"On the spur of the moment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... once so fragile and so devoted that on the spur of the moment I relented, and we stayed ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... share in the income, not only for himself, but for all future curates. In the upper rectory (the lower is the curate's house) was born Bishop Heber in 1783, and in the early years of this century, before missionary meetings were as common as they are now, the young clergyman wrote on the spur of the moment, with only one word corrected, the well-known hymn, "From Greenland's Icy Mountains." A missionary sermon was announced for Sunday at Wrexham, the vicarage of Heber's father-in-law, Shirley, and the want ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... exclaimed, "here am I bothering over words, and questioning about this and that, as if I were testing his fitness for a post I had to offer him, and he all the time claiming my obedience! I cannot even, on the spur of the moment at least, tell one thing he wants me to do; and as to doing anything because he told me—not once did I ever! But then how am I to obey him until I am sure of his right to command? I just want to know whether I am ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... hesitated. He had said purple on the spur of the moment, chiefly because it sounded derogatory and went ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... he did not fully grasp, see connections that have escaped him, understand the force of arguments which he missed; and he will assume a more independent and critical attitude toward what he has heard than was possible on the spur of the moment, when he was driven on and could not stop and reflect. At home, in the quiet of his study, he can organize the material, see the parts of the discourse in their relations to each other, and re-create the whole as it lived and moved in the mind of the teacher. In doing ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... arousable. Things do not "stir him up" as they do other people. He is more self-contained, self-controlled and self-sufficient than any other. He is not easily carried off his feet and seldom yields to impulse. It is difficult to get him to do anything on the spur of the moment. He usually has his evenings, Sundays and vacations all planned in advance and ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... said Anonyma; and then, as he did not move, she added on the spur of the moment, "Also a design for a new kind of bomb which I bought from a ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... I answered—I do assure you—on the spur of the moment and nothing else. But my lie was told; my position was taken; from that moment onward there was no retreat. By implication, without realizing what I was doing, I had already declared myself W. F. Raffles. Therefore, W. F. Raffles I would be, ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... success of her plot, which she had conceived on the spur of the moment, as most clever plots are conceived. On the way home she confided to her cousins a method of securing revenge upon the agent for selling them the three copies of the "Lives of ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... flourish of his hat and his small gold-headed black cane the doctor bowed himself out from the formidable dowager. That lady turned her back upon him, and betook herself on the spur of the moment to Maude's room, ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... enthusiastically[107] of Bentham's model prison, the Panopticon. Colquhoun shows how strangely the severity of the law was combined with its extreme capaciousness. He quotes Bacon[108] for the statement that the law was a 'heterogeneous mass concocted too often on the spur of the moment,' and gives sufficient proofs of its truth. He desires, for example, a law to punish receivers of stolen goods, and says that there were excellent laws in existence. Unfortunately one law applied exclusively to the case of pewter-pots, and another exclusively to the precious metals; neither ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... it was merely a suggestion made on the spur of the moment. I am sure Miss Affleck will be charmed with the—the scenery, whenever it can conveniently be shown ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... another that I observed the beautiful steam-engine which gave motion to the tools and machinery of the workshops. The man who attended it was engaged in cleaning out the ashes from under the boiler furnace, in order to wheel them away to their place outside. On the spur of the moment I said to Mr. Maudslay, "If you would only permit me to do such a job as that in your service, I should consider myself most fortunate!" I shall never forget the keen but kindly look that he gave me. "So ," said he, "you are one of that sort, ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... all servants entrusted with the defence of an artist's work, to a certain rigor of orders, he yet hesitated, in the face of the untruth which Gorka had invented on the spur of the moment, and he was about to yield to his importunity when some one appeared on the staircase of the hall. That some one was none other than Florent Chapron. Chance decreed that the latter should send for a carriage in which to go to lunch, and that the carriage should be late. At the sound ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... and Miss Duckworth did not happen to be looking. A sudden spirit of mischief seized her, and hastily stooping and catching up a handful of snow, she kneaded it quickly, and threw it at Mollie Simpson to attract her attention. It was done on the spur of the moment, in sheer fun. But, alas for Marjorie! her aim was not true, and instead of hitting Mollie her missile struck one of the soldiers. He chuckled with delight, and promptly responded. In a moment his ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... of the Premier was against England. It was not a speech made on the spur of the moment, but was doubtless the result of many consultations, perhaps with Russia, perhaps with Germany, or with France—who knows? We have been growing very friendly with Russia of late; and as England has spies all over the world, doubtless ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... day my 'poetic career' began. At thirteen I wrote a long poem a la 'Lady of the Lake'—1300 lines in six days. At thirteen I wrote a drama of 2000 lines, a full-fledged passionate thing that I began on the spur of the moment without forethought, just to spite my doctor who said I was very ill and must not touch a book. My health broke down permanently about this time, and my regular studies being stopped I read voraciously. I suppose the greater part of my reading was done between fourteen and sixteen. ...
— The Golden Threshold • Sarojini Naidu
... continual menace could not but fill Wahb with uneasiness, for he was not young now, and his teeth and claws were worn and blunted. He was more than ever troubled with pains in his old wounds, and though he could have risen on the spur of the moment to fight any number of Grizzlies of any size, still the continual apprehension, the knowledge that he must hold himself ready at any moment to fight this young monster, weighed on his spirits and began to tell on ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... and yet his arrival was a bit of a surprise; and on the spur of the moment I could not for the life of me think what was best to do. One couldn't nobble the man, and still I didn't intend that he should read that Recipe. So, being unable to make up my mind to any other course of proceeding, I just cowered quietly where I was and ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... shouldn't like that at all,' she replied, nervously but amiably. She wished to believe that his suggestion about selling the house was merely an idle notion thrown out on the spur of the moment, ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... Margaret, will give you a fairly satisfactory idea of a very unsatisfactory state of affairs except that I am not quite sure about Chinon. Walter looked so mischievous, when he added that bit of information, that I am inclined to think he made it up, on the spur of the moment, just to give ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... The cattleman said nothing. On the spur of the moment, he could not think of the fitting speech. The eyes of his visitor, becoming accustomed to the dim light, saw before her the outline of a man. She let out a startled little scream that ended in ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... mean time, Jurgen, I am afraid I cannot answer your question on the spur of the moment. You see, there appears to have been a great number of human beings, as you call them, evolved upon—oh, yes!—upon Earth. I have the approximate figures over yonder, but they would hardly interest you. And the desires of each one of these human beings seem to have been multitudinous and ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... seemed to him there was something metallic in her laughter, and that the light in her eyes was cold. On the spur of the moment it reminded him of a gale he had once experienced in the North Pacific. And for the moment the apparition of the gale rose before his eyes—a gale at night, with a clear sky and under a full moon, the huge seas glinting coldly in the ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... gentler, calmer of the two, was quite carried away by Maria's courage, energy, readiness of resource and impulsive enthusiasm, so that she considered the most fantastic projects which the Polish lady elaborated on the spur of the moment with the rapidity of cloud formation, as perfectly natural ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... a matter of fact he and his friends had forgotten to name the canoe, but he supplied the name on the spur of the moment. It made a prompt hit with ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... You came there with but one idea, and you could not change it on the spur of the moment. When I told you that I was engaged you could not swallow back the words that were not yet spoken. Ah, how well I remember it. But you are wrong, Phineas. It was not my engagement or my marriage that has made the world a blank for me." A feeling came upon him which half-choked ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... look at the practical side of divination, it seems absurd to imagine that events in a man's past life and secrets known only to himself can be represented on the spur of the moment by a pack of cards which he shuffles and cuts for the fortune-teller to lay out in piles according to certain mysterious rules; but then the steam-engine was condemned as absurd, aerial navigation is still said to be absurd, so in their time were the inventions ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... with childlike simplicity of manner; yet nowhere in these pages have we had a finer example of the subtlety which, characteristic of the speaker, seemed inspiration rather than study. He knew from general report how religion dominated his host, and on the spur of the moment, thought to pique curiosity with respect to his own faith; seeing, as he fancied, a clear path to another audience, with ampler opportunity to submit and discuss the idea of Universal Brotherhood ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... in the confusion, arrived on deck somewhat scalded, but calm. There was a sound below of things happening—a rushing, clicking, purring, grunting, rattling noise that did not last for more than a minute. It was the machinery adjusting itself, on the spur of the moment, to a hundred altered conditions. Mr. Wardrop, one foot on the upper grating, inclined his ear sideways, and groaned. You cannot stop engines working at twelve knots an hour in three seconds without disorganising them. The Haliotis slid forward in a cloud of steam, shrieking like a wounded ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... from a two years' tour in the East, and instead of going to his palace in the capital, or to one of his magnificently appointed castles, always in readiness to receive him, no matter what the season, he had, on the spur of the moment, decided upon this little hunting castle of Rodeck, where he could not be comfortably housed, and where the few retainers who took charge of the place, were ill-prepared for such an honor. But as old Stadinger had said, no one dare ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... really believed, at the moment of his panic-terror, that he saw Edmund Woodley fall, and had at once taken flight, without attempting to afford him any assistance. The story of the brains had, of course, been invented on the spur of the moment, by way of excusing his flight, and he was obliged to persist in the falsehood he had once uttered, though he was not by any means certain that it had been his master whom he saw killed, especially after hearing ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Pylos itself outside the inlet towards the open sea having no harbour, and, therefore, presenting no point which they could use as a base to relieve their countrymen, they, the Lacedaemonians, without sea-fight or risk would in all probability become masters of the place, occupied as it had been on the spur of the moment, and unfurnished with provisions. This being determined, they carried over to the island the heavy infantry, drafted by lot from all the companies. Some others had crossed over before in relief parties, but these last who were left ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... been very lucky throughout all this adventure; still, I did not wish to attribute my easy escape entirely to luck, for I had, I thought, contributed a good deal towards it by my promptness in acting and in inventing a plausible story on the spur of the moment. ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... quotas under the first call for militia. This was easy enough as to men. It required only a few days to fill the regiments and forward them to the State capitals and principal cities; but to arm and equip them for the field on the spur of the moment was a difficult task which involved much confusion and delay, even though existing armories and foundries pushed their work to the utmost and new ones were established. Under the militia call, the governors appointed all the officers required by their respective quotas, from company lieutenant ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... "You're a sharp one, Bob, to make up such a plausible story on the spur of the moment, but I know the General did not believe a ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... pound," and stared helplessly at the cottages opposite, confused by the need to assimilate, on the spur of the moment, ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... Walpole 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, and especially his love ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... should retire again, as six of the jury were against convicting us; but the foreman, who was bitterly hostile, jumped at the chance of snatching a conviction, and none of those in our favour had the courage to contradict him on the spur of the moment, so the foreman's "Guilty" passed, and the judge set us free, on Mr. Bradlaugh's recognisances to come up for ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... had written several similar notes that week,—I lived but a few streets away,—all on the spur of the moment, and all expressive of his varying moods and wants; the former suggested by his unbounded enthusiasm over his new railroad scheme, and the latter by such requests as these: "Will you lend me half a dozen napkins—mine are all in the wash, and I want enough to carry me ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Merrion Row I found the same silent groups, who were still looking in the direction of the Green, and addressing each other occasionally with the detached confidence of strangers. Suddenly, and on the spur of the moment, I addressed one of ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... to be always "soixante- quinze." Even those who love her best do not insist that she is beautiful. Her merits are French—logic, directness, simplicity, and the supreme gift of "occasionality." She is equal to everything on the spur of the moment. One sees and studies the few appliances which make her do what she does, and one feels that any one could ...
— France At War - On the Frontier of Civilization • Rudyard Kipling
... had no knowledge of what I proposed doing, nor that I had any men with me. Indeed, I myself acted merely on the spur of the moment." ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... out of him a few lines of verse or a little letter. So compliant was he that they made it very difficult for him. To refuse seemed uncivil when they pressed him so. But to write when his mind was intent elsewhere, and not a minute to spare from his labours——! However, he did write, on the spur of the moment, turning aside for a little to the ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... friendship with two or three of the same mind as themselves, with whom they strolled about in these grounds, either erecting altars for song, or establishing societies for scanning poetical works. Their meetings were, it is true, prompted, on the spur of the moment, by a sudden fit of good cheer, but these have again and again proved, during many years, a pleasant topic of conversation. I, your cousin, may, I admit, be devoid of talent, yet I have been fortunate enough to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... not to repeat the Advertisement contained in the Correo Nacional of the 17th inst., and that he be cautioned how he commits the Society by advertisements of a similar character. And further, that he be desired to state to Sir George Villiers that the advertisement in question was inserted by him on the spur of the moment, and without any opportunity of obtaining instructions from ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... exploits depend on Fortune; whether it was that he did this for the sake of display, or because he really had such opinions of the deity. Indeed he has recorded in his memoirs, that the actions which he resolved upon without deliberation, and on the spur of the moment, turned out more successfully than those which appeared to have been best considered. And again, from the passage in which he says that he was made more for fortune than for war, he appears to attribute more ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... left altogether intact. Nevertheless, strange to say, there was perhaps no Reading out of the whole series of sixteen, in the delivery of which the Author more readily indulged himself with an occasional gag. Every interpolation of this kind, however, was so obviously introduced on the spur of the moment, so refreshingly spontaneous and so ludicrously apropos, that it was always cheered to the very echo, or, to put the fact not conventionally but literally, was received with peals of laughter. Thus it was in ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... therefore treat with indifference what was to her an affair of the greatest moment; and a snub being one of those things which Cornelia found it most difficult, even in the mildest form, to endure, she had resolved, on the spur of the moment, to approach the topic of her proposed departure with the same coolness which she expected Sophie to manifest when ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... about five feet seven threw the universe temporarily out of focus. In the second place, in anticipation of Mrs. Bell's entry, he had twisted his face into a forbidding scowl, and it was no slight matter to change this on the spur of the moment into a pleasant smile. Finally, a man who has been sitting for half an hour in front of a sheet of paper bearing the words: "The Adventure of the Wand of Death," and trying to decide what a wand of death might be, has not his mind ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... allow what he regarded as a covert sneer against the House of Lords to pass unchallenged. He repelled the insinuation with unusual warmth, and laid stress on his own regard for individual members of that assembly. Then, on the spur of the moment, came an unexpected personal tribute. He declared that 'there was no man in England whom he respected more in his public capacity, loved more in his private capacity, or from whom he had received more remarkable proofs of his honour ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... he had not a single scrap of comfort to offer; but his task was before him. He had to execute it, and he determined to do it as gently as possible, and to put matters in the most hopeful light he could on the spur of the moment. ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... or suppers at a restaurant, unless organized on the spur of the moment, are ordered beforehand, and everything, including the waiter's tip, arranged and settled for. If you have not an account at the restaurant, pay the bill at the time you order the menu and reserve the table. Flowers should be included, and a centerpiece of roses, which ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... utterly unfounded charge sprung on the spur of the moment, but it silenced Dunnoo, who knew that Kim's clear yell could call up legions of bad ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... one of those who invent circumstantial stories easily on the spur of the moment. He searched rapidly for something that would pass muster, then abandoned the hopeless struggle. After all, why not be frank? He still believed Jimmy to be of the class of the hero of "Love, the Cracksman." There would be no harm in confiding in him. He was a good fellow, ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... by the "voice of conscience," tells the personality[27] what its duty is. This wisdom, sifted from the panorama of a thousand past images, is the best of all memories, for on those numerous occasions when a decision must be arrived at on the spur of the moment it would not be possible to summon forth from the depths of the past such groups of memories as refer to the decision to be reached, to see the events over again, and deduce therefrom a line of conduct. The lesson must have been learnt ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... subject is worthy of better treatment. I'd like a really big story, treated artistically, and one that would fit perfectly into the background of the Red Mill—nothing slapdash and carelessly written, or invented on the spur of the moment by a ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... in sitting up recalled me to my duty. I ran to Sir Cyril, and, kneeling down so as to screen his body from her sight, I drew the dagger from its sheath, and began hastily, with such implements as I could contrive on the spur of the moment, ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... indulges in a fling at "the efforts of certain recent printers to retrieve this decadence by throwing on to the already overburdened trade several big, heavy, and voluminous works of standard authors termed 'editions de luxe.'" He assures his hearers that his judgments were not formed on the spur of the moment, but were based partly on long personal observations—Stevens was the author of that widely influential piece of selective bibliography, "My English Library," London, 1853—and on the results of the international exhibitions since 1851, especially those of Vienna (1874), Philadelphia (1876), and ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... officer of the court, dressed with barbaric splendour, ushered him into the drinking-room. A discordant chorus of outlandish voices, raised by a hundred guests or more, bade him welcome. He walked up to his seat by the king, and on the spur of the moment could hit on no plan of communicating with his men. Helgi followed him to the dais, and with him he just found time to exchange ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... my "poetic career" began. At thirteen I wrote a long poem a la "Lady of the Lake"—1300 lines in six days. At thirteen I wrote a drama of 2000 lines, a full-fledged passionate thing that I began on the spur of the moment, without forethought, just to spite my doctor, who said I was very ill and must not touch a book. My health broke down permanently about this time, and, my regular studies being stopped, I read voraciously. I suppose the greater part of ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... scarcely intelligible to the whole of the company, the dialogue of this part of the piece was so lifelike and natural, that every one recognised its truth; while the situations, arranged with the slightest effort, and on the spur of the moment, were extremely ludicrous. The scene was supposed to take place in a small Lancashire alehouse, where a jovial pedlar was carousing, and where, being visited by his three sweethearts—each of whom he privately ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... whenever he appeared; but only one did he seriously fancy, according to the authority of Marmot's verandah, and she, by the same token, fully reciprocated his feelings, and was, moreover, the admitted beauty of the district. And yet Tony, not apparently on the spur of the moment, but calmly and with his eyes open, had thrown in his lot with the three fossickers, and had gone off without scarcely a word to any one. Why, Birralong collectively did not know, for there had not been time as yet for ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... articles should become adept in the use of a camera. With a little study and practice, any one can take photographs that will reproduce well for illustrations. One advantage to a writer of operating his own camera is that he can take pictures on the spur of the moment when he happens to see just what he needs. Unconventional pictures caught at the right instant often ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... by now seemed to have recovered in part. He was looking at the boys in a peculiar way; Max could not decide on the spur of the moment whether it was wonder or shrewdness that he saw there as the predominant trait of the man's features. But at any rate, since he had recovered his breath to some extent, he should be capable of speaking, and explaining ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... it is no longer possible for teachers, however distinguished, to attract throngs of students to places absolutely unprovided with the resources for teaching, or to provide these resources anywhere on the spur of the moment In the twelfth century, on the contrary, the only necessary equipment consisted in the master, his small library which could be carried by one man; wax tablets, or pens, ink, and vellum or parchment for the students; ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... servant in answering the door. Her master stopped her in the hall. He was pleasantly conscious of the recovery of his cunning. But his memory (far from active under the most favourable circumstances) was slower than ever at helping him now. On the spur of the moment he could only call to mind that he had been ordered to prevent a meeting between Lord Harry and Iris. "Show the gentleman ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... on the spur of the moment that she might as well tell her grandfather the fact. "My brother has come down," she said; "and is at the inn there. I had not intended to tell you, as I did not wish to mention his name till you had consented ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... trees, but he could not make them sing; therefore thou art greater than Orpheus, for thou compellest my aged Muse to song." The style of both words and music suggests that the whole cantata was thrown off, as Mainwaring suggests, on the spur of the moment, and this improvisation may well have taken place at one of the Arcadians' garden parties, for there is a well-known account of a similar improvisation by the poet Zappi and ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... Months ago she had seen an actress use this smile in a play, and it came perfectly to Alice now, without conscious direction, it had been so well acquired; but the pretty hand's little impulse toward the heart was an original bit all her own, on the spur of the moment. ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... convalescent Ilbrahim contrived games suitable to his situation or amused him by a faculty which he had perhaps breathed in with the air of his barbaric birthplace. It was that of reciting imaginary adventures on the spur of the moment, and apparently in inexhaustible succession. His tales were, of course, monstrous, disjointed and without aim, but they were curious on account of a vein of human tenderness which ran through them all and was like a sweet familiar ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... further he walked the hungrier he naturally became. Short of trailing home, there were only two places where he could go—his grandfather's in Park Lane, and Timothy's in the Bayswater Road. Which was the less deplorable? At his grandfather's he would probably get a better dinner on the spur of the moment. At Timothy's they gave you a jolly good feed when they expected you, not otherwise. He decided on Park Lane, not unmoved by the thought that to go up to Oxford without affording his grandfather a chance to tip him was hardly fair ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to any such modification of their original programme. When they arrived in Salisbury, the doctor did make some slight effort to suggest a different hotel from that in which the two ladies had engaged their rooms, but on the spur of the moment and in their presence he could produce no sufficient reason for refusing the accommodation the Old George had ready for him. He was reduced to a vague: "We don't want to inflict ourselves—" He could not get Sir Richmond aside for any adequate expression of his feelings ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... jump, in the same breath, per saltum [Lat.], uno saltu [Lat.]; at once, all at once; plump, slap; at one fell swoop; at the same instant &c n.; immediately &c (early) 132; extempore, on the moment, on the spot, on the spur of the moment; no sooner said than done; just then; slap-dash &c (haste) 684. Phr. touch and go; no ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was altogether impossible for me to find any external criterion of the truth: I even ceased from producing, until at length I was quieted by my own light temperament, and the feeling of my own powers, and lastly by a trial of skill,—started on the spur of the moment by our teachers and parents, who had noted our sport,—in which I came off ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... of course, a most unorthodox thing for Ingred to blurt out family affairs, and Father and Mother would have been justly indignant had they known, but she was impulsive, and without much worldly wisdom, and Mr. Hardcastle seemed sympathetic, so on the spur of the moment she told him the urgency of Athelstane's need, and how she was trying to meet it. He sat quite quiet for a short time, staring into the fire, then he said, very ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... shared in the general joy; for Mr. Greenwood was so utterly discouraged with her mismanagement of the house, so determined not to fly to ills he knew not of, and so anxious to bring order out of chaos, that on the spur of the moment one day he married her. On the next day he discharged the cook, hired a better one the third, dunned the delinquent boarder the fourth, and collected from him on the fifth; so the May check (signed Clementine Chadwick Greenwood) was ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... balls and dinners of a semi-barbaric people striving for social prominence by shutting a certain number in and a certain number out, and overdressing, overfeeding, and overdrinking. Anything premeditated in the way of a pleasure we think stupid and mistaken; we like to meet suddenly, or on the spur of the moment, out-of-doors, if possible, and arrange a picnic or a dance or a play; and let people come and go without ceremony. No one is more host than guest; all are hosts and guests. People consort much according to their tastes—literary, ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... in truth, as stereotyped as the other. Professor Granville had on previous occasions been the recipient of similar testimonials, and he had found it convenient to have a set form of acknowledgment. He was wise in this, for it is a hard thing on the spur of the moment suitably to offer ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... His name is Hobo," answered Peggy on the spur of the moment, and Priscilla replied with dignity that he looked the part, and returned to her cooling ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... to the subject, even to an occasional neglect of the manner. Cut off as he was, he nevertheless merits a high place; such is his facility of speech, his charm in explaining what he has to say; his open, gentle, and specious style, his perfect selection of words, even those which are adopted on the spur of the moment; his vigorous application of analogies extemporaneously suggested. My successors in rhetorical criticism will have a rich field for praising those who are now living. For there are now great talents at work who do credit to the bar, both finished patrons, worthy ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... veneration. But I, as I have said, moved by my religious fervour and my desire to know the truth, have learned mysteries of many a kind, rites in great number, and diverse ceremonies. This is no invention on the spur of the moment; nearly three years since, in a public discourse on the greatness of Aesculapius delivered by me during the first days of my residence at Oea, I made the same boast and recounted the number of the mysteries I knew. That discourse was ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... John; and, indeed, after all, that was the best thing that could happen on such a day. A yell, a charge, a quick batter of snowballs, and then a rush straight up the bank—Maid Margaret, lithe as a deer-hound, leading, her skirts kilted "as like a boy" as on the spur of the moment she could achieve with a piece of twine. Right on Sweetheart she rushed, who,—as in some sort her senior and legal protector,—of course, could not be very rough with her, nor yet use the methods customary and ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... opinion of her own duty half-way up the stairs, and deliberately go back to her own room again? The bare idea of such a thing was absurd on the face of it. What more rational explanation could ingenuity discover on the spur of the moment? ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... nothing, nothing really. One just happens to have the knack of keeping one's head and acting quickly on the spur of the moment. Some ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... officer to do more than take the oath usual on leaving office, because he had illegally inflicted death upon Roman citizens. Metellus, as Tribune, had the power of stopping any official proceeding. We hear from Cicero himself that he was quite equal to the occasion. He swore, on the spur of the moment, a solemn oath, not in accordance with the form common to Consuls on leaving office, but to the effect that during his Consulship Rome had been saved by his work alone.[212] We have the story only as it is told by Cicero himself, who avers that the people accepted ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... that my sunrise evoked no merry jest at all." Dear Jones was an honest man, and would scorn to invent a merry jest on the spur of the moment. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... We have so much familiarity with one another's realities, that we cannot remove ourselves, at pleasure, into an imaginary sphere. Let us have no more pictures to-night; but, to make you what poor amends I can, how would you like to have me trump up a wild, spectral legend, on the spur of the moment?" ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... hearing this, Arthur rose at least fifty per cent. in the estimation of Mrs. Barton, with whom he had always been a great favourite, and she warmly thanked him for the exertion he had made in behalf of her young friend. Taking advantage of the opportunity thus afforded him, Arthur, on the spur of the moment, disclosed to her everything concerning his engagement to Edith, and solicited their approval to the union on his attaining the rank of Captain. He was warmly supported by Edith, who did not hesitate to declare her affection for one whom she had known so long, and who had risked so much for her. ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... On the spur of the moment and because the same precipitate decisions that determined Louis Latz's successes in Wall Street determined him here, they were married the following Thursday in Greenwich, Connecticut, without even allowing ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... I," replied Jerry regretfully. "I would have given you longer notice only it was made up on the spur of the moment. Don't you ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... muscle of Macomer's hard face moved. He knew that if his wife had a surprise for him on the spur of the moment, it must be for their joint interest. But the Duca della Spina's jaw dropped, and his ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... 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 ugly natures, three ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... diverted to the needs and requirements and the usages of naval routine. Notwithstanding this radical change, they have made the name of their ship a household word throughout the country, and have proved that the average American, whether he be clerk or physician, broker, lawyer, or merchant, can, on the spur of the moment, prove a capable fighter for his country even amid such strange and novel surroundings as obtain in the naval service. These young men have especially upheld the American supremacy in the art of gunnery, and have, on all occasions, proved brave ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... marry a wife of her choosing, if you mean that," said Lord Lufton. They went on walking about the garden for an hour, but they hardly got any farther than the point to which we have now brought them. Mark Robarts could not make up his mind on the spur of the moment; nor, as he said more than once to Lord Lufton, could he be at all sure that Lucy would in any way be guided by him. It was, therefore, at last settled between them that Lord Lufton should come to the parsonage immediately after breakfast on the following morning. It was agreed also that the dinner ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... a moment's pause, "I think I have the key to this mystery. She loves this handsome Rex, that is evident; perhaps they have had a lovers' quarrel, and she has married this one on the spur of the moment through pique. Oh, the pretty little dear!" sighed Ruth. "I hope she will ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... you meet him, whether on the old road at twilight, or on the runway before the hounds, impresses you as an animal of dignity and calculation. He never seems surprised, much less frightened; never loses his head; never does things hurriedly, or on the spur of the moment, as a scatter-brained rabbit or meddling squirrel might do. You meet him, perhaps as he leaves the warm rock on the south slope of the old oak woods, where he has been curled up asleep all the sunny afternoon. (It is easy to find him there in ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... pretext he could invent on the spur of the moment, and it answered his purpose admirably. She stopped to view with undisguised amazement, tempered with faint scorn, a human being who was so ignorant of the commonest affairs of life as to lose himself in the woods. She ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... physical endurance he 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, ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... ephors are competent to punish whomsoever they choose; they have power to exact fines on the spur of the moment; they have power to depose magistrates in mid career (6)—nay, actually to imprison them and bring them to trial on the capital charge. Entrusted with these vast powers, they do not, as do the rest of states, allow the magistrates ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon
... up with wet towels 'round their heads and strong black coffee stewing on the gas-stove, so as not to fall asleep over the job of letting their feelings get the better of their judgment in working up a six-hour speech which will give the country the impression that it just came pouring out on the spur of the moment as a consequence of the Senators' red-hot indignation about ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... stinted. If you find a crab-apple on a tree, you may be sure that the tree is a crab-tree. So one can predicate a pretty correct opinion of a person, as to character, disposition, and modes of thinking and acting, from a single isolated remark, incidentally made, or an act performed on the spur of the moment. ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... the Cynic Fathers was it who defined virtue as an attitude of the mind toward externals? One may not always recall a pat quotation on the spur of the moment, but it sounds like Demonax or another of the later school, when the philosophy of cynicism had sunk to the level of a ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... it is you do do, but I know that it is a very good trick, and never fails to create laughter and bewilderment. It is distinctly an illusion worth trying, and, if you begin it in the manner I have described, quite possibly some way of finishing it up will occur to you on the spur of the moment. By multiplying the two numbers together and passing the hard-boiled egg through the sponge and then taking the ... or is it the—Anyway, I'm certain you have to have a piece of elastic up the sleeve ... and I know one ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... say on the spur of the moment. I must know the man first—especially if you are right in supposing he would not enjoy a victory over the presbytery. I should. He wouldn't ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... a hurricane," said Bob, inventing something on the spur of the moment. "Only, instead of blowing straight ahead or around in a circle it blows up and down. It's liable to snatch you right up to the clouds, or suck you down ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... fashionable world that we both of us meant a great deal more than we said. One of the questions as to which I was most anxious for information was whether there were in the neighborhood any other old castles, a visit to which I might find interesting. Neither the Princess, the priest, nor the agent on the spur of the moment had very much to tell me. At all events I found out presently for myself much more than ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... mistaken with me," said Crosbie, forgetting, on the spur of the moment, that he had no right to drag the opinion of any other ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... way. Luther had the gift of strong, smiting phrases, of words which seemed to cleave to the very heart of things, of images which lit up a subject with the vividness of a flash of lightning. He launched tracts and pamphlets from the press about almost everything, written for the most part on the spur of the moment, and when the fire burned. His words fell into souls full of the fermenting passion of the times. They drank in with eagerness the thoughts that all men were equal before God, and that there are divine commands about the ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... was so startlingly sudden, that Landauer had no answer ready to give, but with rage and mortification expressed in every feature he fumbled in his pocket for a card. At last he drew one out, and with all the bombast he could summon on the spur of the moment, he scribbled the name of a friend upon it, and threw ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... ready grasp of his own system of philosophical thought, and the quickness and versatility with which his thought at once assumed the right attitude of defence against any argument coming from any quarter. I used to think that while others of us could perhaps find, on the spur of the moment, AN answer more or less effective to some unexpected attack, your father seemed always able to find THE answer—I mean the answer that it was reasonable to give, consistently with his general view, and much the same answer that he would have given if he had ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... it. On the other side of the gate it was just another part of forest fairyland, whose inhabitants turned themselves into trees as we, in our motor-car, intruded on them. I never saw such extraordinary imitations of the evergreen family as they contrived on the spur of the moment. It was a glamorous wood, and throughout the whole forest I had more and more the feeling that England isn't so small as it's painted. There are such vast spaces not lived in at all, yet haunted with legend and history. One place we passed—hardly a ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... just like her ladyship to become suddenly possessed of a whim, and to follow its lead on the spur of the moment. She was a woman of caprices, and her caprices always ruled the day, as this one did, to Theo's great astonishment. It seemed such a great undertaking to Theodora, this voyage of a few hours; but Lady Throckmorton regarded it as the lightest of matters. To her it was only the giving of a few orders, ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... that horseman, Giovanni drew back quickly. On the spur of the moment, he acted with a subtlety worthy of long premeditation. Antonia and he were by an odd fatality alone together in that chamber of the mezzanine. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... found. Once or twice, Herve de Sainfoy came himself to the manor to ask if she had any news; but his manner was a little stiff and awkward; and Adelaide never came; and the messages he brought from her were too evidently made by his politeness on the spur of the moment. Was it not possible, Anne thought, to be too worldly, too unforgiving? Had not her beautiful boy been punished enough for his presumption in falling in love with their daughter, and behaving like ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... late; it had all got safely past before we came up. That furious storm which had broken over us in the mountains, rendering the roads impassable or extremely difficult, had been the agent of Providence to hold us back. However disposed on the spur of the moment and in the vexation of disappointment we may have felt to regard our delay as an unmitigated misfortune, depriving us of a golden opportunity of earning a direct share, however small, in the glories of Gettysburg, still we may be ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... heated room with its noise and jostling men. He realized vaguely that he had made himself responsible for a thousand dollars—foolishly, he thought now. He had done it on the spur of the moment, with the idea that he would save Webber from a total loss, and thereby save Miss M'Gann. He felt partly responsible, too; for if he had not lingered at St. Isidore's yesterday, he could have delivered the order before the reaction had set in. He wondered, however, at his ready promise to find ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... minutes after this operation, which I had performed as if by instinct and on the spur of the moment, Camille and I went away in a coach, and I told her so many wonderful tales that when she got out at her door ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt |
