"Spread-eagle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... too, with a quick folding motion of the legs, drawn up and turned to one side with a sidelong twist of the body. I remembered the sprawling spread-eagle way in which some of the fellows used to come over the line—and tried to learn the trick. We did not easily catch up with ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... children gazed with wonder and delight upon his bright buttons, each of which had an astonishing spread-eagle engraved upon it, and thought they could never admire enough the beautiful gold lace upon his coat-sleeves. Really, he was ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... (A spread-eagle toast.) The Boundaries of Our Country: East, by the Rising Sun; north, by the North Pole; west, by all Creation; and south, ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... before the ranchin' business can git back on hits feet, en by that time he'll be moulderin' dust en dry bones. Old Jim's still harpin' on that funeral business. Now he plans to hold a big barbecue en send out invitations. Jim's got the money all right, but he wants to spend hit on a big, spread-eagle funeral." ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... pipe on the table and his hand on the little man's collar. He led him to the door, and opened it. Harry tugged like a bull-pup on the end of a leash, so that when the Captain released his hold—with ever so slight a shove—Mr. Beaver described a spread-eagle on the cinder path. ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... steps downwards with a short axe is not easy work; so when I came within 3 or 4 feet of the rock, I forgot the rope, and set off for a short glissade. Christian, of course, thought something was wrong, and very properly put a prompt strain upon the rope, which reduced his Herr to a spread-eagle sort of condition, in which it was difficult to explain matters, so as to procure a release. When that was accomplished, I saw it would be easy to reach the point where the ice met the wall, so I called to Christian to come down, which he did in an unpremeditated, avalanche fashion; and ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... those years was a general utility lawyer, Chauncey M. Depew, whose specialty was to hoodwink the public by grandiloquent exhibitions of mellifluent spread-eagle oratory, while bringing the "proper arguments" to bear upon legislators and other public officials. [Footnote: Roscoe Conkling, a noted Republican politician, said of him: "Chauncey Depew? Oh, you mean the man that Vanderbilt ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... cards and giving good advice to shopkeepers and their apprentices." Whether or no Gay ever contributed to the British Apollo, it seems likely that it was through the good offices of Hill that in May, 1708, Gay's poem, "Wine," was published by William Keble at the Black-Spread-eagle in Westminster Hall, who, about the same time, brought out a translation by Nahum Tate, the Poet Laureate, and Hill, of a portion of the thirteenth book ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... one is out of the wood[obs3]. Adj. boasting &c. v.; magniloquent, flaming, Thrasonic, stilted, gasconading, braggart, boastful, pretentious, soi-disant[Fr]; vainglorious &c. (conceited) 880; highfalutin, highfaluting[obs3]; spread-eagle [U. S.*]. elate, elated; jubilant, triumphant, exultant; in high feather; flushed, flushed with victory; cock-a-hoop; on stilts. vaunted &c. v. Adv. vauntingly ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... before Richmond, which terminated in the retreat of General McClellan. We had a Fourth of July dinner on board, but between seasickness and heart sickness it was the toughest experience of making a spread-eagle speech I ever had. After landing at Queenstown I went to Belfast and thence to Edinburgh. I found the people of Edinburgh intensely excited over our war and the current of popular sentiment running against us like a mill-race. For instance, ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... hand and foot. The stranger was more dumb than ever with amazement; at last violently remonstrated; but in vain; for as his tearfulness of falling made him keep his hands glued to the ropes, and so prevented him from any effectual resistance, he was soon made a handsome spread-eagle of, to the great satisfaction ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville |
