"Spur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... view of Mahatmas is one that does not surprise me in the least. I never met, and I scarcely expect to meet, an individual entitled to set "Mahatma" after his name. Certainly I have no right to do so, who only took that title on the spur of the moment when the Hare asked me how I was called, and now make use of it as a nom-de-plume. It is true there is Jorsen, by whose order, for it amounts to that, I publish this history. For aught I know Jorsen may ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... be long ere it overflow the deep and solid skulls of my countrymen," said Wilkin Flammock. "Our Flemish courage is like our Flanders horses—the one needs the spur, and the other must have a taste of the winepot; but, credit me, father, they are of an enduring generation, and will not shrink in the washing.—But indeed, if I were to give the knaves a cup more than enough, it ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... Prince's supporters to ride within pistol-shot and discharge their pieces at the royal troops to set them into as disgraceful a panic as ever animated frightened men. The dragoons, ludicrously unmanned, turned tail and rode for their lives, rode without drawing bridle and without staying spur till they came to Leith, paused there for a little, and then, on some vague hint that the Highlanders were on their track, they were in the saddle again and riding for their lives once more. Dismayed Edinburgh citizens saw them sweep along what now ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... economy's most prominent products are cotton, oil, and gas. Production from the Caspian oil and gas field has been in decline for several years. With foreign assistance, the oil industry might generate the funds needed to spur industrial development. However, civil unrest, marked by armed conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region between Muslim Azeris and Christian Armenians, makes foreign investors wary. Azerbaijan accounted for 1.5% to 2% of the capital stock and output of the former Soviet Union. Azerbaijan shares ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... I; why, Minnie Vanderwelt is at Hamburg with her father. I will go and try if I cannot get to Hamburg. The remembrance of Minnie gave a spur to my energies, and created a new stimulus. I then told the governor that I had a few men doing nothing; that I would join them to the expedition, and serve as a volunteer. The governor thanked me for my zeal, and I left him to go down and communicate my intentions to the commanding ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... the noon, had held her close in chase. Forthwith a guard at every gun was placed along the wall; The beacon blazed upon the roof of Edgcumbe's lofty hall; Many a light fishing bark put out to pry along the coast; And with loose rein and bloody spur rode inland many a post. With his white hair unbonneted the stout old sheriff comes; Behind him march the halberdiers, before him sound the drums; His yeomen, round the market-cross, make clear an ample space, For there behoves him to set up the standard of her Grace. And haughtily ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... white knight is mounted rather on an ambling preambling palfrey, than on any determinate charger; curveting and prancing, and rambling and scrambling at his own unmanaged will: scorning the bit and bridle, too hot to bear the spur, careless of listing laws, and wishing rather playfully to show his paces, than to ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... free; and he had already gone through enough to convince him he had better not lose the chance that offered. He concluded by saying, "Don't worry about me, dear grandmother. I shall think of you always; and it will spur me on to work hard and try to do right. When I have earned money enough to give you a home, perhaps you will come to the north, and we ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... enough to daunt the most determined foe, for in place of disheartening the engineer, the mishap seemed to spur him on to renewed exertions. He was on the spot by daybreak, and before long a strong dam was made across, to prevent the entrance of the sea-water; the drain was emptied, and while one gang was engaged in taking down the ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... steed down a rutty lane. Once he looked back, and saw that the barge had run aground on the other side of the canal, and the barge-woman was gesticulating wildly and shouting, "Stop, stop, stop!" "I've heard that song before," said Toad, laughing, as he continued to spur his steed onward in its ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... at length if not before we have a clear glimpse of the athlete who lurks behind the explorer. Browning's joy in imagining impediment and illusion was only another aspect of his joy in the spiritual energy which answers to the spur of difficulty and "works" through the shows of sense; and this other joy found expression in a poetry of soul yet more deeply tinged with the native hue of his mind. "From the first, Power was, I knew;" and souls were the very central haunt and focus of its play. Not that ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... loudly, how proudly, of deeds to be done, The blood of the sire in the veins of the son! Old Moultrie and Sumter still keep at your gates, And the foe in his foothold as patiently waits. He asks, with a taunt, by your patience made bold, If the hot spur of Percy grows suddenly cold— Makes merry with boasts of your city his own, And the Chivalry fled, ere his trumpet is blown; Upon them, O sons of the mighty of yore, And fatten the ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... the point of forgetting, until reminded by a dig from the spur of necessity, that she was only a masquerader, acting her borrowed part in a pageant. For the first time since she had hopefully taken it up, that part became detestable. She would have given almost anything to throw it off, and be herself: for nothing less than clear sincerity seemed worthy ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... down and think out your two-act on the lines of the combination I have suggested on the spur of the moment. Others are sure to be ahead of you. You can only win success with new characters that are all your own. Then you are likely to be the first in ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... same or better results, etc., yet all grouped about the motivating theme of securing the repeal of the law. To emphasize the greatness of a man's career a speaker might introduce such topics as his obscure origin, his unmarked youth, the spur that stimulated his ambition, his early reverses, provided that they contribute to the impression intended, to make vivid his ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... I wanted no spur. Fast and furious grew our movements, until at last, with a mutual cry of delight, we sank in each other's arms in the blissful extasy of the most complete enjoyment. It was several minutes before we regained our senses, and both our organs of generation were pulsating, the ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... was full. Jim's child had taken his place; the purity and sweetness of the child's love filled Julia's heart; she wanted only Anna, and Anna was her interpreter for all the relationships of life. Anna first made her draw close to her own mother; Anna was at once her spur and her reward during the first ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... which she played successfully with Cooke was that of the little Duke of York in Richard the Third; into which, it is recorded, she threw a degree of spirit and childish roguishness that acted as a spur on the great tragedian himself, who never performed better than when seconded by his childish associate. In 1796 she had attained such a position in the preparatory school of the provincial circuits, chiefly at Bath, ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... at the 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 ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... day whether I think I have earned my wages or not. Men are said to be partial judges of themselves. Young men may be; I doubt if old men are. Life seems terribly foreshortened as they look back, and the mountain they set themselves to climb in youth turns out to be a mere spur of immeasurably higher ranges when, with failing breath, they reach the top. But if I may speak of the objects I have had more or less definitely in view since I began the ascent of my hillock, they are briefly these: To promote the increase of natural knowledge and to forward ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... laden with mats, bags of provisions, extra clothing, alpenstocks, spiked shoes, and coils of stout rope, filed down the streets of Bayazid, followed by a curious rabble. As Bayazid lies hidden behind a projecting spur of the mountains we could obtain no view of the peak itself until we had tramped some distance out on the plain. Its huge giant mass broke upon us all at once. We stopped and looked—and looked again. No mountain-peak we have seen, though several have been higher, has ever inspired ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... he had asked her if there were no other reason, there was something in his placid tone she did not like. A month agone she wanted him to know of Mr. Hollins's evident attentions to Genevieve because it would probably, or possibly, spur him into some exertion on his own account. Now that she felt sure he had heard of it, and it had not spurred him, she was as anxious to conceal the fact that, both to Mrs. Winthrop and herself, these attentions were becoming alarming. If he did not care for Viva, the chances ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... the change in the charter. By the first charter everything had been held in common by the company, and there had been no division of property or allotment of land among the colonists. Under the new regime land was held in severalty, and the spur of individual interest began at once to improve the condition of the settlement. The character of the colonists was also gradually improving. They had not been of a sort to fulfill the earnest desire of the London promoter's to spread ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner
... mistake. I only asked you if you'd read Sabrina's Uncle's Other Niece, and, as I made up the title on the spur of the moment, I should have been rather surprised if you had. He never wrote a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 2, 1890. • Various
... enemy, excited every maternal feeling in the affectionate bosom of the feathered dame; she flew at the corner whence the alarm arose, seized the lurking enemy by the neck, writhed him about the room, put out one of his eyes in the engagement, and so fatigued her opponent by repeated attacks of spur and bill, that in the space of twelve minutes, during which time the conflict lasted, she put a final period to the nocturnal invader's existence; nimbly turned round, in wild but triumphant distraction, to her palpitating nestling, and hugged it in ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... colonel stabbed the captain in the throat. Then a fierce combat commenced—two against many. But the butchers and their dogs quickly disposed of, up came Curdie and his beasts. The horses of the guard, struck with terror, turned in spite of the spur, ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... unmanly luxuries of a debauched Court, or giddy intrigues of a factious city. Alit oemulatio ingenia, says PATERCULUS, et nunc invidia, nunc admiratio incitationem accendit: 'Emulation is the spur of wit; and sometimes envy, sometimes admiration quickens ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... of the bad condition of states; but was chiefly a portrait of the British State, which he has thoroughly studied and explored. He had written the second book first in his leisure hours, and added the first book on the spur of the moment later, when the occasion offered. Some of the unevenness of the style is due ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... Marianne, who is France, bound for the front in an aeroplane with a crowing French cock sitting on the brace above her. Marianne looked as happy as if she were going to the races; the cock as triumphant as if he had a spur through the German eagle's throat. However, there was little sale for picture post-cards or other trifles, while Paris waited for the siege. They did not help to win victories. News and not jeux d'esprit, victory ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... of New Jersey, during the years 1820-30. An unusual situation develops when Tom Bell, a quondam gentleman highwayman, returns to take up the offices of the long-lost heir, Henry Morvan. Troubles thicken about him and along with them the romance develops. Through it all rides "The Lady of the Spur" with a briskness, charm, and mystery about her that give an unusual zest to the book from ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... The biologist, who had befriended him before, had given him some work in his laboratory. The work was not well paid, but the association with the students, which aroused his intellectual appetites, had given him a new spur. What saddened her was that it was all entirely beyond her sphere of influence, of usefulness to him. Living, as they should, in an almost savage isolation, she dreaded his absorption in anything apart from her. There were ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... get a spur track from the X. Y. Z. Railroad to my factory on Spindle Street. The X. Y. Z. is perfectly willing to put in the track, and I'm trying to have the city council grant us a permit. Now, who ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... been enamoured of glory, and had possessed a greatness of mind. Nelson preserved, also, a similar temperance and simplicity of manners. Nature, as Plutarch adds of the noble Spartan, had given a spur to his mind which rendered him impetuous in the pursuit of whatever he deemed honourable. The demeanour of this extraordinary young man was entirely the demeanour of a British seaman; when the energies of his mind were not called forth by some object of duty, or professional interest, he seemed ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... Choosing of Esther Honeymoon Scene The Cost The Voice God's Answer The Edict of the Sex The World-child The Heights On seeing 'The House of Julia' at Herculaneum A Prayer What is Right Living? Justice Time's Gaze The Worker and the Work Art thou Alive? To-day The Ladder Who is a Christian? The Goal The Spur Awakened! Shadows The New Commandment Summer Dreams The Breaking of Chains December 'The Way' The Leader to be The Greater Love Thank God for Life Time Enough New Year's Day Life is a Privilege In an Old Art Gallery True Brotherhood The Decadent ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... sort it was on my account; and the bitter attacks made on me personally;(for in some quarters I was depicted as a bloodthirsty ruffian, and it was charged that I was for political reasons prosecuting men whom I personally knew to be innocent), all combined to spur me to my utmost effort. And when the verdicts were rendered, I was conscious of a sense of personal triumph so fierce as to ...
— The Spectre In The Cart - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... revealed himself more completely than in these his last informal 'lucubrations.' Here, the active Justice, the accomplished scholar, the lawyer, and man of the world, the first wit of his day, talks to us of a hundred topics, chosen indeed on the spur of the moment, but discussed in his own incomparable words, and with the now mature authority of one, who had "dived into the inmost Recesses of Human Nature." No subject is too abstruse, none too trifling, for Mr Censor to illumine. ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... to draw 'twixt God His Law And Man's infirmity; A shadow kind to dumb and blind The shambles where we die; A sum to trick th' arithmetic Too base of leaguing odds; The spur of trust, the curb of lust— ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the sound, like a horse at the spur; but Silver had not winked an eye. He stood where he was, resting lightly on his crutch, watching his companion like a snake ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... trees. It forms as it were a cornice, perched three thousand feet above the valley, over which it commands a view of mountain and bay and inlet, but never a house, never a church, and the farthest point is beyond Calvi, thirty miles away. There is but one spur—a vast buttress of fertile land thrown against the mountain, as a buttress may be thrown against ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... any old words to them; I have tried hard to find out about them, but I believe the tunes, which are of a limited number and quite distinct from each other, are very old. The words are put in by the singer on the spur of the moment, and only restricted in this sense, that there would always be the domestic catalogue—whatever its component details might be—sung to the one fixed tune, the trade information sung ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... where the half-crazed Empress of the Mexicans vainly waits her husband's return from the experiment of paternal government in the New World. It would be hard to tell how Art has charmed rock and wave at Miramare, until the spur of those rugged Triestine hills, jutting into the sea, has been made the seat of ease and luxury, but the visitor is aware of the magic as soon as he passes the gate of the palace grounds. These are in great part ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... he made a most astonishing success. In Bologna and in Rome as well as in Venice he was examined by the most eminent theorists in Italy, and received memberships in the societies of artists, and the Pope made him a Knight of the Golden Spur. His first opera, "Mitridate," was composed in 1770, Mozart being then fourteen years of age. The opera was played twenty times. In Milan, two years later, he composed his opera "Lucio Silla," and the same year his ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... halting. Her husband, man-like, had deserted her in her hour of utmost need and was fumbling with the door-knob. The steely stare with which the Rev. Cracklethorpe regarded her, instead of chilling her, acted upon her as a spur. It put her on her mettle. He should listen to her. She would make him understand her kindly feeling towards him if she had to take him by the shoulders and shake it into him. At the end of five minutes the Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe, ...
— The Cost of Kindness - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... chosen him? Chance, pure chance. Moss had asked him to come along as a Department member. Then Franks had picked him out on the spur of the moment. And now they were rushing toward the surface, ...
— The Defenders • Philip K. Dick
... ball, when everyone turned out in wonderful garments planned and prepared long months before, she easily captured the votes of the crowd as the wearer of the most original and charming costume created on the spur of ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... by European standards, Albania is making the difficult transition to a more modern open-market economy. The government has taken measures to curb violent crime and to spur economic activity and trade. The economy is bolstered by annual remittances from abroad of $600-$800 million, mostly from Greece and Italy; this helps offset the towering trade deficit. Agriculture, which accounts for about one-half of GDP, is held back because of ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... the two, boy and adventurer, passed into a hall where the latter's spur rang upon the stone flooring, and thence into a long room, cold and shadowy, with the light stealing in through deep windows past screens of fir and yew. Touched by this wan effulgence, beside an oaken table on which was ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... to spur on the stragglers; and when, late in the afternoon, the way-worn columns spread themselves on the western slope of the hamlet of Centreville, at least a third of each regiment was far in the rear. Nearly every man had, in the heat and burden of the march, thrown away the provisions in his haversack, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... with Cattle Out Back The Star of Australasia Middleton's Rouseabout The Vagabond The Sliprails and the Spur "In the Days when the World was ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... of Mr. Pickwick's consolatory phrase, which he evidently devised on the spur of the moment, shows him to be a ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... green; So in some glassy anchorage I'll make my cable fast,— Oh, let the seas show all their teeth, I'll sit and smile serene. The storm may bellow round the roof, I'll bide beside the fire, And many a scene of sail and trail within the flame I'll see; For I'll have worn away the spur of passion and desire. . . . Oh yes, when I am Sixty-five, what peace will come ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... and arranged in harmonious positions; while Johnnie, quite forgetful of her royalty, was as ready to help at anything as the humblest maid of honor. All the flowers were treated tenderly except the poor purple violets, and these were slaughtered by hundreds, for the projecting spur under the curved stem at the base of the flower enabled the boys to hook them together, and "fight roosters," as they termed it. Now and then some tough-stemmed violet would "hook-off" a dozen blue heads before losing its own, and it became the temporary hero. At last the little ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... horse over a ditch, and straight ahead, I may have ridden four hundred yards with the even beating of his horse behind me, before what I feared happened. My horse stumbled, and the pull of my bridle barely got him up again. I gave him the spur, but he was failing. In a quarter of a minute he had fallen again, and this time the bridle did not raise him. I sprang free of him before he had entirely slipped down in the soft sea mud. He was lashing about desperately, nor could I get him to ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... this moment of transport and resolution seemed so long ago that it was like some misty incident of her childhood. Her body, as when a jaded horse lashed to a gallop reaches a stage where it drops to a walk from which no amount of punishment can rouse it, was refusing to respond to the spur of her will. It became an effort to walk, to swing her arms and stamp her feet, to make any brisk movement that kept the circulation going. She knew what it portended, yet was unable to make greater resistance against the lethargy of cold ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... Haddon refers (Geographical Journal, Vol. XVI., p. 422) to conical ground houses with elliptical and circular bases found in villages on the top of steep hills behind the Mekeo district and on the southern spur of Mt. Davidson, and says that in some places, as on the Aduala affluent of the Angabunga (i.e., St. Joseph's) river, the houses are oblong, having a short ridge pole. I think that the elliptical houses to which he refers have probably ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... principles of the art are exceedingly simple and free from complexity, and many a person who takes up the study will find that he possesses powers of analysis and observation unguessed before. The most successful expert is he who observes most closely and accurately, and the faculty needs only the spur of an objective point for ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... Petit Bois and the Maedelsteed Spur, lying respectively to the west and the southwest ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... days of the marriage, Brigitte subdued the unfortunate Madame Thuillier with a touch of the spur and a jerk of the bit, both of which she made her feel severely. A further display of tyranny was useless; the victim resigned herself at once. Celeste, thoroughly understood by Brigitte, a girl without mind or education, accustomed to a sedentary ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... sat silent for a few minutes, and I am inclined to think that he was weighing in his mind the expediency of asking her to become Mrs Rubb, on the spur of the moment. But if so, his mind finally gave judgment against the attempt, and in giving such judgment his mind was right. He would certainly have so startled her by the precipitancy of such a proposition, as to have greatly endangered the probability of any ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... life before had Caspar such motives for displaying his hunter-skill. His liberty—that of all of them—depended on all his success in procuring the necessary number of hides; and this was spur enough to excite ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... that she should see me one of the merchant princes she idolized, and that my wife should be envied by her as being the wife of a richer man than Boniface Newt. Darling, you know how I struggled for it—you did not know the secret spur—and how I failed. And I know who it was that made my failure my success, and who taught a man who wanted to be rich ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... connection with the Winceby fight, is that the present writer has in his possession a pair of spurs, which were found on the field of Winceby, remarkable for the long spikes of their rowels; and he himself once found the rowel of a spur, with similarly long spikes, within a few yards of where the bodies were discovered; and in the year 1905 he also examined several bones, pronounced by a doctor to be human, which were found near the same ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... cavalcade was only four hundred paces in advance, and we might intercept them by cutting across a small field, round which the high road led. The guardsman was for this course, in order to fall suddenly upon them while unprepared. I approved of the plan, and was the first to spur my horse forward—but fate once again relentlessly blasted ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... it, I always liked him very much, but still I think that sort of thing, is not right, but he always was impetuous, never considered anything, but just acted on the spur of the moment, and he is very soft hearted" he added laughing. "I wonder if ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... 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 ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... so many dances with one evening's partner as with the smitten member, at the assembly given on the spur of the moment in his honour, whereat Sam Winnington, standing with his hat under his arm, and leaning against the carved door, was an observant spectator. He was not sullen as when Will Locke and Dulcie tumbled headlong into the pit of matrimony! he was smiling and civil; but his lips were white ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... he was not. Too poor in imagination to invent, on the spur of the moment, charms and qualities suited to his ideal, he had, at first unconsciously, taken as a model the girl before him; quite unconsciously and innocently at first—then furtively, and with a dawning perception of the almost ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... wilfully deceived by the fears of his companion; and that the strangers, who had now resumed their way, were indeed what his accomplice had first reported them to be. Filled with this impression, and acting upon the momentary spur which it gave, the infatuated and fated man pushed aside his comrade, with a muttered oath at his cowardice and treachery, and taking a sure and steady, though quick, aim at the person, who was now just within the certain destruction of his hand, he fired the pistol. The stranger reeled and ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... upon producing plans for the immediate creation of an aerial fleet suited to the nation's needs. If, however, the Liberty motor shall prove the complete success which at the moment the government believes it to be, it will be such a spur to the development of the airplane in peace and war, as could not otherwise be applied. For the motor is the true life of the airplane—its heart, lungs, and nerve centre. The few people who still doubt the wide adoption of aircraft for peaceful purposes after ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... we ever would have got there if it hadn't been that a cousin of the Grafin's, a very smart young officer in the Guards, saw us in the taxi as it was vainly trying to cross the Friedrichstrasse, and flicking the obstructing policemen on one side with a sort of little kick of his spur, came up all amazement and salutes to inquire of his most gracious cousin what in the world she was doing in a taxi. He said it was hopeless to try to get to the Schlossplatz in it, but if we would allow him to escort us on foot ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... was already impassable, that between the two there was no house in which we could sleep, that the river had a good bottom, that the man thought if our horses were strong we could cross now, but not later, etc. In short, she overbore all opposition, and plunged in, calling to me, "spur, spur, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... we have seen, one of the most pleasing on the whole is that marked 43,—Sweden Bridge, near Ambleside. But do not fail to notice St. Mary's Church (101) in the same mountain-village. It grows out of the ground like a crystal, with spur-like gables budding out all the way up its spire, as if they were ready to flower into pinnacles, like such as have sprung up all over ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... monarch, "or you die the death yet. And do you, Mardonius, take Prexaspes, who somewhat knows this country, spur forward, and discover who are the madmen thus ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... beauty of the Willamette all the world has heard. It lies between the Cascade and Coast Ranges, and is bounded on the south by the Calapooya Mountains, a cross-spur that separates it from the valley of ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... summit of yonder spur or buttress," said Dale. "That will bring us back to the main part of the mountain, and we ought to reach the ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... upper parts of the body: the legs are pale yellow, the outer toe black the whole length, the middle one half way from the tip, the webs also correspond, the outer one being black, except just at the base; and the inner one black for about one third from the end: the claws black; the spur, which serves in place of a back toe, ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... frightened to cry, was clinging to her mother. Mr. Stanton, acting on the spur of the moment, rushed to the telephone to try if any ironmonger's shop in the town was still open, and could immediately send up a wire-gauze fire-protector. The fireplaces in all the other rooms were well guarded, but in the drawing-room the hearth was ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... and gilt spur, beautifully enamelled, which once decked the heel of a noble knight, have been found in our fields, and remind us of those battles which were fought so ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... where the spur rises at an angle of about 30 deg., it has been terraced and the terrace as well as the crown of the spur have been used as a cemetery; portions of the terraces are still perfect; all the burials ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... as though they still were sweethearts. For she loved him, and he loved her. But though she loved him, in her heart there was a hot remonstrance, which she allowed to remain unspoken, because she loved him. It was easy to say that there was no necessity to prick her with a spur. But there were the tradesmen's bills unpaid, the rent in arrear, and the children wanted things—not to speak of herself and of him. And there was a drawer full of his unaccepted manuscripts. They went hither and thither, from editor to editor, and then for the most ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... Silence and darkness reigned over that insignificant little street on the southern side of the Seine. Then came the clatter of cavalry—the rattle of horses' feet, and the ominous clank of empty scabbards against spur and buckle. A word of command, and a scrambling halt. Then silence again, broken only by the shuffling of feet (not too well clad) in the darkness ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... markets. Despite the global slowdown in 2001-02, strong domestic activity in construction, agriculture, and consumption have kept GDP growth above 4%. However, macroeconomic gains have only recently started to spur creation of a middle class and address Romania's widespread poverty, while corruption and red tape continue to handicap the business environment. Romanian government confidence in continuing disinflation was underscored by its currency revaluation in 2005, ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... The red spur-fowl (Galloperdix spadicea) is perhaps the most abundant game bird of the Nilgiris. It is quite partridge-like in shape. Both sexes have red legs and a patch of red skin round the eye. The feathers of the cock are dull red with blue edges, while those of the hen ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... dishonorable. When Bunsen speaks of public measures and public men, of parties in Church and State, whether in England or in Germany, there was no necessity for suppressing his remarks, for he had spoken his mind as freely on them elsewhere as in these letters. But any personal reflections written on the spur of the moment, in confidence or in jest, have been struck out, however strong the temptation sometimes of leaving them. Many expressions, too, of his kind feelings towards me have been omitted. If some have been left, I hope I may be forgiven for ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... a triumphant conjuror. It is my common practice when a piece of conduct puzzles me, to attack it in the presence of Jack with such grossness, such partiality, and such wearing iteration, as at length shall spur him up in its defence. In a moment he transmigrates, dons the required character, and with moonstruck philosophy justifies the act in question. I can fancy nothing to compare with the vigour of these impersonations, the strange ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Pappus, the Doctor Shown Out," "Maccus Married," "Maccus as Safe Keeper," etc. These are nearly the same subjects that are still treated every day on the boards at Naples; the same rough daubs, half improvised on the spur of the moment; the same frankly coarse and indecent gayety. The Odeon where we are now, was the Pompeian San Carlino. Bucco, the stupid and mocking buffoon; the dotard Pappus, who reminds us of the Venetian ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... protect her through life." "Don't brood over the past, Molly," said Mr. Wingate, a grass-covered mound in Pine Forest Cemetery rising before him. "Let the dead past be gone." "I will not! I cannot!" said Molly, pausing. "The past will spur me to higher aims in the future. I never can forget the time that Harold came to make a last plea to me to be his wife, expressing his willingness to make every sacrifice for my happiness. He had bright hopes of success in his profession. Yet I spurned ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... provisory limits to it; and there also are enough low points of view, mistakes, and imperfections in science, to justify us when we expressly form and establish monism as a maxim of scientific investigation. All those theories and points of view need such a spur and corrective, which are hastily satisfied with a dualistic or a still farther expanded limit of our knowledge. Among them we rank in theology the antique heathenish dualism which separates God and the world in such a way ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... answered: "How far I climb depends on the help of my best friends. I don't hide that. When my dear wife was with me, she was an inspiration to me. No man can drive his car to the summit without a woman to spur him on." ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... there. About three hours after, when we were entered upon a desert of about fifteen or sixteen miles over, we knew by a cloud of dust they raised, that the enemy was at hand, and presently they came on upon the spur. ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... rose of course from his seat. By nature he was not a coward, but he was unready, and knew not what to do or to say on the spur of the moment. "I did not come here to be insulted," ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... of human triumphs is to read the need in another's eyes and be able to fulfil it. The difficulty lies in comprehending the need. Most of us have rich storehouses, but to the man who needs of us a crutch we give dancing shoes: to him who needs a spur we offer wrappings of cotton-wool. ... We ask tolerance and sympathy for our failings, patience for our inadequacies ... we give and get only disappointment.... Partly this is because our needs ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... girls, from window high In wonder peep at the sparks that fly From our horses heels, as down the street Of the earl's town we ride so fleet. Spur on!—that every pretty lass May hear our horse-hoofs as we pass Clatter upon the stones so hard, And echo round ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... sir,' said I, 'her affairs are so changed, that I wished to ask you whether it would be possible—at a sacrifice on our part of some portion of the premium, of course,' I put in this, on the spur of the moment, warned by the blank expression of his face—'to cancel ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... praised, I cannot say he hath brought with him any evil impression; and I shall hope to set nothing into his spirit but what may be of a good sculpture. He hath in him two things that make youth most easy to be managed,—modesty, which is the bridle to vice; and emulation, which is the spur to virtue. And the care which your Excellence is pleased to take of him is no small encouragement and shall be so represented to him; but, above all, I shall labour to make him sensible of his duty to God; for then we begin to serve faithfully, when we ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... his influence that broke up and fired Raeburn's slower and more distrustful temper, informing an inbred Toryism, a natural passion for tradition, and the England of tradition with that "repining restlessness" which is the best spur of noble living. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the spur of the hill yonder looks larger and steeper and more ponderous in the mist; it seems higher than this, a not unusual appearance when the difference in altitude is not very great. The level we are on seems to us beneath the level in the distance, as the future is higher ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... British merchants and shipowners interested in the South African trade. Sir Donald Currie, in the paper already referred to, stated that he could easily have given particulars of the means which had to be used in order to spur on the British Government to decisive action. Unfortunately he was discreetly reticent, and merely stated that not only St. Lucia Bay, but the whole of the coast between Natal and the Delagoa Bay district ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... shallow prodigal! We shall have sport at night then—But hold—the jewels are not ours yet. The lady may refuse them. The husband may relent too. 'Tis more than probable—I'll write a note to Beverley, and the contents shall spur him to demand them. But am I grown this rogue through avarice? No; I have warmer motives: love and revenge. Ruin the husband, and the wife's virtue may be bid for. 'Tis of uncertain value, and sinks, ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... Now there is as much need for tact as for kindliness in your behavior, in order to inculcate in her, without her knowing it, a feeling of security, which will lead her to lay back her ears, and prevent you from using rein or spur at the ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... swore gloomily that if she had a mind to Hugues she must have Hugues, come what might. Having reached this conclusion, Adhelmar wheeled upon his men, and cursed them for tavern-idlers and laggards and flea-hearted snails, and bade them spur. ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... Beauchamp hated to find himself in an awkward position, which certainly would have been his case if Alec had rung for the sacrist. Nor was he capable of acting well on the spur of any moment. He must have plans: those he would carry out remorselessly.—So he went away to excogitate further revenge. But he was in love with Kate just enough to be uneasy as to the result ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... Gibbs straightened himself in the saddle, and before Mr. Howitt could reply, the dun mule, at a touch of the spur, had dashed away up the road in the direction taken by ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... the ponderous freighters of the Santa Fe Trail, rolling into Independence from the Spanish towns that lay beyond the burning deserts of the Cimarron. They filed by in slow procession, a vision of faded colors and swarthy faces, jingle of spur and mule bell mingling with salutations ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... fondness for tea as for his other excesses at the table. Many sober minds make coffee and tea the pis a tergo of their daily intellectual labor; just as a few of greater imagination or genius seek in opium the spur of their ephemeral efforts. In the United States, the young imbibe them from their youth up; and it is quite as possible that a part of the nation's nervousness may arise from this cause, as it is probable that our wide-spread dyspepsia begins in the use of badly-cooked ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... for as to the dragoons, they halted as soon as they had entered the Puerta del Sol. It was a fine sight to see three men, by dint of valour and good horsemanship, strike terror into at least as many thousands: I saw Quesada spur his horse repeatedly into the dense masses of the crowd, and then extricate himself in the most masterly manner. The rabble were completely awed, and gave way, retiring by the Calle del Comercio and the Calle del Alcala. ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... denken gibt; dass das Grosse, das Schreckliche, das Melancholische besser auf uns wirkt als das Artige, das Zrtliche, das Verliebte; dass uns die zu grosse Einfalt mehr ermde als die zu grosse Verwickelung u.s.w. Er htte also auf dieser Spur bleiben sollen, und sie wrde ihn geraden Weges auf das englische Theater gefhret haben. —Sagen Sie ja nicht, dass er auch dieses zu nutzen gesucht, wie sein 'Cato' es beweise. Denn eben dieses, dass er den Addisonschen 'Cato' fr das beste englische Trauerspiel hlt,[5] zeiget deutlich, ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... knew at that time little of Russian history, I suspected that the last assertion was invented on the spur of the moment, in order to satisfy my troublesome curiosity, and accordingly I determined not to accept it without verification. The result showed how careful the traveller should be in accepting the testimony of "intelligent, well-informed natives." On further investigation I discovered, not only ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... common the bellicose inclinations of the cock-pheasants were sometimes excited to their destruction. A gamecock was first armed with the sharp spur made from the best razors, and then put down near where a pheasant-cock had been observed to crow. The pheasant cock is so thoroughly game that he will not allow any rival crowing in his locality, and the two quickly met in battle. Like a keen poniard the game-cock's spur either slew the pheasant ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... of crisp menace in the sinister voice that was a spur to obedience. The unanimous show of hands voted "Aye" with a hasty precision that no amount of ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... returned since you left home," suggested Mr. Gouger, on the spur of the instant. "Don't lose heart yet. Let me send to a telephone office and have them inquire. You have a 'phone in your house, have ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... one of my friends out here, a grumpy old sea captain, who has had a rather diversified life, trying his hand as sailor, buffalo hunter, butcher, apothecary (mirabile dictu), and cowboy. Sewall tried to spur his horse which began kicking and rolled over with him ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... less than five minutes a bobbing head rose above the brow of the incline. Then came the man. He was still leaning forward to ease his panting horse, whose dilated nostrils and flattened ears told the onlookers of its desperate journey. The leg-weary beast floundered up the steep under quirt and spur—and, in a moment, stood tottering, gasping and ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... upon him. As the boy became 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 face encountered ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... my Face, and kiss'd his right golden Spur (for the Grandees saw off those which Nature has provided them, and substitute these in their Places) then rising, I answer'd, That I was of Europe, a Country so distant from Cacklogallinia, that I was near Six Moons at Sea, before I was ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... account to spur me on to visit him. I only doubted whether or not I should endeavour to see Idris again, before I departed. This doubt was decided on the following day. Early in the morning Raymond came to me; intelligence had arrived that Adrian ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... at the same time pulling down his trousers legs, which had a tendency to hitch up in what seemed to them a most exasperating disregard for form. To their certain knowledge, Mr. Blithers had never started out before without boot and spur; therefore, the suddenness of his present sortie sank into ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... lively air; when some wild-looking "ghilly" in a long, tattered coat springs into the centre of the circle and begins shuffling. As he proceeds the singing grows gradually louder, accompanied from time to time with a more violent clapping of hands. Even shouts and screams are occasionally added to spur him on. Excited to the highest pitch of enthusiasm he then hops about with vigor, springing on the very points of his toes, and spinning around with great velocity, until suddenly down he drops flat on the green with strange ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... 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, ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... will do good where nature is wanting. Some wits are swelling and high; others low and still; some hot and fiery; others cold and dull; one must have a bridle, the other a spur. There be some that are forward and bold; and these will do every little thing easily. I mean that is hard by and next them, which they will utter unretarded without any shame-facedness. These never perform much, but quickly. They are what they are on the sudden; they show presently ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... horse-raising community. It was an understanding of horses, indeed of all brute creatures, that amounted almost to wizardry. There was never a colt so unmanageable that he could not bring it to terms, without the aid of either whip or spur; never an equine ailment too subtle for him to discover and alleviate. At all hours of the day or night owners of sick beasts sent for the young rector as they had sent for his father, ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... open, and he went over to it instinctively, strumming a few wild bars out of his own head, made up hastily on the spur of the moment. 'No, not dethrone you,' he went on, leaning back on the music-stool, and letting his hand wander aimlessly over the keys; 'not dethrone you; I shall never, never be able to do that. Little Miss Butterfly, your image is stamped there too deep for dethronement, stamped there for ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... by Solomon, as a salutary medicine for curing women who are thus made of that malady; which counsel let none, who meriteth not such treatment, repute to have been said for her, albeit men have a byword which saith, 'Good horse and bad horse both the spur need still, And women need the stick, both good and ill.' Which words, an one seek to interpret them by way of pleasantry, all women will lightly allow to be true; nay, but considering them morally,[438] I say that the same must be conceded of them; for that women are ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... with its hundred towers, are many historic places, landmarks in the story of Bohemia. Foremost among these is the Castle of Karlov Tyn. It stands on a rocky spur in a wooded valley, between four hills. You catch a sudden and fleeting glimpse of it as you approach Prague from Paris by the line that runs along the winding River Berounka. If you are blessed with the healthy curiosity of the traveller in foreign ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... to spur her up for a minute or so, but something seems to keep on warning me that her heart ain't in the work to the extent it has been. Windy don't see nothing out of the way, he being congenially engaged in shooting off his face, but I'm more or less concerned by certain mighty significant ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... path down to the creek. Buck Mulligan stood on a stone, in shirtsleeves, his unclipped tie rippling over his shoulder. A young man clinging to a spur of rock near him, moved slowly frogwise his green legs in the deep ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... 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 ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... might reckon on you,' holding out her hand, English fashion. She did not see us, but M. d'Aubepine, who was slinking off the scene, like a beaten hound, as well he might, unaware that we were in the antechapel, caught his foot and spur in Madame Darpent's long trailing cloak, and came down at full length on the stone floor, being perhaps a little flustered with wine. He lay still for the first moment, and there was an outcry. One of the soldiers cried out to the other as Madame Darpent's black dress and white cap flashed ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge |
