"Spur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as had up to this time been innocent of the murderous plot, were soon baying at their heels; some of these were hounded on by the conspirators; others saw only that disturbance was on foot, and the welcome knowledge of this fact alone served to spur them to a senseless frenzy of assault. The Roman soldiers were merely victims; there was never a chance of a struggle which would make the sacrifice costly, or even difficult.[1064] The citadel, in which their shields and standards hung, was in the occupation ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... rein, but Bart's horse was frightened and shied at the machine. Hodge gave the little mare a touch of the spur and reined her toward the automobile. After a time he succeeded in bringing her close to it and guiding her round it, although she snorted and fretted and betrayed ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... came to overshade Sir Thomas's ruddy content as he descried the deep flush (an old weakness) which mantled the young cheeks under the spur of unexpected recognition. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... world. Hence in psychology, in yoga, always basing itself on the ultimate analysis of the fact of nature, pain is the thing that asserts itself as the most important factor in Self-realisation; that which is other than the Self will best spur the Self into activity. Therefore we find our commentator, when dealing with pain, declares that the karmic receptacle the causal body, that in which all the seeds of karma are gathered Up, has for its builder all painful experiences; and along that line of thought we come to the great generalisation: ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... call had already reached the shops. A big, bearded man with a soft hat pulled over his eyes was directing the make-up of a train on the repair track, and the yard engine was pulling an enormous crane down from its spur beyond the coal-chutes. Around the man in the soft hat the wrecking-crew was gathering: shopmen for the greater part, as a crew of a master mechanic's ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... shifted positions. It was the real fight of the day. Responding to spur and quirt, the horses sprang like hungry wolves at the cattle, and the gloomy column turned quartering into the eye of the storm. But as on every other attempt to turn or mill the drifting herd, new leaders forged to the front ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... Ganton, which would be ready with its men and mounts. Perhaps they could hem in the desperado from the front and shoot him down there, as he skirted along the river. At the worst they would furnish the fresh horses and the fifteen hardy riders would spur at full speed south along the river. If again, by some miracle, the black stallion lasted out this run, Wilsonville lay due ahead, and that place would again give new ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... month to Valencia, growing more indolent with our easier circumstances, and sometimes trudging no more than five or six miles in a day. And we were, I think, the happiest, idlest set of vagabonds in existence. But, indeed, in this country there is not that spur to exertion which is for ever goading us in this. The sun fills one's heart with content, and for one's other wants a few halfpence a day will suffice, and if you have them not 'tis no such great matter. For these people are exceeding kind and hospitable; ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... grant your suit, Yet think of your boots and spurs, sir Let me pull off both spur and boot, Or else ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... the book. But it did not sell. The local community took it no more seriously than they did Joe himself and his family. The printer demanded his pay as the work progressed, and it became necessary for Smith to spur Harris on by announcing a revelation (Sec. 19, "Doctrine and Covenants"), saying, "I command thee that thou shalt not covet thine own property, but impart it freely to the printing of the Book of Mormon. "Harris accordingly disposed of his share of the farm ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... raised, And sternly shook his hand on high, As doubting to return or fly;[cz] Impatient of his flight delayed, Here loud his raven charger neighed— Down glanced that hand, and grasped his blade; That sound had burst his waking dream, As Slumber starts at owlet's scream. The spur hath lanced his courser's sides; Away—away—for life he rides: 250 Swift as the hurled on high jerreed[70] Springs to the touch his startled steed; The rock is doubled, and the shore Shakes with the clattering tramp no more; The crag is won, no more is seen His Christian crest and haughty ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... Poland. The leader was Comenius himself. As they bade farewell to their native land they did so in the firm conviction that they themselves should see the day when the Church of the Brethren should stand once more in her ancient home; and as they stood on a spur of the Giant Mountains, and saw the old loved hills and dales, the towns and hamlets, the nestling churches, Comenius raised his eyes to heaven and uttered that historic prayer which was to have so marvellous an answer. He prayed that in the old home God would preserve a "Hidden Seed," ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... you on the ground, like a triumphant conjuror. It is my common practice when a piece of conduct puzzles me, to attack it in the presence of Jack with such grossness, such partiality and such wearing iteration, as at length shall spur him up in its defence. In a moment he transmigrates, dons the required character, and with moonstruck philosophy justifies the act in question. I can fancy nothing to compare with the VIM of these impersonations, the strange scale of language, ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... my master fell to devising about the state of the country, as burgesses love to do. And I said that, if I were the Dauphin, Chinon Castle should not hold me long, for my "spur would be in my horse's side, and the bridle on his mane," {9} as the old song of the Battle of Harlaw runs, and I on the way to Orleans. Thereto he answered, that he well wished it were so, and, mocking, wished ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... Betty. "It is impossible to answer your question on the spur of the moment. But I should greatly like to see ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... at Wilkins's, where they profoundly understood human nature, was very intelligent. Somewhere in a central bureau at Wilkins's sat a psychologist, who knew, for example, that a supper commanded on the spur of the moment must be produced instantly if it is to be enjoyed. Delay in these capricious cases impairs the ecstasy and therefore lessens the chance of other similar meals being commanded at the same establishment. Hence, no ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... do, some act that is the fruit of our unregulated inner life. [Footnote: Cf. George Eliot in Romola: "Tito" (who, having posed as a rich and noble gentleman, being unexpectedly confronted with his plebeian father, on the spur of the moment disowned him with the merciless words, "Some madman, surely!") "Was experiencing that inexorable law of human souls, that we prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the reiterated choice of good or evil that gradually ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... Manks man, and I kept aye between him and her, for fear she had whistled. [*Given information to the party concerned] And then we began to drink about, and then I betted he would not drink out a quartern of Hollands without drawing breath—and then he tried it—and just then Slounging Jock and Dick Spur'em came in, and we clinked the darbies [*Handcuffs] on him, took him as quiet as a lamb—and now he's had his bit sleep out, and is as fresh as a May gowan, to answer what your honour likes to speer." [*Inquire] This narrative, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... fetching sweeping blows with two-handled swords; or that of Lucca—its fantastic columns clasped by writhing snakes and winged dragons, their marble scales spotted with inlaid serpentine, every available space alive with troops of dwarfish riders, with spur on heel and hawk in hood, sounding huge trumpets of chase, like those of the Swiss Urus-horn, and cheering herds of gaping dogs upon harts and hares, boars and wolves, every stone signed with its grisly beast—be one whit more soothing to the contemplative, or less exciting to the imaginative ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... our heads to-night?" Hallbiorn turned and raised his head; "Under the stones of the waste," he said. Quoth one, "The clatter of hoofs anigh." Quoth the other, "Spears against the sky!" "Hither ride men from the Wells apace; Spur we fast to a kindlier place." Down from his horse leapt Hallbiorn straight: "Why should the supper of Odin wait? Weary and chased I will not come To the table of my fathers' home." With that came Snbiorn, who but he, And twelve in all was his company. Snbiorn's folk were on their feet; He spake ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... being able to keep his head above water. The experience of life suggests that hope is a better stimulus than fear, confidence a better mental environment than insecurity. If desperation will sometimes spur men to exceptional exertion the effect is fleeting, and, for a permanence, a more stable condition is better suited to foster that blend of restraint and energy which makes up the tissue of a life of normal health. There would be those who would abuse their advantages as there are those who abuse ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... fighting he ever did, so far as we knew, was with the flies on the Nile. To look at him was to stand in the presence of a composite picture of Agamemnon, Charles XII. and John L. Sullivan; but to hear him shout—ah! that voice was the megaphone of Boanerges! It held tones that put a revolving spur on every syllable and gave a dentist-drill feeling as they ploughed their way through space. It was alleged that when he struck his plantation and shouted at the depot as he leaped from the train that he had arrived, all the ranch hands fell down and crossed themselves, thinking it was the sound ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... way on to the straggling road and was soon galloping northwards, while Morano's heels kept his horse up close to his master's. Morano rode as though trained in the same school that some while later taught Macaulay's equestrian, who rode with "loose rein and bloody spur." Yet the miles went swiftly by as they galloped on soft white dust, which lifted and settled, some of it, back on the lazy road, while some of it was breathed by Morano. The gold coin on the green silk ribbon flapped up and down as Rodriguez rode, till he stuffed it inside his clothing and ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... his steps insensibly, for the thought of Caesar waiting was like a spur even to physical effort, and even so his mind outraced his feet, till it came full tilt against a girl coming directly from its goal and momentarily obliterating ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... "or you die the death yet. And do you, Mardonius, take Prexaspes, who somewhat knows this country, spur forward, and discover who are the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... purpose—aye, this hour we mount To spur three leagues towards the Apennine. Come down, we pray thee, ere the hot sun count His dewy rosary ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... different forces to approach as closely as possible without running risk of discovery, and then to remain absolutely quiet until daybreak. Not a match was to be lighted nor a shot fired until the charge was sounded by the trumpeter who remained with Custer. Then all were to spur ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... said that the most advantageous commerce consists in the exchange of manufactured goods for raw material, because this raw material is a spur to national labor. ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... that wide scale which he has there near the spur? Do you see those feet? What more do you want? Look at those legs. Stretch out his wings. And that broken scale on top of that wide one, and that ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... start off, usually walking the first hour or two, with gunbearers and saises and mules trailing along behind. Soon afterward we look back to see the long procession of porters following along in single file. Our tent boys carry our third rifle, and behind them all comes the head-man, ready to spur on any lagging porters. ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... ago, but the Rmoahal race came into existence between four and five million years ago, at which period large portions of the great southern continent of Lemuria still existed, while the continent of Atlantis had not assumed the proportions it ultimately attained. It was upon a spur of this Lemurian land that the Rmoahal race was born. Roughly it may be located at latitude 7 deg. north and longitude 5 deg. west, which a reference to any modern atlas will show to lie on the Ashanti coast of to-day. It was a hot, moist country, where huge antediluvian animals lived in ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... at once off down the river with a hundred head of cattle, under the lead of one of my friends out here, a grumpy old sea captain, who has had a rather diversified life, trying his hand as sailor, buffalo hunter, butcher, apothecary (mirabile dictu), and cowboy. Sewall tried to spur his horse which began kicking and rolled over with him ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... the first class, and was appointed a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. The latter distinction carries with it the right to wear that little tag of ribbon on the coat which all Frenchmen prize so highly; for to be "decorated," as it is called, is in France a spur to ambition of something the same sort as a knighthood or a peerage in England, though of course it lies within the reach of a far greater number of citizens. There is something to our ideas rather absurd in ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... thought of one on the spur of the moment," answered Fletcher; "but if no one else has a better to suggest, I daresay it'll do. We might screw up little Grice's bedroom door so as to get him down late in the morning; his room's right away at the end of the passage. There is a screw-driver belonging to Oaks lying in one of ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... justice he did not seem down to the full unmanliness of this statement; it appeared more one of those nasty and idle remarks to which all are prone when in a tight corner, and speaking on the spur ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... been untouched. His anger increased. Although he had little hate in his composition he could not forget that this man De Courcelles had been a party to an infamous attempt upon his life, and even now, in what amounted to a duel, was seeking to kill him. His own impulses, under such a spur, and for the moment, were those of the slayer. He used all the skill that he had learned in the forest to secure an opportunity for the taking of ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... lists were made—the trumpet's blast Rang pealing through the air. My 'squire made lace and rivet fast And brought my tried destrerre. I rode where sat fair Isidore Inez Mathilde Borghese; From spur to crest she scann'd me o'er, Then ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... been impossible to have said more in fewer words. If D'Harmental had taken a whole day to combine every word of the billet, instead of writing on the spur of the moment, he could not have done it better. Indeed, he established a similarity of position between himself and the orphan; he interested Bathilde in her neighbor's fate on account of a menacing danger, a danger which would appear all the greater to the young ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... soon difficult, owing to the length of the advance and the difficulty of moving guns forward. But by about noon London troops had already advanced over two miles, and were swinging north-east to gain the Nablus-Jerusalem road; while the Yeomanry had captured the Beit Iksa spur, and were preparing for ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... been my whole action in the matter, that I doubt if the sight of Mr. Barrows' writing alone, even though it had been used in transcribing her name, would have served to recall the incident to my mind. But the shade of the envelope—it was of a peculiar greenish tint—gave that unconscious spur to the memory which was needed to bring back the very look of the writing which had been on the letter I had so carelessly handled; and I found, as others have found before me, that there is no real forgetfulness in this world; that the most superficial glance may serve to imprint ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... himself upon the absence of anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it, is that we call DESIRE; which is greater or less as that uneasiness is more or less vehement. Where, by the by, it may perhaps be of some use to remark, that the chief, if not only spur to human industry and action is UNEASINESS. For whatsoever good is proposed, if its absence carries no displeasure or pain with it, if a man be easy and content without it, there is no desire of it, nor endeavour ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... something more is produced than goes to the immediate support of the producer. This surplus forms the income of the landed capitalist. It will be spent by a proprietor who does not labor. But this idleness is itself the spring of labor, this repose the spur to industry. The only concern for the state is, that the capital taken in rent from the land should be returned again to the industry from whence it came, and that its expenditure should be with the least possible detriment to the morals of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the shelter of their works, when the Americans, led on by Arnold, stormed them with reckless bravery. Gates had held Arnold back from the field from motives of envy and dislike; but Arnold, to whom the sound of battle was like the spur to the mettled courser, at last broke through all restraint. Leaping into the saddle, he spurred into the thickest of the fight before ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... Are here assembled. See ye how the gods Weigh down Italia's loss by all the world Thrown in the other scale? Illyria's wave Rolls deep upon our foes: in Libyan wastes Is fallen their Curio, the weightier part (4) Of Caesar's senate! Lift your standards, then, Spur on your fates and prove your hopes to heaven. Let Fortune, smiling, give you courage now As, when ye fled, your cause. The Consuls' power Fails with the dying year: not so does yours; By your commandment for the common weal Decree Pompeius ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... could not be a surprise to him after the occurrence at the table, but he was not prepared to give an affirmative answer on the spur of the moment. ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... strain of revery and fancy which impressed Bridge's mind! One allusion shows that he systematically omitted declamation; and an old term bill of 1824 (the last year of his course) charges him with a fine of twenty cents for neglect of theme! Spur to authorship:—the Faculty surely did its best to develop his genius, and cannot be blamed for any shortcomings. [Footnote: The amount of this bill, for the term ending May 21, 1824, is but $19.62, of which $2.36 is made up of fines. ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... the eleventh hour to check Jimmy. This was not a matter, he perceived, to be decided recklessly, on the spur of a sudden impulse. Above all, it was not a matter to be decided before lunch. An empty stomach breeds imagination. He had ascertained that he could sail on the Atlantic if he wished to. The sensible thing to do now was to go and lunch and see how he felt about it after that. ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Apostle, That it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive in what it could consist, or how satiety could be prevented. Man seems formed for action, though the passions are seldom properly managed; they are either so languid as not to serve as a spur, or else so violent, ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... 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 stood watching while the general hurried to the waiting motor-car. When the car whirled away in a din of dust he returned leisurely to the train that had been shortened to three coaches. Then be gave the signal to start up the spur-track, that leads to Jamrud, where a fort cowers in the very throat of the dreadfulest ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... and wrapt up in the Fruition of his Glory, whilst with an undesigned Sincerity they praised his noble and majestick Mien, his Affability, his Valour, Conduct, and Success in War. How must a Man have his Heart full-blown with Joy in such an Article of Glory as this? What a Spur and Encouragement still to proceed in those Steps which had already brought him to so pure a Taste of the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... regiment? I hear, too, that to make the gift still sweeter, The duke has given him the very same In which he first saw service, and since then Worked himself step by step, through each preferment, From the ranks upwards. And verily, it gives A precedent of hope, a spur of action To the whole corps, if once in their remembrance An old ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... this is the fifth year from the time we ought to have undertaken this work—and tell us it is just time to commence a survey, we will never have a road. The honorable Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Butler] says there ought to be some limitation in this idea of progress, when regarded as a spur to great activity and energy, as to what we shall do in our day. He says we have acquired California; we have opened up those rich regions on our western borders, which promises such magnificent results; ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... wife merely puts 'La Comtesse du Bruel' on her cards. The sometime playwright has the Order of Leopold, the Order of Isabella, the cross of Saint-Vladimir, second class, the Order of Civil Merit of Bavaria, the Papal Order of the Golden Spur,—all the lesser orders, in short, besides ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... secret, and I reckon he'll just have to tell us to-night," and Jack laughed good-naturedly as he still led his two comrades on toward the retired lane, where his father's big mill adjoined the storage place for lumber; convenient to the river, and at the same time near the railroad, so that a spur ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... wind had drifted the snow on one side, and the road was clear and bare, she rode, and rode fast; where the soft, deceitful heaps were massed up, she dismounted and led her steed, plunging in deep, with fierce energy, the pain at her heart urging her onwards with a sharp, digging spur. ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... write them nothing. They were her friends in fullness of sympathy. They, like herself, were of those to whom each day and night is a privilege, to whom sorrow is an enrichment, delight an unfoldment, opposition a spur. They were of the company of those who dared to speak the truth, who breathed deep, who partook of the ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... write, I hear the strangest things, - As my brain grows hot with burning thought, That struggles for form and wings, I can hear the beat of my swift blood's feet, As it speeds with a rush and a whir From heart to brain and back again, Like a race-horse under the spur. ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... perfectly safe. I'm sure Jake is here alone, and he wouldn't dare try to do anything to stop us here. He knows that he'd get into trouble if he did, and I don't think he's very brave, even in this new fashion of his unless some of the people he's afraid of are right around to spur him on. You remember how Will Burns thrashed him? He didn't look very brave then, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... it out, facing each other; but, on the contrary, appear to be good friends all the time, until the aggrieved one finds what he considers to be the propitious moment, and acts accordingly. They never do anything on the spur of the moment. It takes them a long time to make up their minds, and whatever they do they do deliberately. The rapid and just retribution that followed the killing of the child alluded to in this illustration is the only instance ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... island itself, Mary, but with this breeze we have a clear run for the big village in the bay; I can see the spur on ...
— John Corwell, Sailor And Miner; and, Poisonous Fish - 1901 • Louis Becke
... I end it, my list will be longer, and the measure of presumption overflowed. I may take names less reverend than some of these,—but six lectures I have promised. I find this obligation usually a good spur to the sides of that dull horse I have charge of. But many of its advantages must be regarded ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... outjutting spur of the ridge, six hundred feet from the caves and in full view of them. A lone tree stood there, its dead limbs thrust like white arms through the brown foliage of the limbs that still lived. Craig and Barber waited under the tree, Bemmon between them. The lowering sun shone hot ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... Duperrey and other navigators, that Strong's Island was once inhabited by over twenty thousand people. At the present time the population does not reach five hundred. One of these places was situated on the summit of a spur of the great mountain range that traverses the island. The top of the mountain had been levelled as flat as a table, and a space of about an acre was covered with what appeared to be a floor of huge basaltic prisms, laid closely together. What the purpose of such ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... three-year recession thanks to strong demand in EU export markets. Domestic consumption and investment have fueled strong GDP growth in recent years, but have led to large current account imbalances. Romania's macroeconomic gains have only recently started to spur creation of a middle class and address Romania's widespread poverty. Corruption and red tape continue to handicap its business environment. Inflation rose in 2007 for the first time in eight years, driven in part ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... having attained some distinction by it he could not forego this work which raised him, in a way, to a position of dominance over these people. Now the sight of presumably so efficient a person in need of aid or exercise, to be built up, was all that was required to spur him on to the most waspish or wolfish attitude imaginable. In part at least he argued, I think (for in the last analysis he was really too wise and experienced to take any such petty view, although there is a subconscious "past-lack" ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... task, especially when encumbered with a gun, for he would not think of letting this precious ally go; but there was enough inspiration in the approaching yelps and growls of the wild dogs to spur him on to heroic efforts, and, as a consequence, he managed ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... simply outrageous practice to administer medicines calculated to stimulate the kidneys to perform more work. By being thus forced, these organs become seriously diseased. It would appear most unreasonable to whip and spur a horse already jaded from overwork. Common sense would dictate rest, which always does good; but, as the bladder is weak, the doctor whips up the kidneys with drugs, thus endeavoring to force them to secrete more urine, and thereby the poor, crippled bladder, which is incapable ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... among the parties was which should be the more reckless and grandiose in its promises. When the time arrived for the assembling of the Legislature, the members were not left to their own zeal and the recollection of their campaign pledges, but meetings and conventions were everywhere held to spur them up to the fulfillment of their mandate. The resolutions passed by the principal body of delegates who came together in December directed the Legislature to vote a system of internal improvements "commensurate with the wants of the people," a phrase which is never lacking in the mouth of the ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... concerned. The private car owners and the owners of industrial railroads are entitled to a fair and reasonable compensation on their investment, but neither private cars nor industrial railroads nor spur tracks should be utilized as devices for securing preferential rates. A rebate in icing charges, or in mileage, or in a division of the rate for refrigerating charges is just as pernicious as a rebate in any other way. No lower rate should apply ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... that these constituted a spur of the Geral range, which extend in a northwesterly direction between the Guapore River (forming a part of the eastern boundary of Bolivia) and the headwaters of the Tapajos and Xingu. If so, their extent was continuous ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... used to ride On a mouse-gray mustang close to my side, With blue serape and bright-belled spur; I laughed with joy as I looked at her. Little knew she of books or of creeds; An Ave Maria sufficed her needs; Little she cared, save to be by my side, To ride with me, and ever to ride, From San Saba's ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... perfect view, carried along with it all the conditions and nationalities of the pilgrimage. Natives of the desert on bare-backed camels, clinging to the humps with one hand, while they pounded with the other—natives on beautiful horses, not needing whip or spur—natives on dromedaries so swift, sure-footed, and strong there was no occasion for fear. Men, and often women and children, on ragged saddle-cloths, others in pretentious boxes, and now and then a person whose ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... come to stand about him with minds constrained to follow him. He is an object lesson in both the advantages and the risks of an aggressive life policy. He has a suggestion to make in every emergency, a line of conduct for each of his company, all marked out or supplied on the spur of the moment by his own quick sense of appropriate action; and for him, as for no one else, to hesitate ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... the effect which it will produce, and a knowledge also of the means by which it is to be avoided,—and it is avoided;—and in the case of losing the equilibrium, there is nothing more than the application of a latent knowledge, now suddenly brought into use on the spur of the moment, that by the movement of the foot the body will be supported. The principle, whatever it be, which instigates children and adults to do all this, is the subject of our present enquiry, and which for the present we ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... be found in the catalogues of fashionable summer resorts. It lies on a low spur of the Cumberland range of mountains on a little tributary of the Clinch River. Lakelands proper is a contented village of two dozen houses situated on a forlorn, narrow-gauge railroad line. You wonder whether the railroad lost itself in ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... officer seemed to give up. He lingered a moment longer, struck a match as though to light a cigarette, then went quickly out of the kitchen. An orderly waited with his horse outside the gateway. Bough Van Busch, listening with strained ears, heard the clink of spur against stirrup, the creak of the saddle receiving a rider's weight. There was a short sharp whistle, followed by the sound of cantering hoofs, and the rattle of hurrying wheels dying out over the veld to the north-east. The unwelcome intruders had gone. Bough Van Busch, after a cautious ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... mistress of ceremonies, and arranged in harmonious positions; while Johnnie, quite forgetful of her royalty, was as ready to help at anything as the humblest maid of honor. All the flowers were treated tenderly except the poor purple violets, and these were slaughtered by hundreds, for the projecting spur under the curved stem at the base of the flower enabled the boys to hook them together, and "fight roosters," as they termed it. Now and then some tough-stemmed violet would "hook-off" a dozen blue heads before losing its own, and it became the temporary hero. At last the little queen asserted ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... forgetting everything below, was scaling the granite pile that towered above him. For thirty minutes, without a halt, he continued to climb, and reaching after a while what seemed the highest ledge of the rocky spur, he walked out upon it to the very edge and was rewarded for his labor with a magnificent ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... vigorous arms, fighting beachward. Strong swimmers every one, the Legion battled its way ashore, out from under Nissr's vast-spreading bulk, out from under her forward floats. Not one Legionary but thrilled with the killing-lust, the eager spur of vengeance for Kloof, first victim of the ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... shortest, "short and sharp like the shrill swallow's cry," or perhaps even more like the shrieky bark of an enraged little cur; not a reveille and silvern morning song in one, as a crow should be, but a challenge and a defiance, wounding the sense like a spur, and suggesting the bustle and fury of ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... with what Nature provides for them, and without social grades to spur them to ambition, their sports and races and amusements of many kinds occupy the chief attention of the men, who quickly succumb to their more energetic and businesslike rivals from India or China. The women, more capable ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... occurred at the Hopital de la Charite, in a woman, who, in consequence of a whitlow, had lost the whole of the 3d phalanx of one of the forefingers. The soft and fleshy cushion which here covered the 2d phalanx was terminated by a small, blackish nail, like a grain of spur rye. It is probable that in these cases the soft parts of the 3d phalanx, and especially the ungual matrix, had not been wholly destroyed. In his lectures Chevalier speaks of ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... who had been dashed down with his horse, was trying to extricate himself; one of his legs was held fast under the animal, the long spur on his boot having caught in the saddle-cloth. He found, however, that he could do nothing with his right arm, his shoulder having been in some way injured in his fall. But his Southern blood was up, and, as he saw Mr. Bernard move as if he were coming ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... cabals? How would their weekly writers have been calling out for prosecution and punishment? We remember when a poor nickname,[3] borrowed from an old play of Ben Jonson, and mentioned in a sermon without any particular application, was made use of as a motive to spur an impeachment. But after all, it must be confessed, they had reasons to be thus severe, which their successors have not: their faults would never endure the light; and to have exposed them sooner, would have raised the kingdom against ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... memory of the pungent, penetrating, and unspeakably fresh quality of the strawberry with the deepest longing. The very thought of these crimson lobes, embodying as it were the first glow and ardor of the young summer, and with their power to unsheathe the taste and spur the nagging appetite, made life seem possible ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... the shadows grew longer and longer, and they wire just making up their minds that they must soon lie down among the goats beside the trail and wait for morning, when a turn in the path brought them out on a spur of the mountain where they could look for miles across a deep valley towards the west. On the farther side, range after range of snow-capped peaks gave back the golden glory of the sunset, and from somewhere came the sound of an ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... brow of the ravine, and our readers may form some conception of what she felt when, on looking down it she saw her lover, young Dalton, toiling up towards her with feeble and failing steps, while pressing after him from the bottom, came young Henderson, urging his horse with whip and spur. Her heart, which had that moment bounded with delight, now utterly failed her, on perceiving the little chance which the poor young man had of being the first to meet her, and thus fulfill the prophecy. Henderson was gaining upon him at ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... caressings, which seemed to have no likeness to the wild rushes and blows of two months before. She looked towards it wistfully,—for Sara loved the sea,—then, yielding to the homesick impulse, turned from the narrow street to the beach, and walked briskly away towards a spur of rock which jutted into the water sharply at some ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... also, no less celebrated for their wit, wore all the same kind of apparel; and esteemed none worthy of their love but such as had given a proof of their valor in three several battles. Thus was the valor of the men an encouragement for the women's chastity, and the love of the women a spur ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... in brilliant dialogue and portraiture of character, not to mention those flashes of sound wisdom with which ever and anon his pages are lighted up, his wit and genius had fair play, revelling and rioting in fun, and achieving on the spur of the moment those lasting triumphs which cast into the shade the minor and mechanical blemishes to ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... very unusual for a commanding officer to have two lieutenants on his staff, as had General French in the persons of Hal and Chester; but the General had commissioned them as such on the spur of the moment, and when they took command of the troop they consequently, for the time, superseded the captain in command—for they were the personal ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... to rain and mist, was now eaten up with rust; he had slung on his back, much as one slings a quiver, a broadsword, so heavy that it took two hands to manage it, and so long that while the hilt reached the left shoulder the point reached the right spur: in a word, he was still the same soldier, brave to rashness but brutal to insolence, recognising nothing but right and force, and always ready to use force when he believed ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... book or paper before him, and continues from first to last as though the words came from him on the spur of the moment. It is known, however, that it is his practice to prepare his orations with great care and commit them entirely to memory, as does an actor. Indeed, he repeats the same lecture over and over again, I am told, without the change of a word or of an action. I ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... passable at two points by an active man accustomed to climbing. Both of these points are near the western or left-hand end of the ruin; toward the right the rock becomes vertical. Immediately below this ruin there are the remains of a large settlement on a low spur near the stream, now much obliterated, and above and below it on suitable sites there were a number of small settlements which may ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... decision as to whether the little Winslow house was to continue to be occupied by Barbara and her mother, or whether it was to be, as it had been for years, closed and shuttered tight. He had permitted them to occupy it for that month, on the spur of the moment, as the result of a promise made upon impulse, a characteristic Jed Winslow impulse. Now, however, he must decide in cold blood whether or not it should be theirs for another eleven ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... lagged on leaden wings. There was a great hush in the old house, and the street itself was quiet. Once or twice Staff caught himself nodding; then he would straighten up, steel his will and spur his senses to attention, waiting, listening, straining to catch the sound of an approaching taxi. He seemed to hear every imaginable night noise but that: the crash and whine of trolleys, the footsteps of a scattered handful of belated ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... he was about to spur out of the yard. "By the way," he ventured, "you needn't mention this to ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... old Master? Very good, your Horse is well set up; but ere you part, I'll ride you, and spur your Reverend Justiceship such a question, as I shall make the sides of your Reputation bleed, truly I will. Now must I play at Bo-peep—A Banquet—well, Potatoes and Eringoes, and, as I take it, Cantharides—Excellent, ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... and nearer, my heart beat fast in alarm! But still I stood in the doorway, with baby on my arm. They came; they passed; with spur and whip in haste they sped along— Morgan, Morgan the raider, and his band six ...
— Twilight Stories • Various |
