"On the spot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lion and ran into a cave where a Goat lived. The Goat tried to stop his entrance, and struck at him with his horns. The Bull, though cross at this, did not butt at the Goat on the spot, but just said, "Do not think that I fear you. Wait till the Lion is out of sight, and then I will treat you as you deserve." Never profit by the woes ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... On reaching the hall, I found the smoke issuing from the warming shaft in the floor. I returned, quietly warned my wife and others of the danger, and soon the master of the hotel and all the servants were on the spot. In their excitement to subdue it, before the numerous visitors should be alarmed, they opened the aperture still more, so as to give free vent to the smoke. I at once told them their mistake, and, ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... conclusions. "It may be at once observed," he says, "that my belief in the general principle that islands have always been islands has not been shaken," and he entirely rejects "the hypothesis of a Pacific continent." He comes back, in full view of the problems on the spot, to the position from which, as has been seen, Darwin started: "If the distribution of a particular group of plants or animals does not seem to accord with the present arrangement of the land, it ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... the sole possession of two police agents—every one of the inmates being removed to prison on the spot. The Sub-prefect, after taking down my "proces verbal" in his office, returned with me to my hotel to get my passport. "Do you think," I asked, as I gave it to him, "that any men have really been smothered in that bed, as ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... and that, when it occurs to their afflicted daughters to go and pray at their tombs, they generally choose a particularly inclement night as best adapted for that purpose. It is convenient, too, if any murder took place exactly on the spot, exactly twenty years before, because in that case it is something agreeable to reflect upon and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... watched his blood stain the lucid green waters, but it was soon over. Then I bore my fainting burden to the dry sands and revived her with cocoanut milk and breadfruit, while the natives crowded respectfully about and made us their king and queen on the spot. We lived there forever. How flat of sound were it to ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... taking an indecent posture during the Elevation, was reprimanded by Captain Daniel. Instead of correcting himself, he made some impertinent answer, accompanied with an execrable oath, which was paid on the spot by the Captain, who pistolled him in the head, swearing before God that he would do the same to the first man who failed in respect for the Holy Sacrifice. The cure was a little flustered, as it happened very close to him. But Daniel ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... set out to cast a first glance upon the Izrah mine. The word is properly Izia, a stone, also the name of the man who began gold-digging on the spot. This style of nomenclature is quite 'country-fashion.' Apparently Izia became Izrah to assume a 'Scriptural' sound; if so, why not 'go the whole animal' ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... here with the very best testimonials, and father engaged him on the spot," answered Ella, touching her wrists thoughtfully. "He certainly is not very handsome, but then that doesn't ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... a glorious event would have been collected with the greatest care from the accounts of eye-witnesses. The bards and historiographers should have been on the alert to do justice to their country on so great an occasion. They were on the spot, they were beside the victors, and they had no excuse whatever for ignorance. Yet here is the miserably cold, jejune, feeble, and imperfect record which we find in the Annals of the Four Masters:—'The Lord Justice of Ireland, namely Thomas Fitzwalter (Sussex), marched ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... carried away its banks and swept its bed. Two thousand navvies, the outsweepings of jails and the galleys, have come down to the works; a horde of contractors, sub-contractors, with the several staffs of clerks, inspectors, and suchlike, have settled on the spot, ravaging its beauty, uprooting its repose, vulgarising its simple rusticity, and converting the very gem of the Mediterranean into a dreary swamp—a vast amphitheatre, where liberated felons, robbing contractors, foul miasma, centrifugal ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... they returned safely to the forest in which they had left the herd; and, much to Wargrave's relief, they had not been many hours camped on the spot where they had parted with them when Badshah and his wild companions appeared. The spies returned to India as they ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... expressing a deep repentance for the bad acts he had committed while on earth. He is, however, found exercising the vocation of a necromancer; has a jossakeed's lodge, from which he utters oracles; and finally transforms on the spot two of the party, who had consulted him, and asked the gift of immortality, the one into a cedar-tree, and the other into a ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... wonder, sahib, why none broke ranks to expose both men on the spot. I did not because I trusted Ranjoor Singh. I reasoned he would never have dared be seen by us if he truly were a traitor. It seemed to me I knew how his heart must burn to be riding with us. They did not because ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... famous physician and antiquary Dufour, to whom he related his adventure. Dufour first asked him whether the medals were of the higher empire? He assured him they were. Dufour was ravished with the hope of possessing such a treasure—he bargained with him on the spot for the most curious of them, and was to recover them at ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... went out noiselessly high up in the air. Was it a signal of friend or foe? The regiments came to a halt for a moment, but nothing further happened, except that the two searchlights beyond Hilgard kept their eyes fixed on the spot where the rockets had ascended. A dog barked in the town, but was choked off in the middle of a howl. Then death-like stillness reigned in front once more, but several cannon thundered in the rear and a few isolated shots rang out from the wooded ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... foreman of shipwrights in the Plymouth dockyard, whilst carelessly crossing one of the transverse beams of a seventy-four gun-ship, building in that arsenal, missed his footing, fell to the bottom of the hold of the huge vessel, and was killed on the spot. He left a widow and one child—a boy seven years of age, of placid, endearing disposition, but weak intellect—almost in a state of destitution. He had been a coarse-tempered, improvident man; and like ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... Egyptians, the right battalion of Lewis's brigade and nearest the gap between that unit and MacDonald, deployed to protect the flank, they became unsteady, began to bunch and waver, and actually made several retrograde movements. There was a moment of danger; but General Hunter, who was on the spot, himself ordered the two reserve companies of the 15th Egyptians under Major Hickman to march up behind them with fixed bayonets. Their morale was thus restored and the peril averted. The advance of the ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... going to Dwaravati (Dwaraka) and seeing the city destitute of the Vrishnis was much affected and became exceedingly sorry. Then after the funeral of his maternal uncle Vasudeva the foremost among the Yadus (Vrishnis), he saw the heroes of the Yadu race lying stretched in death on the spot where they had been drinking. He then caused the cremation of the bodies of the illustrious Krishna and Balarama and of the principal members of the Vrishni race. Then as he was journeying from Dwaraka with the women and children, the old and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... claims of the Mormon leaders had influence. One man, when he heard an elder in the midst of a sermon "speak with tongues," in a language he had never heard before, "felt a sudden thrill from the back of his head down his backbone," and was converted on the spot. John D. Lee, of Catholic education, was convinced by an elder that the end of the world was near, and sold his property in Illinois for what it would bring, and moved to Far West, in order to be in the ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... combat upon the lance of the Knight; and Kai came to Arthur, and spoke to him. "My Lord," said he, "though I was overthrown yesterday, if it seem good to thee, I would gladly meet the Knight again to-day." "Thou mayst do so," said Arthur. And Kai went towards the Knight. And on the spot he overthrew Kai, {37a} and struck him with the head of his lance in the forehead, so that it broke his helmet and the headpiece, and pierced the skin, and the flesh, the breadth of the spearhead, even to the bone. And ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... not without a pang that I looked on the spot where poor Andre was taken, and another where ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... attention, indicates strongly the pressure that had been brought to bear upon the Canadian authorities by headquarters. And when a man was required for the special mission out over the far North-West he was there on the spot in the person of Lieutenant W. F. Butler of the 69th Regiment, afterwards famous as Sir William Butler, of South Africa. On account of his splendid powers of endurance, his great faculty for observation and his remarkable literary genius, ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... and everywhere I saw possibilities for development and enterprise. There were fortunes to be made here. It seemed to me absurd that the copra should be taken away from here in sacks and the oil extracted in America. It would be far more economical to do all that on the spot, with cheap labour, and save freight, and I saw already the vast factories springing up on the island. Then the way they extracted it from the coconut seemed to me hopelessly inadequate, and I invented a machine ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... was very unfavourable to me. He pointed at the inevitable flower-crowned altar which, of course, was in the centre of the market-place, and from the way he shook a sickle he held in his hand I believe that he was proposing to sacrifice me on the spot. In the midst of his oration two vultures, black with white breasts, flew high over our heads, chasing a dove, which they caught and killed right above the market-place, so that the feathers fell down on the altar. ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... me any questions," said Dorothy, "I will discharge you on the spot. And if you betray me, I ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... to Fort Wayne," he ordered of the runner, a half-breed Shawnee, "and tell Captain Wells that my fire is kindled on the spot appointed by the Great Spirit above; and if he has anything to say to me, he must come here. I shall expect him in ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... They were commissioned by the Confederate Government to inflict the greatest possible amount of injury upon northern commerce, and accordingly, when Semmes or Maffitt captured a United States vessel, he burned it on the spot. There was no question of profit involved in the service of the "Alabama," the "Florida," or the "Shenandoah," and they have been called privateers in our histories, mainly because Northern writers have been loath to concede, to what they called a rebel government, the ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... his note, Pavel strained himself lifting timbers for a new barn, and fell over among the shavings with such a gush of blood from the lungs that his fellow workmen thought he would die on the spot. They hauled him home and put him into his bed, and there he lay, very ill indeed. Misfortune seemed to settle like an evil bird on the roof of the log house, and to flap its wings there, warning human beings away. The Russians had such bad luck that people were afraid of them ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... into the ranks of the enemy. Had these brave men been supported by any other corps, the battle might have been restored; but, as soon as their ammunition was spent, an opening was made, and the white coats perished, every man falling on the spot ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... reports of various receptions of new clerks, distinguished from one another by different writing and different inks, also by quotations, signatures, and praises of good cheer and wines, which seemed to show that each report was written and signed on the spot, "inter pocula." ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... detect and punish so-called witches that he, their White Chief, had been obliged to interfere. He had put an end to the reign of sorcery in that particular graveyard rather cleverly, Ellen was forced to admit, by having all the bodies exhumed and cremated on the spot. ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... who had been placed at the head of the National Guard for his popular sycophancy, but who, on being called on by the mob to swear "death to the King;" and hesitating, felt the penalty of being unprepared to go all lengths on the spot. I saw his throat cut, and his body flung from the balcony. A cannon-shot gave the signal for the march, and we advanced to the grand prize of the day. I can describe but little more of the assault on the Tuileries, than that it was a scene of desperate confusion on both sides. The front of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... such and such a time; I have also a record of how this material was used by Scott, of the plans of his journeys and how his plans worked out, and of the improvements which his parties were able to make on the spot or suggest for the future. I don't agree with such and such, but this is a foundation and will save me many months of work in preparation, and give me useful knowledge for the actual work of my expedition." If this book can guide the future explorer by the light of the ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... all he gave his mind to was to take his family and go along on his way; but not in any wise in order to evade (the consequences) of this (occurrence). This case of homicide, (he looked upon) as a most trivial and insignificant matter, which, (he thought), his brother and servants, who were on the spot, would be enough to settle. But, however, enough of this person. Now does your worship know who this ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... answered Lethbridge; "she twitched her head when your bullet struck her, but she had no time for more, for you killed her on the spot, just as she lay. An uncommonly neat shot I ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... low voice, to Bergenheim, "I am not surprised that the bumper asphyxiated him on the spot. Do you know, Baron, if this Monsieur de Gerfaut had taken anything but water during the evening, I should say that he was the drunker of the two; or that, if they were not such good friends, he wished to poison him in order to stop his talk. Did you notice that he ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... brave who found in Concord "a birthplace, home or grave" the plain shaft in the public square was erected on the spot where the Minute-men were probably first drawn up on the morning of the nineteenth of April. 1775 to listen to the inspiring words of their young preacher, Rev. William Emerson, and ninety years after in the same ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... malignant criticism of Mrs. Oliphant. Caroline Helstone does not justify it. She is no window-gazing virgin on the look-out, in love already before the man has come. She is a young girl, very naturally in love with a man whom she has known for years, who is always on the spot. As for Shirley, she flung herself with all the vehemence of her prophetic soul on the hypocritical convention that would make every woman dependent on some man, and at the same time despises her for the possession of her natural instincts. And Caroline followed her. "I observe ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... ought to be well bred, if not high bred, enough to give a tone to the society of her contemporaries, and above all she must not flirt. If I found flirtation going on with the officers, I should send her home on the spot. Of course, all this means that she must have the only real spring of good breeding, and be a thoroughly good, religious, unselfish, right-minded girl; otherwise we should have to rue our scheme. In spite of all you would do towards moulding and training a young maiden, there ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... an elephant gun; and yet this was the kind of weapon this doctor found necessary to bring to protect himself against British soldiers. Had that doctor been caught with his rifle he would have deserved to be shot on the spot. Nor were our men in the best of moods; for they had seen the dead Fusilier, and were furious at the wounds these huge ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... those splendid ones who promptly shed their blood on the spot where my perspiration fell? They eat bread once in a day, but not even enough of that. They toil through hard times by tightening up their bellies. O People, how have you tolerated in the sacred places the carrying ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... both agreed that he should be present as a witness to any agreement, and to protect my interests. Still another reason is that since we had to work so fast, the thing to do was to split the money on the spot in three ways, and then each of us shoot off in a different direction to-night before any bad luck had a chance to break. In fact, Barney, this present minute is when you ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... employed to procure arms which those who purchased them intended to turn upon the hands that fed them as soon as opportunity allowed. Whatever thanks might be felt by the peasantry towards those who on the spot gave of their private store to mitigate the pangs of the sufferers, no gratitude was entertained to the British public or to the government. Starving Ireland armed to strike down her benefactors with weapons procured by the misuse of the boon whicli these benefactors ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... often wonder who drinks all the beer for the distribution of which such ample facilities are afforded. A church, a public-house, and a blacksmith's shop constitute an English village; but there is nobody on the spot either to go to church or drink the beer. At Claremorris a similar effect is produced on the visitor's mind. The main street is full of shops, corn-dealers, drapers, butchers, bakers, and general dealers in everything, from a horse ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... but he couldn't do that, so he tried to talk me round with promises. Dear me! what didn't the man promise me! A bag full of money, and a pig every year, and every year a black suit, if I would only go quietly home with him. And he put on my finger on the spot a ring with a red stone that I had always fancied, so I went along quietly with him to his apartment that I had the key of. The Baron slept in my attic room, and I had to lie on the sofa in his best room to look as if I was trying to play the gentleman. ...
— The Story Of The Little Mamsell • Charlotte Niese
... abundance of trite sayings which they readily cite on all occasions. They thus hit, or at least fancy they hit, the principle which applies to the exigency, without the trouble of extemporaneously thinking it out for themselves on the spot. Such saws as, "The pot must not call the kettle black," "One swallow does not make a Spring," "Nought is never in danger," "Out of sight, out of mind," often give employment to an otherwise freightless tongue, and serve as excusing makeshifts for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... repulsive blocks of stone, Arch-pointed, low, with mould o'ergrown! Should he awake, new care were bred, He on the spot would straight be dead. Wood-fountains, swans, fair nymphs undressed, Such was his dream, presageful, rare; In place like this how could he rest, Which I, of easy mood, scarce bear! ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... they up-rooted them and planted their favorite oaks. But pines, oaks, Druids, temples, and all are gone now, except these few stones. I wondered whether any terrible human sacrifices had been offered on the spot where I was standing. The mountains were the same, and the sky was the same; but all else had changed since those fearful days. . . . Of course Rome was here, for where did that proud queen not set her imperial foot? But the only sign of her left is at Castletown: it is an ancient altar. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... thing happened. Tulips no longer grew in the garden; there was no room for them and nobody had time to look after such useless things. But on the spot where the old woman was buried the most beautiful tulips sprang up of themselves, and every night in the Springtime the faries may be seen bringing their babies to rock them to sleep in the ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... the newspaper which a nervy individual like that is working for would fire him on the spot?" Morris observed. ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... by this middle-aged sorrow. But, curse him! when she was a babe he had seen her in her little bath, had he? Damn his eyes! He had seen the baby naked in her tiny tub? Damn his eyes again! I was in such a fury that I longed to fight Royale on the spot and kill him, running my sword through his memory so that it would be blotted out forever, and never, never again, even in Paradise, could he recall the ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... to ask them all to dinner at the Hall on the following evening, and she either brought or devised on the spot the politest messages from the squire to the new rector, which pleased the sensitive Robert and silenced for the moment his various misgivings as to Mr. Wendover's advent. Then she stayed chattering, studying Rose every ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in the meantime, rebuilt Fort Caroline, and established a colony on the spot. On the arrival of De Gourgue in Florida, he made friends with some Indians, who, having been cruelly treated by the Spaniards, gladly welcomed him. Guided by his Indian friends, he made his way through the forests and swamps, just as Menendez ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... on the coffee plantations use rice as their staple food and it has to be brought from the Island of Oahu to the Islands of Hawaii and Maui. There is no doubt but that the rice used by the labor on the coffee plantations, can be raised on the spot, reducing the cost of living to the laborers, ...
— The Hawaiian Islands • The Department of Foreign Affairs
... tipped him on the spot. He should be able to identify those people at last! He felt that he ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... but the three men who had loitered drinking in Agworth. Redgrave came forward voluntarily and proved an alibi; he was vastly indignant at the charge brought against him, declared that window-breaking was not his business, and that had he been on the spot he should have used all his influence to prevent such contemptible doings. He held a meeting in Belwick of all the New Wanleyers he could gather together: those who came repudiated the outrage as useless and ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... three feet and a half, and some of them were grey, and seemed very old. He looked again, but he could not make out what was the heavy thing they were carrying until they came up to him, and then they all stood round about him. They threw the heavy thing down on the road, and he saw on the spot that it was ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... on the spot, if I should happen to catch you at such mean and cowardly work as you were just now engaged in," said the stranger, no seeking to ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... him at his word. The Morwick section of the American nation organized itself on the spot. The sovereign people met in committee, made speeches, elected competent persons to represent the public interests, and began the search the next day. The whole proceeding, ridiculously informal from a legal point of view, ...
— The Dead Alive • Wilkie Collins
... concourse of people to visit the house in Camberwell Lane, where Greenacre murdered Hannah Brown, in 1837, that it was found necessary to station a strong detachment of police on the spot. The crowd was so eager to obtain a relic of the house of this atrocious criminal, that the police were obliged to employ force to prevent the tables and chairs, and even the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... were he not too much above all praise of mine. His powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honours, against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired; while his softer qualities live in the recollection of friends who loved him too well to envy his superiority. [To an objection made by Dallas to this note, Byron replied, "I was so sincere in my note on the late Charles Matthews, and do feel myself so totally unable to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... parchment came floating along upon the air, their senses returned, and the most violent outcries, curses, and savage yells rose from the assembled multitude, and at the same moment a movement was made to rush upon the Christian, with the evident purpose to sacrifice him on the spot to the offended majesty of the empire. I supposed that their purpose would be easily and instantly accomplished, and that whatever I might attempt to do in his defence would be no more than a straw thrown in ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... to fight, for the power and patronage of the see would be equally coveted by another great mind—Mrs Proudie would also choose to be bishop of Barchester. Mr Slope, however, flattered himself that he could outmanoeuvre the lady. She must live much in London, while he would always be on the spot. She would necessarily remain ignorant of much while he would know everything belonging to the diocese. At first, doubtless, he must flatter and cajole, perhaps yield in some things; but he did not doubt of ultimate triumph. If all other means failed, he could join the bishop against the wife, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... of Empey, Holmes and Peat have been in describing the vicissitudes of army life. The author spent ten months in ambulance work on the Verdun firing line. What he saw and did is recounted with most graphic clearness. This book contains many illustrations photographed on the spot showing with vivid exactitude the terrors of rescue work under the fire ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... justification, though in terms which under the circumstances were immoderate, found himself compelled to confirm it when he took office in April, 1880. But he, too, allowed the liberal Constitution to sleep in its pigeon-hole. He was assured by the officials on the spot that there was no danger, that the majority were loyal, and only a minority of turbulent demagogues disloyal; and in December, 1880, the rebellion duly broke out, and the Transvaal Republic was proclaimed. What followed we know, war, Laing's Nek, Majuba, and one more violent oscillation ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... emperor told them that, as the danger they had run was a good deal more than he had expected, it was only fair that he should increase their reward; so instead of the 6,000 francs promised, 12,000 in gold were given to them on the spot. Nothing could express their delight; they kissed the hands of the emperor and all present, crying, "Now we are rich!" Napoleon laughingly asked the leader if he would go the same journey for the same price the next night. But the man answered that, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the spur; and, his eyes fixed on the spot where he had seen the heron and hawks falling, he galloped, regardless of every obstacle, forgetful that a trip would cost him a broken bone, and that he was a long ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... what suggested so admirable a notion, but it may have been coming by chance one day on the statue of Giordano Bruno, and realizing that it stood in the Campo di Fieri, on the spot where he was burned three hundred years ago for abetting Copernicus in his sacrilegious system of astronomy, and for divers other heresies, as well as the violation of his monastic vows. I saw it with the thrill which the solemn figure, heavily draped, ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... of punishment on the outlaw; there was the necessity of safeguarding the innocent from the menace of those hidden man-traps. Any "furriner" from down below might wander here, whipping the stream; or any one of the neighborhood might chance on the spot. The Widow Higgins' heifers sometimes strayed; the old woman might come hither, seeking them. Plutina shuddered again, before the terrible vision of the one who was like a mother to her, caught and mangled by the pointed fangs waiting amid the ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... reverie; I called to mind all my mother had told me, and I longed to return to the Hall, and visit those scenes which had been referred to in my mother's narrative; and more than that, I wished to meet Lord de Versely on the spot which could not fail to call to his mind my mother, then young, fond, and confiding; how much she had sacrificed for him; how true she had proved to his interests, and how sacred the debt of obligation, which he could only repay by his conduct ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... in the house all this time, as may well be supposed, without deciding what I would do in case of surprise, and exactly where I could best stand on the defensive. The flat bottom of the lamp which hung outside the passage threw a deep shadow on the spot immediately below it, while the light fell brightly on the steps beyond. Standing in the shadow I could reach the edge of the stairs with my point, and swing the blade freely, without fear of the balustrade; ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... his head and gazed at her in respectful wonder which was almost trouble. Who was going to pay for things, and who was going to look for things which were not on the spot? Enterprise like this was ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... ends of the four strands shall spread out from the center as the legs of a spider from its body. The knot is further characterized by being tied quite awkwardly, as if by a mere child. It is deposited on the spot over which the heart of the animal is supposed to have rested or passed. Then a forked twig of cedar is cut and stuck very obliquely into the ground, so that the prongs stand in a direction opposite to that of the course taken ...
— Zuni Fetiches • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... scene," said the commissioner, wiping his eyes. "I must keep the impression of it for my 'Columbiad';" and drawing out his tablet, he proceeded to write on the spot an apostrophe to Freedom, which afterwards found a place ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... he was mistaken, and had him eat an egg. After a time of apprehension and retching, he vomited the egg, thinking, of course, that he had proved his point. To his astonishment, I said, "Now, let's go and eat another." With great consternation, he finally complied, evidently expecting to die on the spot; but as I immediately prescribed a game of tennis, he scarcely had time to think of the pain, which in fact failed to appear. However, as he thereafter insisted on eating four eggs a day,—with eggs at top-notch price I decided that the ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... and vague, that he is so intimate that he makes all others appear cold and distant, so lifelike that they seem shadowy, so true that they seem false. Now this has commonly been attributed to his habit of noting down on the spot and at the moment anything that struck him in Johnson's talk or doings; and to his perfect willingness to exhibit his own discomfitures so long as they served to honour or illustrate his hero. In this way people have talked of his one merit being faithfulness, and of his ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... He assumed the case of some inquiring and intelligent foreigner, a stranger to our institutions but anxious to learn all about them, who had come to England for the purpose of obtaining information on the spot. The stranger has the nature and the purpose of our Parliamentary system explained to him, and he is assured that it rests on the representative principle. He is told that the House of Commons is assembled for the ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... removed, thirty clerks were set to work on the spot to draw up charters of manumission, and banners were presented to each county. At nightfall thousands returned home convinced that the old order was ended, and that the Royal charters were genuine ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... head-over-heels on the spot, after which he rushed off again to join the rest of the House of Lords, who were playing 'hi! cockalorum,' ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... true; And, God be praised, without a loose design, To plunge in luxuries pronounced divine. Protect me Heav'n! poor sinner that I'm here! To guard thy honour I will persevere. My worthy master could I thus disgrace? Thou wanton baggage with unblushing face, Thee on the spot I'll instantly chastise, And then thy husband of ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... pregnant woman's longings as something sacred and to be indulged, all the more, no doubt, as they are usually of a simple and harmless character. In the Black Forest, according to Ploss and Bartels, a pregnant woman may go freely into other people's gardens and take fruit, provided she eats it on the spot, and very similar privileges are accorded to her elsewhere. Old English opinion, as reflected, for instance, in Ben Jonson's plays (as Dr. Harriet C.B. Alexander has pointed out), regards the pregnant woman as not responsible for her longings, and Kiernan remarks ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... parents, who would be justly proud of his fame. He would not marry, would not burden his life with a wife who would be in his way, but then he might make love. He felt so sure of success that he sprang out of bed as though to grasp it on the spot, and he dressed to go and search through the town ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... spare pair of tennis shoes had permanently spoiled the future of half-a-dozen eggs which were being hatched on the spot where the shoes happened to be placed. Ukridge had ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... historical novels; but as such it has one grievous fault. It is not quite true to the people or even to the locality which it endeavors to represent. One who reads it here, in a new and different land, thinks only of the story and of the novelist's power; but one who reads it on the spot which it describes, and amidst the life which it pictures, is continually haunted by the suggestion that George Eliot understood neither Italy nor the Italians. It is this lack of harmony with Italian life itself ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... recover the spoil: But happening to fall in with the Turks in a strait and craggy place, and rushing heedlessly among the enemy, unprovided with his armour, he was shot in the back by an arrow, which pierced his liver, and he died on the spot. His soldiers brought back the dead body of Hugh to the city of Nazareth near Mount Thabor, where he was honourably interred. Gerard, the brother of Hugh, lay at this time sick of a dangerous illness, and died within eight ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... lay, as he supposed, and as the doctors told him, on his death-bed, and, pondering on the probable destitution of his family, he repented his rash vow, and stated to Adelaide that he should no longer oppose her wishes. M. Louison, procuring leave of absence for a few days, was speedily on the spot, and, with as little loss of time as possible, was united to the daughter of the seemingly dying merchant. As, in such circumstances, it would have been cruel for Madame Louison to leave the bedside of her aged parent, it was arranged that she should remain till the period ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... like a whole skin and prefer an embrace to a sword-thrust any day, like my ancestress, the Queen of Naples, who consummated the marriage forced upon her on the spot and in sight of the army rather than have her head cut off. Too bad she was hanged in the ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... been men connected with him who knew Rome in his time, and whose knowledge moved them to indignation and despair. One bishop assured him that the Christian religion was extinct there, and only survived in its forms; and an important ecclesiastic on the spot wrote: Delenda est Carthago. The archives of the Culturkampf contain a despatch from a Protestant statesman sometime his friend, urging his government to deal with the Papacy as they would deal with Dahomey. Doellinger's impression on his journey was very different. ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... dark, as Lovel, in the 'Antiquary,' leads the Wardours and Edie Ochiltree up the crags of the Halket Head. Next day, the outcasts were hospitably received by Mr. Milner, Collector of Customs at Poole. Stephen had to remain for some time on the spot to look after the salvage of the cargo. The drowned captain had left some valuable papers in a chest. He appeared in a dream to Stephen, and gave information which led to their recovery. The news that his ghost was on the look-out had, it is said, ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... charcoal, broken bones, and the remains of shells and pottery. On the northwest the new colonists erected walls in place of those which had fallen down, but they were of very inferior masonry, coarse bricks baked on the spot, in the way customary among the Trojans, having ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... gates shouts after me to halt and produce "passaporte." Exhibiting my passport at almost every village is getting monotonous, and, as I am going to remain here at least overnight, I ignore the gendarme's challenge and wheel on to the mehana. Two gendarmes are soon on the spot, inquiring if I have a "passaporte;" but, upon learning that I am going no farther to-day, they do not take the trouble to examine it, the average Turkish official religiously believing in never doing anything to-day that can be ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... me, or I would have ended this Captain Lawton on the spot; besides, the cold had set me a-shivering, and I had ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... On the spot, as well as at the present time, I remembered with pain the deplorable weakness and wickedness of the remarks on this event contained in Paine's "Age of Reason," and which I do not choose to repeat. The most charitable opinion that one can entertain of such writers is that they know nothing ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... and shoulders, and his dirty phiz is only half visible through a kind of grill of legs and cross-bars. These are partly commissions which, having executed at home, he is carrying to their several owners. But as everybody does not choose to trust him away with property, he is ready to execute orders on the spot; and to this end his wife accompanies him on his rounds. She is loaded with a small bag of tools suspended at her waist, and a plentiful stock of split-cane under one arm. He will weave a new cane-seat to an old chair for 9d., and he will set down his load and do ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... my intelligence, have you? Colonel Campion—I believe you know him—is scarcely the man to sit still when such gossip as that reaches his ears. As for the proofs, I know how to find them. The worthy Mrs. Briggs was on the spot, you may remember. Her evidence would be valuable. And there are other well-known means which I needn't go into now. But I assure you the circumstances themselves, properly handled, are sufficiently suspicious. You would ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... have put in Appendix 24, "Renaissance Bases," my memorandum written respecting this building on the spot. But the reader had better delay referring to it, until we have completed our examination of ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... Munich Railroad as to the supply of locomotives for working their line. As this was rather an important and extensive transaction, we thought it better not to trust to correspondence, but to see the directors on the spot. We found that there were several riskful conditions attached to the proposed contract, which we considered it imprudent to agree to. We had afterwards good reason to feel satisfied that we had not ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... mean, of an English ship coming on shore there to fetch me off; and it could not be but a very great surprise to them, when they came back, not only to find that I was gone, but to find three strangers left on the spot, possessed of all that I had left behind me, which would otherwise have ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... of Timur. The same name is traceable in the Kansan of Odoric, which he calls the second best province in the world, and the best populated Whatever may have been the origin of the name Kenjanfu, Baron v. Richthofen was, on the spot, made aware of its conservation in the exact form of the Ramusian Polo. The Roman Catholic missionaries there emphatically denied that Marco could ever have been at Si-ngan fu, or that the city had ever been known by such a name as Kenjan-fu. On this the Baron called in one ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... sandal-wood trade was in the house conversing with Tutoo, when Angadhohua interrupted him, and he—in ignorance of the youth's rank—pushed him aside out of the way. The excitement was great. A few years previously the offender would have been killed on the spot, and as it was, it was only after apology and explanation of his ignorance that he was allowed to go free; but an escort was sent with him to a place twenty miles off lest any one should endeavour to avenge the insult, not knowing it ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and raised quite an emotion; I know it, for I was there, and heard and saw all, and had I not placed my hand on his shoulder to stop him, he would have compromised such grave interests, that, had he not been quiet at my touch, I should have been compelled to poniard him on the spot." ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... was on the spot when trouble occurred. This particular policeman was passing through the train shed and he saw the blow delivered. He ran up and, to be on the safe side, put both men under technical arrest. The sweeper, who had been bowled over by the clout he had got, made a ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... bringing the information acquired in this latter mode to the test of his own observation and good sense. It is from the united action and guidance of these two qualifications—individual observation and experience gained by most patient and diligent research and enquiry on the spot, and a high degree of perspicacity, strength of intellect, and good sense, separating the truth from the fable of all he learnt from the observation and experience of others, that Herodotus has justly acquired so high degree of reputation, and that in almost ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... of his favourite axe. The English array now withdrew to a short distance, and it became evident that the great battle would be delayed till the morrow. The Scotch army therefore broke its ranks and prepared to pass the night on the spot where it stood. The king assembled all his principal leaders round him, and after thanking God for so fair a beginning of the fight as had that day been made, he pointed out to them how great an effect the two preliminary skirmishes would have upon the spirits of both armies, and expressed ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... were not at war, I should discharge you on the spot for disrespectful behavior. But England is in danger; and I cannot think of my personal dignity at such a moment. [Shouting at him.] Don't you think of yours, either, worm that you are; or I'll have you arrested under the Defence of ...
— Augustus Does His Bit • George Bernard Shaw
... by my engaging Thomas on the spot, at outrageous wages, and with permission to sleep in the gardener's lodge, empty since the house was rented. The old man—he was white-haired and a little stooped, but with an immense idea of his personal ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... from the mustang, and turned him loose to make the best of such scanty herbage as he could find. Then he unpacked his own provisions, and made a comfortable meal; after which he rolled a cigarette and reclined on the spot most available, to rest and recuperate. The valley, or gorge, lay before him in the afternoon light. It was a strange and savage spectacle. Had it been torn asunder by some stupendous explosion, it could not have presented ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... whispered Shep to his chums. "I don't think we want to stay after the circus people come for the lion and the chimpanzee." And after some talking the young hunters offered the Spink crowd part of their food supplies and a few other things. This surprised Ham, Carl and the rest. They accepted the offer on the spot, and a better feeling prevailed between the boys than ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... with temporary enthusiasm. Determined to cut their way out by one vigorous movement, the whole army at last marched forth from their entrenchments, with drums beating, colors flying; but already the concealed reinforcements of their enemies were on the spot. The patriots met with a warmer reception than they had expected. Their courage evaporated. Hardly had they advanced three hundred yards, when the whole body wavered and then retreated precipitately towards the encampment, having ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... after all. So we came, and were so charmed by the exquisite beauty of the scenery, by the coolness of the climate and the absence of our countrymen, political troubles serving admirably our private requirements, that we made an offer for rooms on the spot, and returned to Florence for baby and the rest of our establishment without further delay. Here we are, then; we have been here more than a fortnight. We have taken an apartment for the season—four months—paying ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... college of canons had been founded in another locality by Godfrey of Bouillon. The Brabantine hero, who so romantically incarnates the religious poetry of his age, who first mounted the walls of redeemed Jerusalem, and was its first Christian monarch, but who refused to accept a golden diadem on the spot where the Saviour had been crowned with thorns; the Fleming who lived and was the epic which the great Italian, centuries afterwards; translated into immortal verse, is thus fitly associated with the beautiful architectural poem which was to grace his ancestral realms. The body ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... chosen on the spot; and the arms ordered; namely, six mighty goblets, or Bassglaser, filled to the brim with foaming beer. Three were placed ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the lumber yards," the chief said. "I expected that. There is fire apparatus on the spot.... It's ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... lightly as to permit him to take office under all circumstances. Secretary of the Treasury in the closing weeks of President Buchanan, he aroused the North by sending his immortal dispatch to the commander of a revenue cutter: "If any man attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot." This bespoke the heart of the patriot, loving his country's banner, and the arm of the hero, ready to defend it; and, clad in this armor of proof, he has since been invulnerable. The President took kindly to the proposition concerning ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor |
