musings, just that word having given them a spur. How exquisite the scene was! how exquisite everything, in fact. All the uncomelinesses of a city suburb were veiled under the moonlight; nothing but beauty could be seen; here were points that caught the light, and there ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... diverging path was reached, where they parted company, Olly first begging her companion to remind Mr. Wildeve that he had not sent her sick husband the bottle of wine promised on the occasion of his marriage. The besom-maker turned to the left towards her own house, behind a spur of the hill, and Mrs. Yeobright followed the straight track, which further on joined the highway by the Quiet Woman Inn, whither she supposed her niece to have returned with Wildeve from their wedding ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... ascribes great importance to this village. At the time of the Spanish conquest it was one of the most prosperous of the seven "cities" of Tusayan, and was selected as the site of a mission, a distinction shared by Walpi, which was then on a lower spur of the first mesa, and by Shumopavi, which also was built on a lower site than the present village of that name. Traditions referring to this pueblo have been collected from several sources and, while varying somewhat in less important details, they all concur in bringing ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... accordingly gave way, forming a lane in their midst through which our friends passed in fear and trembling, exposed for a minute or so to the coarsest ribaldry which the ruffianly band could summon to their lips on the spur of the moment. It was not until they had all been passed safely into the two whale-boats, and Dickinson's little band had drawn themselves closely up with drawn cutlasses in a compact line between the boats and the shore, that the suspicions of the pirates became ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... said Balder; and as together they descended the spur of the mountain, he added lovingly, "I'll bring no clouds across your sky, my dear old man!" So the hospitable ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... the 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 office and ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... Fig. 112, is designed for use in cutting out a rectangular recess, such as the rabbet on the back of the picture-frames. In line with the right hand corner of the cutter is a removable spur to score the wood so that the shaving which follows may be cut out clean and not torn out. With the addition of a guiding fence it is called a filletster. This may be used on either the right or left side. In the form shown in Fig. 112, there ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... and gas. Production from the Caspian oil and gas field has been in decline for several years, but the November 1994 ratification of the $7.5 billion oil deal with a consortium of Western companies should generate the funds needed to spur future industrial development. Azerbaijan accounted for 1.5% to 2% of the capital stock and output of the former Soviet Union. Azerbaijan shares all the formidable problems of the ex-Soviet republics in making the transition from a command to a market economy, but its considerable ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... supper." We were all very merry. When we came back from the theatre, I played again till we went to supper. Young Langenmantl had already questioned me in the forenoon about my cross, [Footnote: Mozart, by his father's desire, wore the "Order of the Golden Spur," conferred on him by the Pope.] and I told him exactly how I got it, and what it was. He and his brother-in-law said over and over again, "Let us order a cross, too, that we may be on a par with Herr Mozart." I took no notice of this. They ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... gallantry they play at who can best conceal their thoughts, but one day of forgetfulness suffices to inter the whole virtuous past. The poor woman is taken in her joy as in a lasso; her sweetheart proclaims his presence, or sometimes his departure, by some article of clothing—a scarf, a spur, left by some fatal chance, and there comes a stroke of the dagger that severs the web so gallantly woven by their golden delights. But when one is full of days, he should not make a wry face at death, and the sword of a husband is a pleasant death for a gallant, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... rejoiced loudly. Perhaps he would have given a great deal to know whether they were engaged, to be married; but still Margaret gave no sign. It was far from her thoughts; and the fact had only presented itself in that form to her on the spur of the moment, the preceding evening, as likely to prove a crushing blow at once to Mr. Barker's plotting and Mr. Barker's matrimonial views. But while the Duke talked, she was thinking. And as the situation slowly unfolded its well-known pictures to her mind, she suddenly ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... must be put the proviso of their perfect artistic sincerity. Their oratory was unrhymed poetry, and it had the humanity of poetry. It was not even unmetrical poetry; that century is full of great phrases, often spoken on the spur of great moments, which have in them the throb and recurrence of song, as of a man thinking to a tune. Nelson's "In honour I gained them, in honour I will die with them," has more rhythm than much that is called vers libres. Patrick Henry's "Give ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... agreed he. "It seems to me I've got a new grip on things. I needed a turn such as your friend Davy Hull gave me. Nothing like rivalry to spur a man on. The old crowd was so stupid—cunning, but stupid. But Hull injects a new element into the struggle. To beat him we've got ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... under the influence of the teachings of these relatives. Joined to this, his location caused him to take an extraordinary interest in Underground Rail Road affairs. He lived near the foot of the southern slope of the South Mountain, a spur of the Alleghenies which extends, under various names, to Chattanooga, Tennessee. This mountain was followed in its course by hundreds of fugitives until they got into Pennsylvania, and were directed to William ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... and desire to veil the eternal bars. It is well to remind ourselves that ignorance was the most momentous, the most cruel condition of his life, as of our own; and that the effort to relieve himself of its pressure, either by the pursuit of knowledge, or by giving spur and bridle to the imagination that it might course round him dragging the great woof of illusion, and tent him in the ethereal dream of the soul's desire, was the constant effort ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... universal opinion was that she had taken sudden alarm at something, lost her foothold, and fallen down a precipice, as so many unfortunate tourists had done in North Wales. One day I and one of my men met, on a spur of the Glyder, the tourist of the flint implements with whom I had conversed at Bettws y Coed. He was alone, geologising or else searching for flint implements on the hills. Evidently my haggard appearance startled him. But when he learnt ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... beach towards the bluff, pursued by six blacks. Un-slinging his Winchester as he galloped over the sand he gave a loud cry of encouragement to the man. But neither the man nor his pursuers heard it. Dropping his reins, but urging his horse along with the spur, Monk levelled his rifle at the foremost native, fired, and missed, and then he saw the white man fall on his hands and knees with a spear sticking in his back. But ere the black had time to poise another spear the overseer's rifle cracked again ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... which we traveled during the morning ran over an exceedingly rough lava formation—a spur of the lava beds often described during the Modoc war of 1873 so hard and flinty that Williamson's large command made little impression on its surface, leaving in fact, only indistinct traces of its line of march. By care and frequent examinations we managed to follow ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... the boys played in the barnyard. The glory of the day, the sense of freedom from restraint, the beauty of the rosy clusters, hiding shyly beneath their pretty leaves, all combined to make work seem play. She picked so furiously that she was a spur to even Charles Stuart, accustomed as he was to hard work at his farm-home, and lest they be beaten by a ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... when the prisoners were landed, he had remarked Desborough, who had uttered the hasty exclamation already recorded, stealing cautiously through the surrounding crowd, and apparently endeavouring to arrest the attention of the younger of the American officers. An occasional pressing of the spur into the flank of Silvertail, enabled him to turn as the settler turned, and thus to keep him constantly in view; until, at length, as the latter approached the group of which General Brock and Commodore Barclay formed the centre, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... Andy's gone with Cattle Out Back The Star of Australasia Middleton's Rouseabout The Vagabond The Sliprails and the Spur "In the Days when the World was Wide, and ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... sorrow, and preventing its obtaining full mastery over all his faculties, was to work off the sense of depression by hard study,—to battle against it with the arms of some engrossing occupation; but how could he spur himself up to study without an object?—and he was as far as ever from obtaining his father's consent to fitting himself for the bar, or for any other professional pursuit. No,—there was only one pursuit left open to him, the pursuit of pleasure, and ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... to obey, and both Spokeshave and I scuttled down the bridge- ladder as quickly as we could and away along the waist of the ship aft, the urgency of our errand hastening our movements if we had needed any spur beyond the skipper's ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... every sound and movement of the forest seeming to spur us forward and add flight-feathers to our speeding feet. For in my Indians, ascendant now, was the dull horror of the supernatural; and as for me my hatred of the Sorcerers was tightening every nerve ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... come into my eyes, to be spoken of so by a brute; and then I saw Charlie Doone spur up the bridge, leaning forward and swinging a long blade ...
— Slain By The Doones • R. D. Blackmore
... he may be restored. The magistrate is incredulous, and declares that he would sooner believe that the fowls on which he was dining would rise again in full feather. The miracle is performed. The cock and hen spring from the ocean of their own gravy, clacking and crowing, with all appurtenances of spur, comb, and feather. Pierre, of course, is liberated, and declared innocent. The cock and hen become objects of veneration—live in a state of chastity—and are finally translated—leaving just two eggs, from which arise another immaculate cock and hen. The breed is perhaps still ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... That was her new spur of fear. Toby was forgotten. She was on fire for the marriage. It had now become the only conclusion to her doubts. She must take the earliest opportunity of seeing Gaga, of conveying her acceptance, of making sure of him. Her fingers trembled, so important did time now seem to Sally. Her one ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... Their teeth were as white as ivory, remarkably even and well set; but except the skins, which they wore with the hair inwards, most of them were naked, a few only having upon their legs a kind of boot, with a short pointed stick fastened to each heel, which served as a spur. Having looked round upon these enormous goblins with no small astonishment, and with some difficulty made those that were still galloping up sit down with the rest, I took out a quantity of yellow and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... Tom. He was now attaining what had seemed to be the height of his ambition. He was trying out his mettle against one of the enemy pilots, a man with considerable more experience than himself, and therefore well fitted to spur him on to do ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... Caroline in the depths of her little silly heart had set down for the wondrous fairy prince who was to deliver her from her present miserable condition, he was a man to whom opposition acted ever as a spur. Up to this time he had given little or no thought to the young girl with the pale face and quiet manner, but now he was amused, and his interest was awakened by the indignation of Mr. Fitch. He was piqued also by the system of indifference ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... from God: and no matter how little she was able to understand the mode of God's proposed action within her, she was willing to offer herself to be the instrument of the will of God. No doubt that was an habitual attitude and not one taken up on the spur of the moment. It is indeed very rarely that what seem spontaneous actions are really such; and S. Mary's first word was nearer spontaneity than the second. Her exclamation in answer to the angelic Ave was the natural expression of her surprise at ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... fealty to Venice in 1270. It still retains a portion of its ancient battlemented walls, which have a curious feature—a projecting spur, which runs out into the sea a long way, and was probably intended to make the sea-front secure at low water. The commune was very zealous in its preparations for war, and, according to the statute, ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... 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
... undermined confidence on the part of the public, there was a general rush by a large portion of our population to turn bank deposits into currency or gold—a rush so great that the soundest banks could not get enough currency to meet the demand. The reason for this was that on the spur of the moment it was, of course, impossible to sell perfectly sound assets of a bank and convert them into cash except at panic prices far below ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... was a row of lumieres a pied which seemed afloat on the darkness, and in their centre a sudden chasm which looked as if it had been made by human agency. The fitful moonbeams[29] showed us a most curious and accurately shaped spur, or run-down as it is called in the native dialect, which connected the floor on which we ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... despatch."[729] Wolfe, his brother in arms and his friend, was battling with the impossible under the rocks of Quebec, and every motive, public and private, impelled Amherst to push to his relief, not counting costs, or balancing risks too nicely. He was ready enough to spur on others, for he wrote to Gage: "We must all be alert and active day and night; if we all do our parts the French must fall;"[730] but, far from doing his, he set the army to building a new fort at Crown Point, telling ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... the forest now approached their sight, Who them did swiftly on the spur pursue; One there still resident as day and night, And known as the eldest ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Eleanor got a real bargain, this time, in buying two century old flower-vases for fifty cents. Mrs. Fabian saw an old engraving of "Washington Crossing the Delaware," as it was taken from the wall behind the door, and offered for a quarter. On the spur of the moment she raised the bid five cents and got the picture which later proved to be one of the rare old originals, worth ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Genius, who must have been angry with me.[27] I began to oppose them at first; {but} what need of talking? As long as I was trusty to the old men, I was paid for it in my shoulder-blades. This, then, occurred to my mind: why, this is folly to kick against the spur.[28] I began to do every thing for them that they wished to be ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... less a person," said Latournelle, pompously, "than Monsieur le Duc d'Herouville, Marquis de Saint-Sever, Duc de Nivron, Comte de Bayeux, Vicomte d'Essigny, grand equerry and peer of France, knight of the Spur and the Golden Fleece, grandee of Spain, and son of the last governor of Normandy. He saw Mademoiselle Modeste at the time when he was staying with the Vilquins, and he regretted then—as his notary, who came from Bayeux yesterday, tells ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... slack at that moment. Besides, with a leather at that length, it would be impossible for her to press her leg strongly against the leaping head by the action of the ankle joint. A lady who rides with her stirrup leather at the correct length (Fig. 79), can use the spur only in a more or less parallel direction to the animal's side, in which case, the spur, if it is sharp, will be almost certain to tear the skin, ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes |
