"Spur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... enter into the feelings of a beast of burthen, and allow ourselves to be led like a horse or a mule, which have no understanding; or rather, that obedience may be still more perfect, since these animals kick against the spur, we must be in the hands of a superior like a block, or the stock of a tree, which has neither life, nor movement, nor action, nor will, nor ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... spur, Jack dashed off at full speed, followed closely by the troopers. As they approached the line guns flashed out from the wagons, and the bullets sang thickly round them; but they were going too fast to be an easy mark, and the ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... beneficent will. Then, to the pleasure occasioned in us by moral consistency is joined the invigorating idea of the most perfect suitability in the great whole of nature. In this case the thing that seemed to militate against this order, and that caused us pain, in a particular case, is only a spur that stimulates our reason to seek in general laws for the justification of this particular case, and to solve the problem of this separate discord in the centre of the general harmony. Greek art never rose to this supreme serenity of tragic emotion, because neither the national religion, nor ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... to share. At the same time, his being in love, if already I may use concerning him that most general and most indefinite of phrases, so far from obstructing his study, was in reality an aid to his thinking and a spur to excellence—not excellence over others, but over himself. There were moments, doubtless, long moments too, in which he forgot Homer and Cicero and differential calculus and chemistry, for "the ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... his new friend. "I said yer wasn't a cart-hoss: one touch of the spur and up goes tail and ears, and then look out. Are yer ashamed to do any kind of honest work? I mean kinder pious work, that hasn't any smack of the devil you're so ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... like the steep roof of some vast gothic cathedral. The ridge seemed as straight as a house ridge, and we could not see that any natural depression made the ascent much easier in one place than another. Our road ran up a spur of the mountain till the regular slope was reached, then turning to the right it gradually mounted the steep incline by a diagonal course on a long shelf cut in the hillside, with here and there a level spot on which the teams could breathe. From where ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... expedition, while in the Martignac ministry M. de la Ferronays, minister of foreign affairs, was bent upon negotiating. It needed a second insult—the firing on "La Provence,'' a vessel carrying a flag of truce, in the harbour of Algiers (August 3, 1829)—to spur the French government to further action than an ineffectual blockade. An expedition against Algiers was then decided upon, and Marshal de Bourmont, the minister of war, himself took the command. On the 14th of June 1830 the French troops landed at Sidi-Ferruch. On the 19th of June they ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... standing on a level plain, set out on two roads, which diverging at different angles and continued in straight lines, must continue to take them farther and farther from each other the longer they proceed in them; rather, they resemble two persons who start to climb a spur of the same mountain from opposite sides; where, the higher they climb the nearer they come to each other, being bound ultimately ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... Rev. Mr. Ellis, and sent home alive, nearly thirty years ago; but civilized mankind has not yet done wondering at it. The stately growth, the magnificent green-white flowers, command admiration at a glance, but the "tail," or spur, offers a problem of which the thoughtful never tire. It is commonly ten inches long, sometimes fourteen inches, and at home, I have been told, even longer; about the thickness of a goose-quill, hollow, of course, the last inch and a half filled with nectar. Studying this ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... excess of fancy: his productions being slow and upon deliberation.' No writer could be better fitted for the guidance of one so fancy-free as Herrick; to whom the curb, in the old phrase, was more needful than the spur, and whose invention, more fertile and varied than Jonson's, was ready at once to fill up the moulds of form provided. He does this with a lively facility, contrasting much with the evidence of labour in his master's work. ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... owners of the contending cocks have walked into the ring and displayed them, each armed with a long and sharp steel spur, many critical opinions are expressed by the Indians; and the judgments of the old men, who are keen upon the sport, are worth hearing ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... sighted, one or two of these riders would spur in pursuit, rope him by horns or legs, and throw him to the ground. Then dismounting and springing nimbly upon the prostrate beast, they quickly fastened the beast's feet with a "hogtie" hitch so that he could not rise, a fire was built, the short saddle iron heated, and the beast branded. ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... whole man, and by putting the spirits into a feverish ferment many times occasion some mortal distemper. And yet these, however decried, are not only our tutors to instruct us towards the attainment of wisdom, but even bolden us likewise, and spur us on to a quicker dispatch of all our undertakings. This, I suppose, will be stomached by the stoical Seneca, who pretends that the only emblem of wisdom is the man without passion; whereas the supposing any person to be so, is perfectly to unman him, ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... recurring miracle, which on the plain of Lombardy is no less wonderful than on a rolling sea. From the village of Fornovo, where the Italian League was camped awaiting Charles VIII. upon that memorable July morn in 1495, the road strikes suddenly aside, gains a spur of the descending Apennines, and keeps this vantage till the pass of La Cisa is reached. Many windings are occasioned by thus adhering to aretes, but the total result is a gradual ascent with free prospect over plain and mountain. The Apennines, built up upon a smaller scale than the Alps, perplexed ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the apples. And you must send all of your spending money for the next month to that woman who is gathering up things for the bad little children in the Reform School,—that will help you remember what happens to boys and girls who get in the habit of taking things on the spur ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... my wife," Demetrios said, "that you are beautiful. For beauty was ever the spur of valour." Then quickly, joyously, he told her of how a fleet equipped by the King of Cyprus had been despatched against the province of Demetrios, and of how among the invaders were Perion of the Forest and his Free Companions. "Ey, yes, my porter ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... child of God thus interested in your concerns, and you will find it a spur to duty, and an incentive to labor and not faint in the work assigned you, preparatory to your joining the church of the first born above. Think now that the godly ones who loved you here, and labored to animate you in the service of God—or ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... publication of the papers which had given the additional spur to the building of the RS armada. What man had dared once he could dare anew. And the pursuit of knowledge which had been so long forbidden under Pax was heady excitement for the world. Research and discovery ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... know," said John. "Of course I know by heart what I am going to say, when I make a speech like that of the other evening, but I often insert a great deal on the spur of the moment. It is not comedy. I grow very much excited when I ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... backward Portugal has had its eyes opened to see that Rome and progress cannot walk together, but the President of Brazil is so "faithful" that the Pope, in 1910, made him a "Knight of the Golden Spur."] ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... the Petit Bois and the Maedelsteed Spur, lying respectively to the west and the southwest of the village ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... 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 ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... increase every year since. Negotiation of production-sharing arrangements (PSAs) with foreign firms, which have committed $60 billion to long-term oilfield development, should generate the funds needed to spur future industrial development. Oil production under the first of these PSAs, with the Azerbaijan International Operating Company, began in November 1997. A consortium of Western oil companies began pumping 1 million barrels a day from a large offshore field in early 2006, through a $4 billion pipeline ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Sprouting, though you may G-R-O-W enormous plants for their beauty. Quality or quantity of spring harvest won't drop one bit if the plants become a little stunted and gnarly in summer, as long as you fertilize late in September to spur rapid growth during ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon
... 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 a chance to tip him was hardly fair to either of them. His mother would hear he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... stranger than ever. She necessarily supposed the excess of his peculiarities to be an effect of the portrait, and would have had him, according to her ideas of a young man of some depth of feeling, dreamier. On the contrary, he talked sheer commonplace. He had ridden to the spur of the mountains, and had put up the mare, and groomed and fed her, not permitting another hand to touch her: all very well, and his praises of the mare likewise, but he had not a syllable for the sublime of the mountains. He might have careered over midland flats for any susceptibility that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... vice, the final happiness, and the state of the spirit after death, were diverse and contradictory. The Epicurean doctrine was, that sovereign happiness consisted in pleasure. They granted a God, but denied his Providence; so virtue was without a spur, and vice ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various
... man to appreciate these elegancies of speech, being "a neat, spruce, affecting courtier, one that wears clothes well and in fashion, practiseth by his glass how to salute ... can post himself into credit with his merchant, only with the gingle of his spur and the jerk of his wand," thus describes the Arcadian music which falls from the lips of the lady Saviolina: "She has the most harmonious and musical strain of wit that ever tempted a true ear ... oh! ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... flowers upon the dressing-table and its fairy-like reflection in the mirror—to a subtly insidious fragility that verged upon the unreal; and the boy, quivering to his tangled sensations, felt this unreality quicken his self-distrust, touch and goad him as a spur. ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... in the same way, a child's altruistic feelings may be stimulated by love. We see cases in which a child tries to help the beloved schoolmate in every possible difficulty or trouble. Such a love may also spur the lover on to excellence in other fields than the mere work of the class. The boy, while still quite young, seeks to make an impression on the girl by courage and steadfastness, just as he will seek to do this somewhat later, when he ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... or defect he had, and in that same he had plenty to remember, but he never asked himself, whether he was proof against every passing circumstance or not; he met them generally, with an admirable collectedness and sang-froid, but, depending on the spur of the moment is not the safest thing in a person of his pursuits. The cleverest diplomatists and adventurers have been betrayed by themselves and ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... might have gone, for she had an active, creative imagination, and a discriminating, critical judgment of style. As it was, her writings were not extensive, and were almost all produced under the spur of some particular need. They ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... upon which the latter hung, and the head of the horse, freed from the restraint, was as at once elevated in air. The suddenness of his motion whirled the ruffian to the ground; while the rider, wreathing his hands in the mane of the noble animal, gave him a free spur, and plunged at once over the struggling wretch, in whose cheek the glance of his hoof left a ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... action, hoisted at 1 P.M., was hauled down a half-hour later. Hood, who realised the conditions plainly visible, as well as the reasonable inferences therefrom, wished the order given for a general chase, which would have applied the spur of emulation to every captain present, without surrendering the hold that particular signals afford upon indiscreet movements. He bitterly censured the Admiral's failure to issue this command. Had it ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... in either April or May; for the fighting in the plains had been for the most part what may be termed trench warfare. The most important engagement had been the effort to take and hold Hartmannsweilerkopf, the spur of the Molkenrain massif, which controls the union of the Thur and the Ill. The top of this rise of ground, it will be remembered, had been won by the Germans on January 21, 1915; but the heights west of it and their slopes were in the possession of the French, who desired to add the spur to their ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... when all is said, contains the best of the race. Your mind is stirred up there, to do what you could not have done elsewhere. The best of your energy and ability is brought out by the never-ceasing spur. ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... reader, take pet at our proprietary constitution for these our bargain and sale proceedings in legislation. It is a happy country where justice and what was your own before can be had for ready money. It is another addition to the value of money and of course another spur to industry. Every land is not ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... On the spur of the moment, to avoid the direct answering of the question and that he might learn the exact truth about something else, he drew forth the ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... living streams; O laurel boughs! whose lovely garland seems The sole reward that glory's deeds require; O haunted life! delusion sweet and dire, That all my days from slothful rest redeems; O beauteous face! where Love has treasured well His whip and spur, the sluggish heart to move At his least will; nor can it find relief. O souls of love and passion! if ye dwell Yet on this earth, and ye, great Shades of Love! Linger, and see my passion and ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... hour, a band of Latian horse To Turnus' camp pursue their destin'd course: While the slow foot their tardy march delay, The knights, impatient, spur along the way: 300 Three hundred mail-clad men, by Volscens led, To Turnus with their master's promise sped: Now they approach the trench, and view the walls, When, on the left, a light reflection falls; The plunder'd helmet, through ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... following nights and days, whether walking abroad or lying wakeful in my bed, were hours of unadulterated joy. My mother, who was then living with me alone, perhaps had less enjoyment; for, in the absence of my wife, who is my usual helper in these times of parturition, I must spur her up at all seasons to hear me relate and try to clarify my ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... even the conservative old millions had begun to feel the stir of uneasiness, and to launch out into extravagance in rivalry with the new millions. Even with his relations Jack began to feel that he was poor. It did not spur him to do anything, to follow the example, for instance, of the young fellows from the country, who were throwing themselves into Wall Street with the single purpose of becoming suddenly rich, but it made him uneasy. And when ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... ensconce himself behind the drawing-room door and watch. Perhaps "Fire" would be bobbery when the Colonel mounted him, would get "what-for" from whip and spur, and be put over the compound wall instead of being allowed to canter down the drive and out at ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... at a smart lope around a spur of the hill and along beside a wasted stream almost lost in its stony bed. A dense forest bordered either bank. The trail was broken and spread by the recent passage of a large number of travelers; these would be the main body of the Kakisas a week before. Ambrose guessed that they were following ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... as pretty a one as you.' And you'll find her come around; maybe there'll be a bit of an argument, but she'll come around. And if she doesn't, there'd have been no hope for you, anyway. A touch o' the spur for the lazy mare and a bit sugar for the jumper! And when you've done loving her, gie her a chuck in the chin: 'Good-by! Good luck! What you keep to yoursel' 'll worry nobody,' says you. And ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... Never a boy Nobler pride shall inspire in the ancient Romulus land! Ah, for his filial love! for his old-world faith! for his hand Matchless in battle! Unharmed what foemen had offered to stand Forth in his path, when charging on foot for the enemy's ranks Or when plunging the spur in his foam-flecked courser's flanks! Child of a nation's sorrow! if thou canst baffle the Fates' Bitter decrees, and break for a while their barrier gates, Thine to become Marcellus! I pray thee bring me anon Handfuls of ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... the cheerful answer. "You see, I have two mottoes to live up to. One was on the crest that used to be sported in the ancestral coat of arms once upon a time, away back in mamma's family. It was a winged spur with the words 'Ready, ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... things the same as on the first occasion. It was hard to believe that amongst so prosaic surroundings of neglect and dust and decay there was any ground for such fear as already we knew. Had not our minds been made up, and had there not been terrible memories to spur us on, we could hardly have proceeded with our task. We found no papers, or any sign of use in the house. And in the old chapel the great boxes looked just as ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... surrendered unconditionally;[57] numismatics and archeology as well as literature prove this. King Antiochus of Commagene, for instance, who died 34 B. C., built himself a monumental tomb on a spur of the Taurus, in which he placed his horoscope, designed on a large bas-relief, beside the images ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... as turned his head. It was an act of simple faith in Henchard's words—faith so simple as to be almost sublime. The young sailor who had taken Susan Henchard on the spur of the moment and on the faith of a glance at her face, more than twenty years before, was still living and acting under the form of the grizzled traveller who had taken Henchard's words on trust so absolute as to shame ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... shoulder of the mountain spur. Under the gray light of the afternoon the limitless swamps stretching to the skyline looked cold and naked under their drifted snow. From the sky big with storm overhead, to the scanty grass that showed by the wayside blackened by the rigours of the winter, ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... under the spur of ambition to show Alice Yorke and those who surrounded her that he was ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... and think out your two-act on the lines of the combination I have suggested on the spur of the moment. Others are sure to be ahead of you. You can only win success with new characters that are all your own. Then you are likely to be the ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... what Jim sorely needed, some unjust accusation to spur him out of his shame. He sprang to his ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... 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
... on a stray spur of the Chiltern Hills I climbed up upon one of those high, abrupt, windy churchyards from which the dead seem to look down upon all the living. It was a mountain of ghosts as Olympus was a mountain of gods. In that church ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... do the thing which his enemy thought he would do; which seemed most likely and proper according to military science. He thought and acted quickly in crises, relied constantly on the element of surprise and invented new strategy on the spur of the moment. ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... it be not the greatest help and spur to commerce that property can be so readily conveyed and so well secured by a compte en banc, that is, by only writing one man's name ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... life before had Caspar such motives for displaying his hunter-skill. His liberty—that of all of them—depended on all his success in procuring the necessary number of hides; and this was spur enough to excite him to ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... hill slopes off steeply in front of me, about eighty feet down to the bottom land. A spur of the hill runs off on my right three-fourths of a mile to the north. Another runs off on my left the same distance to the west. Between these two spurs, down in front of me, is an almost level valley, extending about a ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... assume a character which is not mine. I am violent as you know. Violence is frankness, and I am living a life of outrageous duplicity. Tell me, do you know what it is to have to invent new lies, on the spur of the moment, every day,—to live with a dagger at your heart? Oh! This lying! But for us, it is the Nemesis of happiness. It is disgraceful, when it succeeds; it is death, when it fails. And you, other men envy you because you make women love you. You ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... addressed, 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 to be insulted," ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... a ring of crisp menace in the sinister voice that was a spur to obedience. The unanimous show of hands voted "Aye" with a hasty precision that no amount of drill ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... way, must assail and overthrow the main army in front. As the day wore away, Poe, of the engineers, was sent to our right to find a position on the immediate left of the enemy where artillery could be used. I was detailed with two companies of the 3d Ohio to accompany him. We climbed a mountain spur and soon reached a position within rifle-musket range of the enemy which completely commanded his guns and fortifications. So near was my command that I desired permission to open fire without awaiting the arrival of artillery, but this not being given by Poe, of the headquarters staff, and ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... bridle hand, and evening was approaching, heralded by an icy rain and a cold, searching wind. I felt a sinking of spirits which I could not dispel by rapid riding; for my horse, fatigued by a long day's journey, refused to answer spur and whip with his usual animation. In an hour after, I was convinced that I had mistaken my road, and night surprised me in the forest. I had been in more unpleasant situations; so I adopted my usual expedient ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... know them for the first time. They were chance acquaintances. The whole trip had been undertaken by him on the spur of the moment; and, as far as lay in his cheery, thoughtless nature, he had come to regret it. The work of the trail had taught him that he was mismated in this company, and the first stern test was stripping the masks from them. He saw three ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... resolve to spur them on, Tom and Jack bade their bravo comrades farewell and started for Paris, whence they were to journey to the headquarters of General Pershing ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... Also, we saw hundreds of crocodiles basking on the muddy banks, and thousands upon thousands of water-fowl. Some of these we shot, and among them was a wild goose, which, in addition to the sharp-curved spurs on its wings, had a spur about three-quarters of an inch long growing from the skull just between the eyes. We never shot another like it, so I do not know if it was a "sport" or a distinct species. In the latter case this incident may interest naturalists. Job named ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... Christian ideals and requirements, and in a certain fashion legitimised this weakening of religious power. At the same time, however, it maintained the knowledge of these ideals and requirements, became a spur to the conscience of believers, and averted the danger of Christianity being corrupted by the excesses of enthusiasm. (6) The fact of the New Testament being placed on a level with the Old proved the most effective means of preserving to the latter its canonical ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... she recovered her condition, and I was never tired of looking at her. To all who delight in admiring wild, unrestrained action, there could not be a much greater treat than to have the gates of the Government-House spur closed, and turn her and her child loose into it, while we stood upon the veranda to watch them. At no time did she ever walk; but went every where with a light, dancing step. And on these occasions the frolics, the gestures, were past all description; standing at one corner, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... High up on a spur of the Sidlaw Hills in the county of Forfar, there is a wee school that supplies education for a wide and sparsely-peopled countryside. The teacher is Mr. Brown, who was once a dominie in the island ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... automatically responding to her deep-lying impulse to give pleasure, to be pleasing, made an effort to overcome her somber lassitude and spoke of Molly's miraculous competence in dealing with the fire. Her companion said that of course Molly hadn't made all that up out of her head on the spur of the moment. After spending every summer of her life in Lydford, it would be surprising if so energetic a child as Molly hadn't assimilated the Vermont formula for fighting fire. "They always put for the nearest factory and get all hands out," he explained, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... towers and turrets and massive battlements, that overlooked the fertile extent of gardens, as a stern schoolmaster frowning over a crowd of fair young children. But Darius had chosen the site of his palace at some distance from the stronghold; where the river bent suddenly round a spur of the mountain, and watered a wider extent of land. The spur of the hill ran down, by an easy gradation, into the valley; and beyond it the hills separated into the wide plain of Merodasht that stretched southward many farsangs to the southern pass. Upon this promontory the king had caused ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... most challenging economic problem of a united Germany is the reconstruction of eastern Germany's economy—specifically, finding the right mix of fiscal, regulatory, monetary, and tax policies that will spur investment in the east without derailing western Germany's healthy economy or damaging relations with Western partners. The biggest danger is that soaring unemployment in eastern Germany, which could climb to the 30 to 40% range, could touch off labor disputes or renewed mass relocation ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... wains rose a dust, and I saw the waggoners draw aside, and the dust passed them, and the kine scattered wildly as it neared them; and so down the peaceful road spurred a little company of men who shouted as they came, never drawing rein or sparing spur for all that the farm horses reared and plunged and ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... little by little, the sting of the master's whip falling upon their shoulders and tearing their sides and cheeks, their bodies twisted in painful, revolted spasms; the flesh trembled under the cord like the muscles of a horse beneath the spur; and, in the morbid exaltation of suffering, a sort of wild delirium took possession of them, their arms were waved in the air, their heads with hair dishevelled were thrown backward, and the captives, ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... which were spoken on the spur of the moment, out of mere hostility toward Mrs. Dunbar, and the desire to wound her, the latter recoiled as though from some sudden blow, and looked at Edith ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... the readiness of the merchantman Valeria and of Commander Stockwell's destroyer to turn happy accidents to the best account on the spur of the moment. The Valeria bumped over a rising submarine at three o 'clock one summer morning off the coast of Ireland. Instantly all hands ran to "action stations," when the gunner saw, to his delight, that the periscope had been ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... (genius) spur you to write any workes, either in prose or verse, I cannot but allow you to practise it; but take no longsome works in hande, for ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... is the spur which the clear spirit doth raise, That last infirmity of noble mind, To scorn delights and ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... day's time. You say your day is already full to overflowing. How? You actually spend in earning your livelihood—how much? Seven hours, on the average? And in actual sleep, seven? I will add two hours, and be generous. And I will defy you to account to me on the spur of the moment for the other ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... the most evident fatherly pride. He had even repeated the quaint remarks the youngest had made on her return home from her first morning at the English school. Impossible that these things could have been invented on the spur of the moment. No; I could not possibly doubt the genuineness of my model's spontaneous talk, especially as in those days he had had no reason for expecting anything from me, and he had most certainly ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... the legislative commission decided to visit Tuscarora in dog-days while Etruria's stage line was doing a land-office business and our poor little resource was wasted to a long-drawn-out puddle choked with cat-tails and lily-pads. But what dismayed other men seemed to spur Israel Booth, and one night, a bare fortnight before the commissioners' coming, his great conception saw its birth. Before he slept he took ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... shoot yourself, count, for the enemy will not overtake us. Forward! Put spur to your horses. Heigh! ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... brilliant moon the Snowbird swung along the air-way like a veritable bird. Jack increased the revolutions of the propellers a trifle and the ship responded like a spirited horse to the spur. She darted ahead at a ninety mile speed and Washington ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... did as he was bidden. Pitt touched the horse with his spur. The little crowd gave way, and thus, upon the crupper of that doubly-laden horse, clinging to the belt of his companion, Peter Blood set out upon his Odyssey. For this Pitt, in whom he beheld no more than ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... in his hand;—and very few women would have been brave enough, too; he did not know My Miriam! I can fancy the poor horse lashed through the heavy mire, tired, foaming, panting, while his strong arm urged it on, with whip and spur; I can hear the exulting beating of his heart, that wild refrain that was raging as his death-knell—"Mine! Mine at last!" I could hear it, I say. It rung in my ears all night. He held her in his power; she must be his; hastily, yet carefully he ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... a yellow nankeen, closely fitted to the shape, and tied at his bunches of knees by large knots of white ribbon, a good deal sullied by use. Clouded cotton stockings, and shoes, on one of the latter of which was a plated spur, completed the costume of the lower extremity of this figure, no curve or angle of which was concealed, but, on the other hand, studiously exhibited, through the vanity or simplicity ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... have preached a more practical sermon than I, my dear." Then, seeing her confusion at being thus singled out and her embarrassment at having, as she thought, been too forward in speaking out impulsively on the spur of the moment, the vicar created a diversion. "And now, young ladies," he said, "as we are going to be merry, ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... fit the Braine steering gear, a spur or bumpkin, as it is termed, must be fitted to take ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates
... give up. The fact that he was surely overtaking the other fellow acted as a sort of spur, urging him to continued efforts. Had the chase seemed hopeless he might have abandoned it after the first spurt; but now he felt that at any moment he was apt to pounce upon the object of his pursuit, who was floundering ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... Junius Keswick to answer a question like this on the spur of the moment. He arose and walked with Croft out of the arbor. His first impulse, as a Virginia gentleman, was to invite his visitor to stay at the house until the matter should be settled, but he did not know what extraordinary ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... course, and it is the spot whence three of the celebrated mountain paths diverge, to make as many passages of the upper Alps. Here are the two routes of the great and little St. Bernard, both of which lead into Italy, and that of the Col-de-Balme, which crosses a spur of the Alps into Savoy toward the celebrated valley of Chamouni. It was the intention of the Baron de Willading and his friend to journey by the former of these roads, as has so often been mentioned in these pages, ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... has displayed as a preacher. He has not unfrequently delivered four sermons or homilies in one Sunday, besides preaching more or less frequently during the week. These sermons are not thrown off on the spur of the moment. Every pulpit effort is thoughtfully and carefully prepared beforehand. His readiness to preach and assist in every good work has been largely taken advantage of by the numerous charitable and religious societies in Glasgow, which have, perhaps, rather ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... a spur of this hill, lo! the lake; and not far from the foot of a tree, behold! our truant brother. Beside him was Dash, and not a great way off, tied to a dwarf algaroba tree, stood the mule. Dugald was sitting on the ground, with his gun ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... rides to Valmy nothing redder than a red spur." Villon had joined La Mothe at the window, and was peering out at the stir of men and horses in the open space between the inn ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... relief in that there was no hurt. And, finally, her face was proudly happy with a smile of triumph. She even smiled to Billikens her pride at making good her love to him. And Billikens relaxed and looked love and pride back, until, on the spur of the second, ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... gives us an immense number of both, not all of a first-rate nature, nor many interesting in the present day. Selwyn, calm as he was, brought out his sayings on the spur of the moment, and their appropriateness to the occasion was one of their greatest recommendations. A good saying, like a good sermon, depends much on its delivery, and loses much in print. Nothing less immortal than wit! To take first, however, the eccentricities of his character, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... theme all these great appearances are strung to-day. But to-morrow they may be strung upon some other and nobler purpose. These gigantic beings of which the engineer is the master and slave, are neither benevolent nor malignant. To-day they produce destruction, they are the slaves of the spur; to-morrow we hope they will bridge and carry and house ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... without any 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, ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... almost enormous, intellectual activity, and a proportionate aversion to real action, consequent upon it, with all its symptoms and accompanying qualities. This character Shakespeare places in circumstances, under which it is obliged to act on the spur of the moment:—Hamlet is brave and careless of death; but he vacillates from sensibility, and procrastinates from thought, and loses the power of action in the energy of resolve. Thus it is that this tragedy presents a direct contrast to that of ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... and I never had been very intimate with him. But here was a pretext; and so I went in and inquired for Clement Stanley. My acquaintance came forward. He was very busy, he said. I invented, on the spur of the moment, some excuse of the most frivolous and absurd nature, as far as I can recollect, ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... form accurately in training, since the perfection of their formations would determine their efficiency in battle. Yet in the Franco-Prussian War, these formations proved utterly unsuited to the heavily wooded terrain of the theater, and new ones had to be devised on the spur of the moment. ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... dogs might bring the goral to bay on one of the cliffs below us, and in twenty minutes we stood on a ridge which jutted out from the thick spruce forest. One of the hunters picked his way down the rock wall while Hotenfa and I circled the top of the spur. ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... laid out along the canal, and my friends insisted upon naming it Cody. At this time there was no railroad in the Big Horn Basin; but shortly afterward the Burlington sent a spur out from its main line, with Cody as its terminus. In 1896 I went out on a scout to locate the route of a wagon road from Cody into the Yellowstone Park. This was during Mr. ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... had a bankrupt feeling. On the spur of the moment he could say no more than: "It offers ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... was open, and he went over to it instinctively, strumming a few wild bars out of his own head, made up hastily on the spur of the moment. 'No, not dethrone you,' he went on, leaning back on the music-stool, and letting his hand wander aimlessly over the keys; 'not dethrone you; I shall never, never be able to do that. Little ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... the Emperor had heard the Moor, full red was his old cheek, "Go back, base cur, upon the spur, for I am he you seek— Go back, and tell your master to commend him to Mahoun, For his soul shall dwell with him in hell, or ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... Everything they did during the day interested her. Her old passion for leadership spurred her on, but now it was a spur to excel in legitimate things. Her sense of rebellion was laid away, because she liked nearly everything she had to do, and her days were so busy that there was no excess vitality to ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... men assembled in Bohemia were destined to aid and assist the Russians in case they should be successful (and who can blame the Austrian Government for wishing to wash away the shame of the Treaty of Presburg?). Napoleon had not a moment to lose, but this activity required no spur; he had hastened the battle of Austerlitz to anticipate Prussia, and he now found it necessary to anticipate Russia in order to keep Austria in a ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... as useful as sign-posts, and conveyed an additional lesson. You will find such crosses in the desolate country on the borderland of Yorkshire and Lancashire. They were usually placed on the summit of hills. In Buckinghamshire there are two crosses cut in the turf on a spur of the Chilterns, Whiteleaf and Bledlow crosses, which were probably marks for the direction of travellers through the wild and dangerous woodlands, though popular tradition connects them with the memorials of ancient battles ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... root of the spur, and approached the castle; immediately beyond that, they would be in sight of the feeding ground. But they were yet behind it when Rob of the Angels bounded forward in terror at the sound of a gun. His father, however, who was in front, was off before him. Neither hearing anything, nor ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... Fielding ever revealed himself more completely than in these his last informal 'lucubrations.' Here, the active Justice, the accomplished scholar, the lawyer, and man of the world, the first wit of his day, talks to us of a hundred topics, chosen indeed on the spur of the moment, but discussed in his own incomparable words, and with the now mature authority of one, who had "dived into the inmost Recesses of Human Nature." No subject is too abstruse, none too trifling, for Mr Censor to illumine. Freed from the political bands of the ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... something in the act, more intimate and more familiar than had ever marked their intercourse, set her blood running strangely. When he turned away and bade Bigot unbuckle his spur-leathers, she stepped forward. ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... my custom to ride along the Dehesa, until the topmost towers of Seville were no longer in sight. I then turned about, and pressing my knees against the sides of Sidi Habismilk, my Arabian, the fleet creature, to whom spur or lash had never been applied, would set off in the direction of the town with the speed of a whirlwind, seeming in his headlong course to devour the ground of the waste, until he had left it behind, then dashing through the elm-covered road of the ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... notice a small phaeton being driven slowly along. In the carriage they see a prisoner in a blue greatcoat with an officer beside him and an armed soldier riding behind. They spur on, and, as they pass, the prisoner gives the sign agreed upon. He raises his hat and wipes his forehead. The feelings excited by the assurance that this was indeed Lafayette, Huger never to his dying day ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... Spur jingles now, and swears by no mean oaths, He's double honour'd, since he's got gay clothes: Most like his suit, and all commend the trim; And thus they praise the sumpter, but not him: As to the goddess, people did confer Worship, and not to ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... sister," said Beverly, clasping the weeping girl in his arms. "I have already overstaid the hour, and must spur hard to be at my post in time. God bless you! it may be I shall never see you again; if so, I leave you to God and my country. But I trust all will ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... attacks made on me personally;(for in some quarters I was depicted as a bloodthirsty ruffian, and it was charged that I was for political reasons prosecuting men whom I personally knew to be innocent), all combined to spur me to my utmost effort. And when the verdicts were rendered, I was conscious of a sense of personal triumph so fierce ...
— The Spectre In The Cart - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... Benedictine; and again consulting his memoranda, he added, "the arms on the dexter side are those of Glendinning, being a cross parted by a cross indented and countercharged of the same; and on the sinister three spur-rowels for those of Avenel; they are two ancient families, now almost extinct in this country—the arms part y ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... 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; they will give you ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... said he. "It is hard to say what makes a person happy." He almost made up his mind to speak to her then; but he had made up his mind before to put it off still for a little time, and he would not allow himself to be changed on the spur of the moment. He had thought of it much, and he had almost taught himself to think that it would be better for herself that she should not accept another man's love so soon. "I shall come and see you in ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... one disappointment in that a tree that we particularly wanted was found to have died only two years before. It was the old story of being too late. Certainly such experiences ought to spur this association to new efforts in trying to locate the best nut ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... course of Gordon's whole career was suddenly changed into a different channel, at a moment when he was drifting placidly on the stream of a lax conventionality, and was frittering away all his opportunities for sheer lack of anything that would spur him on to a clearer conception ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... 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 you an ...
— Kindness to Animals - Or, The Sin of Cruelty Exposed and Rebuked • Charlotte Elizabeth
... Vaux!" muttered Catesby, "there must be then some weighty matter afoot that she comes to Hendlip." And touching his horse with the spur, he galloped up the avenue which led to the main entrance of the mansion. Being well known by its inmates he was at once conducted to an upper chamber, the door of which was unbarred by Owen, who motioned ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... The most I dare claim for myself is that if I had been rich I should have been better than Corin's master. Even as it was, I did my best. But I had no authentic joy in doing it. Without the spur of pride I might conceivably have not done it at all. There recurs to me from among memories of my boyhood an episode that is rather significant. In my school, as in most others, we received now and again 'hampers' from ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... standing beside the stirrup, one bold hand upon the rein. Her quirt went swiftly up and down, cut like a thin bar of red-hot iron across his uplifted face. He stumbled back, half blind with the pain. Before he could realize what had happened the spur on her little boot touched the side of the pony, and it was off with a bound. She was galloping wildly ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... his foot and rested it carelessly, upon the settle near by, and upon the heel of his slim riding-boot I saw a particularly cruel-looking, long-necked spur. ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... cardinal sought him out, and called him an "ungrateful little Spaniard;" but Ribera excused his conduct by saying that as soon as he was made comfortable and was well fed he lost all ambition to work, adding that it would require the spur of poverty to make him a good painter. The cardinal respected his courage, and the story being repeated to other artists, much interest was ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... horses came into collision, and it so happened that the charger of the conqueror, excited by the fury of the contest, laid hold of the other's neck with his teeth, and almost tore away a piece of the muscular flesh at the very moment when the rider's spur, as he fell, cut a long gash in ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... the brave!" The squadrons round free passage gave, The wounded knight drew near. He raised his red-cross shield no more, Helm, cuish, and breast-plate stream'd with gore. Yet, as he saw the King advance, He strove even then to couch his lance— The effort was in vain! The spur-stroke fail'd to rouse the horse; Wounded and weary, in 'mid course He tumbled on the plain. Then foremost was the generous Bruce To raise his head, his helm to loose:— "Lord Earl, the day is thine! My sovereign's charge, and adverse ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... the larva has the same structure, so that the object to be extracted is enclosed in a scabbard as awkwardly shaped as itself. Each spur is enclosed in a similar spur; each tooth engages in the hollow of a similar tooth, and the sheath is so closely moulded upon the shank that a no more intimate contact could be obtained by replacing the envelope by a layer of varnish applied with ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... with the spur and moved off with as much dignity as a colonel of cavalry. Not so Mr. Saltoun. He had been kicked, and the kick hurt, and he was very red and ruffled in consequence. Swearing under his breath he followed ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... are able to cross all rivers without the slightest difficulty because when they are on the march they have in readiness hook-shaped irons with which they fasten together long timbers, and with the help of these they improvise a bridge on the spur of the moment wherever they may desire. And as soon as he had reached the land on the opposite side, he sent to Belisarius and said that he, for his part, had bestowed a favour upon the Romans in the withdrawal of the Median army, and that he was expecting the envoys from them, who ought to present ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... a heavy three-year-old, in her arms that she got us to the border, dragging a pack of linens with her! The night my father's feet were bleeding in the snow, when they took him! How with me a kid in the crib, my—my brother's face was crushed in—with a heel and a spur—all night, sometimes, she cries in her sleep—begging to go back to find the graves. All day she sits making raffia wreaths ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... not stay to explain how Rollitt could have got in any more than any one else. His suggestion made a deep impression. It touched them to feel that, amid all his distresses, Rollitt was loyal to the School shop; and if anything was needed to spur them on to his rescue, ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... Thawing Wind (audio) He calls on change through the violence of the elements. A Prayer in Spring He discovers that the greatness of love lies not in forward-looking thoughts; Flower-gathering nor yet in any spur it may be to ambition. Rose Pogonias He is no dissenter from the ritualism of nature; Asking for Roses nor from the ritualism of youth which is make-believe. Waiting—Afield at Dusk He arrives at the ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost
... a private car at the end, and then all his wildest dreams of adventure was glutted in something like four minutes and thirty seconds. On this eleventh day after he'd begun at the bottom he started to let two big freight cars loaded with concentrates down the spur track, from one of the mines at Burke, having orders to put 'em where the regular train for Wallace could pick 'em up. Burke is seven miles up the canon from Wallace and the grade drops two hundred and thirty-five ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... 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 ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... to the cottage, it was to tell, and to ask, all. Since then for a moment your image has never been absent from my consciousness; your picture consecrates my hearth and your approval has been the spur of my career. Do not reject my love; it is deep as your nature, and fervent as my own. Banish those prejudices that have embittered your existence, and if persisted in may wither mine. Deign to retain this hand! If ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... sun was setting red over the reapen fields, two riders on trembling and sinking horses went through the village using whip and spur, and scarcely drew rein as they shouted to the cottagers to know whether they had seen go by a man running for his life. The people replied that they had seen nothing of the kind, and the horsemen pressed on, jamming their spurs into their poor beasts' ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... something of the impulsiveness of the despotic monarch, giving hasty directions on the spur of the moment as to matters of much importance. But the events of the story exert an educative influence upon his mind, culminating in his sentiments as expressed in v. 41, which apparently imply that Daniel's God was to be ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... them[348] is a child of Abraham. All looked back with the same ancestral pride to their great progenitor, the friend of God. This has never been the case with any other nation, for the Arabs are not a nation. One can hardly imagine a greater spur to patriotism than this union of pride of descent with pride in one's nation and its institutions. The proudest and poorest Jew shared it together. There was one distinction, and that the most honorable, which belonged ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... saddle his horse with a Tcherkess saddle, put a silken bridle into his mouth, and leading him out, mounted, and rode into the open fields. But as soon as he applied the spur, the horse grew restive, reared higher than the waving forests, plunged lower than the flying clouds; mountains and rivers he left behind; small streams he covered with his tail and broad rivers he crossed at a bound, until at length Prince Astrach so tired out the ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... was the spur that drove Patricia to victory. Raising her head with a toss of determination, she ran her hands over the keys first lightly and then with growing certainty of herself, while, unseen by her, Tancredi nodded and smiled to herself in high ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... judge, who was fond of tropes, as became a scholar, and of horses, as was befitting a Kentuckian, "is the whip of necessity, or the spur of ambition. If he had either, he would soon need the snaffle to ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... turning down the path which she had taken. But the trespass on private property, and the fear of being stopped at the mansion to make explanations, deterred him from taking the step. He judged it wiser to spur up the main road and trust to luck. Perhaps he might find an outlet for that bridal path whence she would issue. In this surmise he was not mistaken. After riding about half a mile he came to the mouth of a rugged, unfrequented country ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... manufactures, and handicrafts,' and the 'necessaries in great plenty and cheapness,' appear to apply rather to the populous plain and the large city of ancient fame, than to the small Fu-yang hien ... shut in by a spur from the hills, which would hardly have allowed it in former days to have been a great city." (Note by Baron R.) The after route, as elucidated by the same authority, points with even ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... through the nose, and to do this there must be nothing in the nose or upper part of the pharynx to interfere with the free circulation of the air through these cavities. The cavities of the nose may be partly closed by polpi (tumors) on the upper and middle turbinate bone, a spur on the (septum) partition, deviation of the partition or enlarged turbinate bones, or adenoids in the upper part of the pharynx. These troubles almost close up the nose sometimes and the person is compelled to breathe through his mouth. He not ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... retreat, to turn to either side, to strike, or to forbear, the governor or conductor of the elephant sitting on his back, causes him to do whatever he wills, by speaking in such language and expressions as he is accustomed to, all of which the beast understands and obeys, without the use of bridle or spur. But when fire is thrown at them, they are wonderfully afraid and run away, on which occasions it is impossible to stop them; on which account the Indians have many curious devices of fire-works to frighten the elephants, and make them ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... upon my master's toes, And twenty on his sleeves, Upon his hat a Tudor rose Set round with silver leaves; But never a hunting-spear, And never a rowel-spur; Who is this that he calls his Dear? I think I will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... storm-tossed ocean, encircles him, and at his feet, green and wooded, lies a long fertile valley. Stretching far away into the gates of distance in its vast expanse, glitters the Lake of Scutari. Round a small dim spur of land running into the lake, lies Scutari itself, which is, however, not visible. To the left a forbidding chain of magnificent mountains, dwarfing the intervening hills into insignificance, fascinate him by their repellent grandeur. Snow-clad, except in the height ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... Mr. Pickwick's consolatory phrase, which he evidently devised on the spur of the moment, shows him to be a very ready, ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... cuttings Pyracantha Radishes Ranunculus Raspberries Rhubarb Rockets Roses Rue Rustic Vases Sage Salvias Savoys Saxifrage Scarlet Runner Beans Seeds Sea Daisy or Thrif Seakale Select Flowers Select Vegetables and Fruit Slugs Snowdrops Soups Spinach Spruce Fir Spur pruning Stews Stocks Strawberries Summer-savory Sweet Williams Thorn Hedges Thyme Tigridia Pavonia Transplanting Tree lifting Tulips Turnips Vegetable Cookery Venus's Looking-glass Verbenas Vines Virginian Stocks Wallflowers ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various
... course even by the appearance, more than once, of a gaunt prairie-wolf, peering over the nearest rising-ground and seeming to dare us to an encounter. The Frenchmen, it is true, would instinctively give a shout and spur on their horses, while the hounds, Kelda and Cora, would rush to the chase; but the bourgeois soon called them back, with a warning that we must attend strictly to the prosecution of our journey. Just before sunset we crossed, with some difficulty, a muddy stream, which was ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... Sicily, which Alkibiades could have raised with the greatest ease, if he had wished to do so. Indeed, the soldiers became disheartened when he left them, and looked forward to long delays and periods of dull inaction under Nikias's command, now that he who used to spur matters on was gone. Lamachus, indeed, was a brave and skilful soldier, but his poverty prevented his opinions from carrying their ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... clothes hang in the air for at least twenty-four hours after ironing. Unaired sheets have often brought on fatal sickness. Examine all clothes sent up from the wash. If the laundress is sure this inspection will take place, it is a constant spur to working in the best way, and a word of praise for good points is always a stimulus. Mending should be done as the clothes are looked over, before putting away. Place the sheets from each wash at ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... the remainder of the 3rd regiment, and two hundred men of the 2nd irregular cavalry, who, with Lieutenant Swinton, had volunteered to serve on foot, were to advance upon another face of the ridge, from the little village of Chulbarah, where they had been posted; this party, ascending a spur of the hill on its left, was to co-operate opportunely with the advance of the other detachments. Major Fisher, at the head of a body of regular native infantry and irregular cavalry, with guns mounted upon elephants, were in support, and to ascend (the cavalry, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... I never got so far—the verbs irregular giving me a distaste for the business—at least I fell into line, and in due time—but there I am anticipating. I am writing of the day, the wonderful day when the sharp spur of Uncle Rob's reproach entered into my soul and I resolved to be—I hardly knew what. A band of little boys, all eager to see the pirn-mill in the Marnhoul wood, volunteered to accompany Louis home. They went on ahead, gambolling and shouting. Agnes Anne would have come also, but I suggested to ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... offer, and therewith to be content. Compared with many other Old Testament books, the religious value of Ecclesiastes is slight indeed. Its chief value, however, is historical: it presents one phase of thought in the Judaism of this period, and shows how sorely the Jewish people needed the spur of a great crisis to rouse them to noble and unselfish action. The book of Ecclesiastes also furnishes the darker background which brings out in clear relief the inspiring messages of the great prophets that ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... do more at least than I. I don't know what mysterious connection he may have discovered between me and Pansy; but he came to me from the first, as if I held his fortune in my hand. Now he keeps coming back, to spur me up, to know what hope there is, to pour out ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... know when I learned to transpose, so natural did it seem to me. My father was a tactful teacher; he never commanded, but would merely say, 'You can play this in the key of C, but I doubt if you can play it in the key of D.' This doubt was the spur to fire my ambition and pride: I would show him I could play it in the key of D, or in any other ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... to the music of their chatting, and the cracks of their powerful whips. Suddenly, a shout at the front, and an abrupt pull up, brought the whole column to a halt. The Captain's dogs had broken into a gallop. On turning suddenly round a spur of a glacier about as big as Saint Paul's Cathedral, they went swish into a shallow pond which had been formed on the ice. It was not deep, but there was sufficient water in it to send a deluge of spray over ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... cigarette. Even then she did not know what she was going to say, but she had determined on the spur of the moment, and chiefly from sheer terror, to put Mark out of court if ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... poor Elfie was crying for her Bible. It had been her father's own it was filled with his marks it was precious to her above price and Elfie cried with all her heart for the loss of it. She had done what she had on the spur of the emergency she was satisfied she had done right; she would not take it back if she could; but not the less her Bible was gone, and the pages that loved eyes had looked upon were for hers to look upon no more. Her very heart was wrung that she should have parted with it; and yet, what ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell |
