"Spur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there lingers of the smile that died On the sweet pale lip where his kisses were ... Yet still she turns her delicate head aside, If she may hear him come with jingling spur Through the fresh fairness of the Spring to ride, As in the old days ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow
... fear no one, for we have plenty of guns and cartridges, and five hundred men such as you cannot take us. And say to the chief of the village, that on every fourth day, food for us must be brought to the foot of the eastern spur of the mountain. If this be not done, then shall we kill all whom we meet—men, women or children. Now go and tell the man who flogged us that some day we shall cook and eat his head, for we ...
— The Flemmings And "Flash Harry" Of Savait - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... get on, mother; we are near a house, for I see a bright light shining quite close to us in the north." Then she rose and shouldered her bag, and set off to see; but they hadn't gone far, before there stood a steep spur of the hill, right across ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen
... wings are so small that they can scarcely be called wings, and are not easy to find under the general plumage of the body. Its nostrils, strange to say, are at the tip of the beak. The toes are strong, and well adapted for digging, the hind one being a thick, horny spur. To add to the singularity of this creature, it has no tail whatever. The kirvi-kirvi conceals itself among the extensive beds of fern which abound in the middle island of New Zealand, and it makes a nest of fern for its eggs in deep holes, which it hollows out of the ground. It feeds ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... no longer surprised," added Gervaise, "that fear of the gypsies should spur you on ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... found "grace sufficient." In what he had regarded as the contemptible tricks of fate, he was beginning to discern the guiding hand of a wisdom greater than the world's. The danger threatened by Cartagena was, temporarily, at least, averted by Rosendo's magnificent spirit. Under the spur of that sacrifice his own courage rose mightily ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... time the rest had surrounded the house, and Mr. King and his servant being in bed they immediately commanded them to rise and put on their cloaths. While his servant was putting on his spurs, one of the soldiers damned him, saying, was he putting a spur on a prisoner? To whom he replied, He would put on what he pleased: For which he received from him a blow: then another gave that soldier a blow, saying, Damn you, sir, are you striking a prisoner, while ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... only can you hear and accept any useful proposals which a speaker may have thought out before he came here; but such, I conceive, is your fortune, that the right suggestion will often occur to some of those present on the spur of the moment; and out of all these suggestions it should be easy for you to choose ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... the 7th of last month, and fear you are quite in the right about a history of the house of Medici— yet it is pity it should not be written!(1030) You don't, I know, want any spur to incite you to remember me and any commission with which I trouble you; and therefore you must not take it in that light, but as the consequence of my having just seen the Neapolitan book of Herculaneum, that I mention it to you again. Though it is far from being finely engraved, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... thinking of the boy's rudeness in return for her kind offer of help, but of the flash of spirit in his eyes. It augured well for him, she was thinking, for spirit was spirit, although "gone wrong." In the right place, it should spur him on to a second attempt to get into college. What if she were to persist in her offer—were to work with him, urge him to ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... cultivation along the nullah or torrent, on which the village is situated. Pears, peaches likewise occur, and are now both in flower. The hills around are bare, nothing but shrubby vegetation being visible, the tree-jungle not descending below 7,500 feet, except on one spur to the south-west, on which it reaches nearly ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... brow of the steep hill we have mentioned, when two or three horsemen, speedily discovered to be a part of their own advanced guard, who had acted as a patrol, appeared returning at full gallop, their horses much blown, and the men apparently in a disordered flight. They were followed upon the spur by five or six riders, well armed with sword and pistol, who halted upon the top of the hill, on observing the approach of the Life-Guards. One or two who had carabines dismounted, and, taking a leisurely ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... thorn or a burr She takes for a spur, With a lash of a bramble she rides now; Through brakes and through briars, O'er ditches and mires, She follows the ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... divides the Irrawaddy and the Chindwin drainages, flows south and south-east for 180 m. before it joins the Irrawaddy, and is navigable for steamers as far as Kamaing for about four months in the year. South of Thayetmyo, where arms of the Arakan Yomas approach the river and almost meet that spur of the Pegu Yomas which formed till 1886 the [v.04 p.0839] northern boundary of British Burma, the valley of the Irrawaddy opens out again, and at Yegin Mingyi near Myanaung the influence of the tide is first ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... north and south of the river is approximately 400 feet above the bottom of the valley, and is very similar in character, as are both slopes of the valley itself, which are broken into numerous rounded spurs and re-entrants. The most prominent of the former are the Chivre spur on the right bank and Sermoise spur on the left. Near the latter place the general plateau, on the south is divided by a subsidiary valley of much the same character, down which the small River Vesle flows to the main stream near Sermoise. The ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... a knight, Though his spur be as sharp, and his blade be as bright; Allen-a-dale is no baron or lord, Yet twenty tall yeomen will draw at his word; And the best of our nobles his bonnet will veil, Who at Rere-cross on Stanmore ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... science and the rapid march of moral improvement the most effectual spur that has ever been applied was the Reform Bill. Before the introduction of that measure, electioneering was a simple process, hardly deserving the name of an art; it has now arrived at the rank ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... inarticulate cry. He had come close to her, and was standing beside the stirrup, one bold hand upon the rein. Her quirt went swiftly up and down, cut like a thin bar of red-hot iron across his uplifted face. He stumbled back, half blind with the pain. Before he could realize what had happened the spur on her little boot touched the side of the pony, and it was off with a bound. She was galloping wildly down ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... on the east, while a sinuous and shallow channel running between Africa and Asia united the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. Westward, the littoral followed closely the contour of the Libyan plateau; but a long limestone spur broke away from it at about 31 deg. N., and terminated in Cape Abukir. The alluvial deposits first tilled up the depths of the bay, and then, under the influence of the currents which swept along its eastern coasts, accumulated behind that rampart of sand-hills whose remains are still ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... in a whisper; "a circular about the rights of servants, issued by the 'Servants' Mootual Protecting Society.'" (Bog thought of the name on the spur of the moment.) ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... Edinburg, for six shillings. On leaving the depot, we plunged into the heart of the hill on which Glasgow Cathedral stands and were whisked through darkness and sulphury smoke to daylight again. The cars bore us past a spur of the Highlands, through a beautiful country where women were at work in the fields, to Linlithgow, the birth-place of Queen Mary. The majestic ruins of its once-proud palace, stand on a green meadow behind the town. In another hour we were walking through Edinburg, admiring its ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... can't pick the one from t' other, try your best. There's nothing brings a lass to the round-about so quick as having to do what she does n't want. They are born contrary and skittish, and they can't help shying at fences and gates, but give 'em the spur and the whip, and over they go, as happy as a lark. And I say so, Janice will marry ye, and mark my word, come a month she'll be complaining that ye don't ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... pretty much like another, Europe over. There is the same sparkle of jewels and shimmer of silk on aristocratic woman; the same clank of spur and rattle of sword and brilliancy ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... writers on this theme. All involve a relaxing of tension, letting ourselves go without reluctance in the direction in which we are most profoundly drawn; a cessation of our struggles with the tide, our kicks against the pricks that spur us on. The inward aim of the self is towards unification with a larger life; a mergence with Reality which it may describe under various contradictory symbols, or may not be able to describe at all, but which it feels to be the fulfilment of existence. It has learnt—though ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... woman says what I have said on the spur of the moment? Do you think I merely happened to see you to-day, merely happened to say what I've said? You know better. This has been coming for months. I fought it hard at first; with convention, with your idea of right and wrong. Now I laugh at them both. ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... cariole? that was the question. Was I to go alone? Suppose I should miss the road and get lost in some awful wilderness? However, these questions were too much for my limited vocabulary of Norsk on the spur of the moment. So I mounted the cariole, resolved to abide whatever fate Providence might have in store for me. The girl put the reins in my hand and off I started, wondering why these good people left me to travel ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... alarm to-night, Ellison," I said on the spur of the moment, and I caught the Princess's eye. She rose, shut her book, ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... beautiful valley on an elevated region of the plateau, which, among the Alps, would have been buried in eternal snows, but which within the tropics enjoyed a genial and salubrious temperature. Towards the north it was defended by a lofty eminence, a spur of the great Cordillera; and the city was traversed by a river, or rather a small stream, over which bridges of timber, covered with heavy slabs of stone, furnished an easy means of communication with the opposite ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... with his effort. And the Emperor heard it, and stopped for an instant on his march. 'My lords,' he said, 'things are going badly with us; we shall lose my nephew Roland to-day, for I know by the way he blows his horn that he has not long to live. Spur your horses, for I would fain see him before he dies. And let every trumpet in the army sound its loudest!' The Unbelievers heard the noise of the trumpets, which echoed through the mountains and valleys, and they whispered fearfully to each other, 'It is Charles who is coming, ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... meet them as they came in. He hugged the gaunt Lieutenant with genuine fervor of joy, while Oncle Jazon ran around them making a series of grotesque capers. The whole command, hearing Oncle Jazon's patriotic words, set up a wild shouting on the spur of a general impression that Beverley came as a messenger bearing glorious news from Washington's army in ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... the clash, and the shout, "They come! they come!" The horsetails[376] are plucked from the ground, and the sword From its sheath; and they form, and but wait for the word. Tartar, and Spahi, and Turcoman, 690 Strike your tents, and throng to the van; Mount ye, spur ye, skirr the plain,[377] That the fugitive may flee in vain, When he breaks from the town; and none escape, Aged or young, in the Christian shape; While your fellows on foot, in a fiery mass, Bloodstain the breach through ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... ground, both on the north and south of the river, is approximately 400 ft. above the bottom of the valley itself, which is broken into numerous rounded spurs and re-entrants. The most prominent of the former are the Chivres spur on the right bank and the ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... outlook was indeed dark. But, even in these desperate straits, there was a buoyancy in his spirits that he had seldom enjoyed. Life seemed good while he was yet alive to fight for it; he had youth, strength, hope, and the spur of deeds to be done, all of which roweled his faith whenever it faltered. Even this morning, he felt unaccountably like flinging his arms into the air, ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... began the head; and then rapidly withdrew behind the door to avoid one of the spurs, which (being the missile nearest at hand) Drysdale instantly discharged at it. As the spur fell to the floor, the head reappeared in the room, and as quickly disappeared again, in deference to the other spur, the top boots, an ivory handled hair brush, and a translation of Euripides, which in turn saluted each successive appearance of ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... are concerned. The private car owners and the owners of industrial railroads are entitled to a fair and reasonable compensation on their investment, but neither private cars nor industrial railroads nor spur tracks should be utilized as devices for securing preferential rates. A rebate in icing charges, or in mileage, or in a division of the rate for refrigerating charges is just as pernicious as a rebate ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... For the first few days he had to drive himself to his work with bit and spur. His feet lagged and he groaned in spirit—perhaps audibly, too—as he approached his books. But he did it, and little by little it became easier, until, as Mr. Daley had predicted, it had become a habit with him to do certain things at certain hours and he was uncomfortable if his routine ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... teaches the people, and tells them of Mary and Jesus; Loud laugh their hearts with joy, and weep with pain, as they hear him." Then, with a sudden and secret emotion, Evangeline answered, "Let us go to the Mission, for there good tidings await us!" Thither they turned their steeds; and behind a spur of the mountains, Just as the sun went down, they heard a murmur of voices, And in a meadow green and broad, by the bank of a river, Saw the tents of the Christians, the tents of the Jesuit Mission. Under a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... patois. The titles of some of the Atellian farces are still extant: "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 Pantaloon; Mandacus, who is the Neapolitan Guappo; the Oscan Casnar, a first ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... mercilessly applied, proves that they not only can pull still, but pull well too. I am ashamed to say how these two beloved women had almost to carry me, a stout youth; and even all their strength might have been insufficient but for the potent spur of the dragoons' return. With an arm round the neck of each, and resting almost my entire weight on their shoulders, I managed to scuffle along, very slowly and with fearful pain, towards Les Arenes. ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... was one, were self-conscious agents of advance. They chose hardship, loneliness, the strenuous life because they wished to clear the way for a higher civilization. To her it seemed a great and noble sacrifice. She did not perceive that while all this is true, it is under the surface, the real spur is a desire to get on, and a hope of making money. For, strangely enough, she differentiated sharply the life and the reasons for it. An existence in subduing the forest was to her ideal; the making ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... strain cease now; and let my home be a refuge while you remain. Your wound is one that time only can heal. You have made an heroic struggle not to mar their happiness, and I am proud of you for it. But don't try to deceive me or put the spur any longer to your jaded spirit. Reaction into new hopes and a new life will come all the sooner if you give way for the present to ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... rang out. One of my companions cried out, as he caught hold of his right shoulder; one pack horse fell dead with a bullet behind his ear. We quickly tumbled out of our saddles, lay down behind the rocks and began to study the situation. We were separated from a parallel spur of the mountain by a small valley about one thousand paces across. There we made out about thirty riders already dismounted and firing at us. I had never allowed any fighting to be done until the initiative had been taken by the other side. Our enemy fell upon us unawares ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... carefully chosen, and no less carefully sounded, by my two friends, and all were devotedly attached to the person of the King. They were told a part of the truth; the attempt on my life in the summer-house was revealed to them, as a spur to their loyalty and an incitement against Michael. They were also informed that a friend of the King's was suspected to be forcibly confined within the Castle of Zenda. His rescue was one of the objects of ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... to seem her usual self then when she came most near it, in writing to him. But it was a nice matter to write letters for so many weeks out of a sick room and not let Mr. Linden find out that she herself was there all the while. His letters however were both a help and a spur; Faith talked a good deal of things not at Pattaquasset; and through all weakness and ailing sent her exercises prepared with utmost care, regularly as usual. It hurt her; but Faith would not be ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... to his trumpeter and squire, Anthony Van Corlear, that man of emergencies, with orders to travel night and day, sparing neither whip nor spur, seeing that he carried the vindication of his patron's fame in his saddle-bags. The loyal Anthony accomplished his mission with great speed and considerable loss of leather. He delivered his missive with becoming ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... government. Drought cut overall output sharply in 1992, but the lost ground was recovered in 1993. The economy depends on substantial inflows of economic assistance from the IMF, the World Bank, and individual donor nations. The new government faces strong challenges, e.g., to spur exports, to improve educational and health facilities, and to deal with environmental problems of ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... Roman wheeled his horse between them. Antipater backed away, threatening with his lance. He shouted to his trumpeter, his troop being hard by, and quickly a call sounded. Then spur went to flank, and the followers of the Jew passed in a quick rush and went thundering off, Antipater at the head of their column. He rode to Athens in ill humor and was at Piraeus three hours in advance of Arria and Appius. The sun had set and the sea lay calm in a purple dusk. He ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... Hilliard in very real danger. It was by no means impossible that the gang would decide to murder both of the men whose knowledge threatened them, in the hope of bluffing the bank manager out of the letter which they would believe he held. Merriman had invented this letter on the spur of the moment and he would have felt a good deal happier if he knew that it really existed. He decided that he would write to Hilliard immediately and get him to make ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... was well upon his way, riding with squared jaw, with rein and spur towards Valladolid. He neither whistled nor chanted to the air; he was vacuus viator no longer, travelled not for pleasure but to get over the leagues. For him this country of distances and great air was not ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... we were with him when he laid the foundations of the world, and the song is unfinished, the fingers grow listless. As we receive these intimations of age our very sins become negative: we are still pleased if a voice praises us, but we grow lethargic in enterprises where the spur to activity is fame or the acclamation of men. At some point in the past we struggled mightily for the sweet incense which men offer to a towering personality: but the infinite is for ever within man: we sighed for other worlds and found that ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... back his head like a horse at the touch of the spur. His eyes blazed defiantly at the Kapellmeister for a moment, and then the light went out of them as flame from a coal. The glass fell from his hand and lay shattered in fragments on the floor. He stood looking down at ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... served with many official papers which we never fill in, because, on the spur of the moment, it is apt to suggest itself that men's lives are more important. We misapply a vast majority of our surgical supplies, because the most important item is usually left behind at headquarters ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... crooked-shanked, long-legged, narrow-chested, good-for-nothin' brutes; they ain't worth their keep one winter. I vow, I wish one of these Bluenoses, with his go-to-meetin' clothes on, coat-tails pinned up behind like a leather blind of a Shay, an old spur on one heel, and a pipe stuck through his hat-band, mounted on one of these limber-timbered critters, that moves its hind legs like a hen scratchin' gravel, was sot down in Broadway, in New York, for a sight. Lord! I think I hear the West Point cadets ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... and with this tacit consent to his remaining, Jasper joined the party, who now proceeded to look more carefully after game than they had previously done, the young engineer's allusions to "meat" having acted as a spur to their movements, besides, no doubt, whetting ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... loyal Carnegies on the wall, "there is Lord Hay's letter, and he is a . . . worthy gentleman. Perhaps I did not give him so much encouragement as he took, but that does not matter. This is a . . . serious decision, and ought not to be made on the spur of the moment. Will you let the messenger go with a note to say that an answer will be sent on Monday? You might write to ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... becomes the awe in which I stand of you, and the greater my reluctance to speak. I have spoken to strange audiences often, and with the utmost fluency, but now that I am confronted with my own folk, I hesitate. Strange to say, I am frightened by what should allure, curbed by what should spur me on, and restrained by what should make me bold. There is much that should give me courage in your presence. I have made my home in your city which I knew well as a boy, and where my student days were spent. You know my ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... The animal cantered towards the gate, and then suddenly turned round with an impatient and angry snort. "For shame, Puppet!—for shame, old boy!" said the sportsman, wheeling him again to the barrier. The horse shook his head, as if in remonstrance; but the spur vigorously applied showed him that his master would not listen to his mute reasonings. He bounded forward—made at the gate—struck his hoofs against the top bar—fell forward, and threw his rider head foremost on the road beyond. ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... rest on no foundation. One need believe them as little as one does the myth of one chronicler, that when she tried to stop him from some expedition, and clung to him as he sat upon his horse, he smote his spur so deep into her breast that she fell dead. The man had self-control, and feared God in his own wild way,—therefore it ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... and lies on the way to nowhere. It is almost wholly an agricultural town, and has a curious humped bridge, right in the middle of the town, where men stand about on market days and discuss the price of bullocks. It has two churches—one, disused, on a precipitous spur above the town, surrounded by an amazingly irregular sort of churchyard, full, literally, to bursting (the Kirkbys lie there, generation after generation of them, beneath pompous tombs), and the other church a hideous rectangular building, with ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... said Tom; "that is," added he, with as much of a swagger as he could assume on the spur of the moment, "I had been half thinking of just seeing what it was like. Some of our fellows, ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... it. I positively had forgotten the fact for the moment. The sight of Langford was such a shock to me. On the spur of the moment I made my ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... a spur. It lifts the head of a man as the spur makes the horse toss his; and it quickens the pace with a subtle addition of strength. Such a thought came to Buck Daniels as he stepped again on the veranda ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... thirteen dollars, flour eight dollars and fifty cents, wheat one dollar and fifty cents, but dull, because only the millers buy. The river, however, is nearly open, and the merchants will now come to market and give a spur to the price. But the competition will not be what it has been. Bankruptcies thicken, and the height of them has by no means yet come on. It is thought this, winter will be ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... hope of Edna's approval to spur him, besides the more unselfish motives he already possessed, Larcher made haste upon the business. This time he tried to conquer the expectation of finding Davenport at home; yet it would struggle up as he approached the house of Mrs. Haze. The same deadening disappointment ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... shot under me. Looking around amid the confusion I saw this horse without a rider. I was in mortal terror of being trampled by the shifting squadrons and did not delay, but sprang into the saddle and gave him the spur. When the Confederate bugles sounded the retreat I had a terrible struggle to keep him from obeying orders and carrying me away into their lines. After that, however, I had no trouble with him. But he is not kind to strangers, as a rule. ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... 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, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... measures; and I can say, with truth, it never failed me but in the circumstance of their making peace with us. I have no letters from America of later date than the new year. Mr. Adams had, to the beginning of February. I am in hopes our letters will give a new spur to the proposition, for investing Congress with the regulation of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the stage road. "They're bound to have a fire or show a light when it's dark," he reasoned, and, satisfied with that reflection, lay down again. Presently he began to amuse himself by tossing some silver coins in the air. Then his attention was directed to a spur of the Coast Range which had been sharply silhouetted against the cloudless western sky. Something intensely white, something so small that it was scarcely larger than the silver coin in his hand, was appearing in a slight cleft of ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... use, and the loss of a large proportion of the annual harvest of the sea in the process of curing, or in transportation to the places of its consumption. [Footnote According to Berthelote, in the Gulf of Lyons, between Marseilles and the easternmost spur of the Pyrenees, about 5,000,000 small fish ate taken annually with the drag-net, and not lees than twice as many more, not to spekak of spawn, are destroyed by ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... be inferred that her stock of classical allusions is not quite so accurate and complete as that of a genuine sportswoman should be. Next morning she may be seen schooling her horses in the park. She has a touching faith in the use both of spur and of whip whenever the occasion seems least to demand them, and she despises the man who rides without rowels, and reverences one who attempts impossible jumps without discrimination. During the summer she spends a considerable part of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various
... out one which seemed to be coming with the flight of an eagle out of its uppermost heights. He seemed to know its slim, lithe shape, and the rapidity and decision of its approach. His heart thrilled, as it had thrilled when he saw the Arrow coming for the first time on that spur of the ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... slip of paper, and see what there is on it!" and speedily taking what Pao-yue had written a short while back, she handed it over to Tai-yue to examine. Tai-yue, on perusal, discovered that Pao-yue had composed it, at the spur of the moment, when under the influence of resentment; and she could not help thinking it both a matter of ridicule as well as of regret; but she hastily explained to Hsi Jen: "This is written for fun, and there's nothing of any consequence in it!" and having concluded ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... is done for them by one mind like themselves, addressing them or speaking in their name, on the spur of the moment, through the newspapers. I do not assert that anything better is compatible, as a general rule, with the present low state of the human mind. But that does not hinder the government of mediocrity from being mediocre government. No government by a democracy ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... had a horror of definite appointments. An invitation to tea a week ahead had been enough to poison life for him. He was one of those young men whose souls revolt at the thought of planning out any definite step. He could do things on the spur of the moment, but plans made him ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... to sell that was of any value. Yes, there was one thing. He could pawn his watch, that beautiful watch that had been his grandfather's and which he was to use when he was twenty-one. In the meantime it was his, left him by his grandfather's will. On the spur of the moment he rose and hurried into the house. Why had he not thought of it before? It was a repeater, that watch, and his grandfather had paid nearly a thousand dollars for it. He would sell it. He hurried into the ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... between four and five million years ago, at which period large portions of the great southern continent of Lemuria still existed, while the continent of Atlantis had not assumed the proportions it ultimately attained. It was upon a spur of this Lemurian land that the Rmoahal race was born. Roughly it may be located at latitude 7 deg. north and longitude 5 deg. west, which a reference to any modern atlas will show to lie on the Ashanti coast of to-day. ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... sorry for your lot. The best of life you have forgot. Could you remember what you were, Unharnessed and untouched by spur, These youngsters that you drive away Would be your comrades here to-day. Among them you could gayly walk And share their laughter and their talk; You could be young and blithe as they, ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... distinctly marked by his mental characteristics. Content to repose on the bosom of his mother terra firma, he is not disturbed by dreams of honor, wealth or fame. He does not with the white man possess that towering ambition, that soars aloft in climes ethereal. There is with the African no motive to spur him to action; no incentive to the acquisition of wealth; no aspiration for power; no desire for honor or fame. Self reliance and enterprise, are the peculiar characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon race; on the contrary, the African in his native ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... spur of her anger against him, the words framed themselves in her mind—"How unfinished he is!" But down in her heart there was an ache, deeper than could have been caused by mere irritation, or even disappointment. Never before in her life had there been a breach between John and ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... wounded in the breast grievously; from thence to the spur his body is bloody.' Saxons, Lusatians, Hungarians perceive that his blows lessen and fall slow. 'Montjoie!' he cries many a time, but the French hear him not. 'When Baldwin sees that he will have no succour, as a boar he defends himself with his sword.... Who should have seen the ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... Mull'd Sack; a fantastic and humourous Chimney-Sweeper, so called: with cap, feather, and lace band: cloak tuck'd up; coat ragged; scarf on his arm; left leg in a fashionable boot, with a spur; on his right foot a shoe with a rose; sword by his side, and a holly bush and pole on his shoulder; in his left hand, another pole with a horn on it; a pipe, out of which issues smoke, is in his right hand; at the bottom are eight verses ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... began to spur their horses, there came the voice of Enid from the hedgerow beside them. And she cried out piteously in ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... similarly incarcerated and only liberated 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 ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... truth of the red-hot spur lay in those words, lesson direst to me! What had my life been, plodding in books to learn to keep by forms of law the booty my father had stolen? Away with it, then, for now the Bird of Time was on the wing! Let me forget the wasted years, spent in adding dollar to dollar; ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... turned cold, and we had to rush home, while I still lacked thirty thousand words. I had been sick and got delayed. I am going to write all day and two thirds of the night, until the thing is done, or break down at it. The spur and burden of the contract are intolerable to me. I can endure the irritation of it no longer. I went to work at nine o'clock yesterday morning, and went to bed an hour after midnight. Result of the day, (mainly stolen from books, tho' credit ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... horses will become when ridden by ladies. The cause of this is, that they are more quietly handled, patted, and caressed by them, and become soon sensible of this difference of treatment, from the rough whip-and-spur system, too ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... panted off, leaving the car at rest on the spur-track. The fox-faced secretary came out, held the door open. Some one followed Molly Casey. Sandy surmised it must be Donald Keith, but he had sight for nothing except the slender figure whose radiant face, between a Panama hat and a dustcoat of pongee silk, shone straight ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... taken to carry the hill to the left, which from this point was about 1000 feet high. The Gordon Highlanders were directed up the end of the western hill from the point where it touched the valley, and the King's Own Scottish Borderers were directed up the centre spur; the 60th Rifles were directed up the slopes from farther back on the line, while the Bedfordshire Regiment and the 37th Dogras pushed on and rounded the point from which the Gordon Highlanders commenced ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... Hence in psychology, in yoga, always basing itself on the ultimate analysis of the fact of nature, pain is the thing that asserts itself as the most important factor in Self-realisation; that which is other than the Self will best spur the Self into activity. Therefore we find our commentator, when dealing with pain, declares that the karmic receptacle the causal body, that in which all the seeds of karma are gathered Up, has for its builder all painful experiences; and along that line of thought ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... hosts again My dripping sabre seeks the front. Spur your mad horses! Forward, men! Meet with your hearts the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... safe. I'm sure Jake is here alone, and he wouldn't dare try to do anything to stop us here. He knows that he'd get into trouble if he did, and I don't think he's very brave, even in this new fashion of his unless some of the people he's afraid of are right around to spur him on. You remember how Will Burns thrashed him? He didn't look very brave then, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... perhaps I might get back those intimations of outlook and relief if I clambered alone into some high solitude and thought. I had a crude attractive vision of myself far above the heat and noise, communing with the sky. It was the worst season for climbing, and on the spur of the moment I could do nothing but get up the Rochers de Naye on the wrong side, and try and find some eyrie that was neither slippery nor wet. I did not succeed. In one place I slipped down a wet bank for some ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... Not through Fantastick Humour but Design, To try me throughly e'er she should be mine, Because she wanted in one Man to have, A Husband, Lover, Cuckold and a Slave. So Travellers, before a Horse they buy, His Speed, his Paces, and his Temper try, Whether he'll answer Whip and Spur, thence Judge, If the poor Beast will prove a patient Drudge: When she by wiles had heightned my Desire, And fain'd Love's sparkles to a raging Fire; Made now for Wedlock, or for Bedlam fit. Thus Passion gain'd the upper-hand of Wit, The Dame by pity, or by Interest ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... an angry laugh and a sharp, downward blow of the butt of his whip upon the peasant's head. Charlot's hand grew nerveless and released the bridle as he sank stunned to the ground. Bellecour touched his horse with the spur and rode over the prostrate fellow with no more concern than had he been a dog's carcase. "Blaise, see to the girl," he called over his shoulder, adding to his company: "Come, messieurs, we have ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... lost in the gully,—then breaking out again much nearer, and growing more and more pronounced as the dog approaches, till, when he comes around the brow of the mountain, directly above you, the barking is loud and sharp. On he goes along the northern spur, his voice rising and sinking, as the wind and lay of the ground modify ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... shrill screams of agony. The boys had broken from their ranks and were flying in every direction. Young Joe, staggering behind them, was almost hidden by a jet of flame that seemed to spring from one of the pockets of his coat. The boy was just opposite the Blue Goose. Before Firmstone could spur his horse to the screaming child Elise darted down the steps, seized the boy with one hand, with the other tore the flames from his coat and threw them far out on the trail. Firmstone knew what had happened. The miner had left some sticks of ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... not ennui When on the grass thou liest in the shade. I see thee tranquil and content, And great part of thy years Untroubled by ennui thou passest thus. I likewise in the shadow, on the grass. Lie, and a dull disgust beclouds My soul, and I am goaded with a spur, So that, reposing, I am farthest still From finding peace or place. And yet I want for naught, And have not had till now a cause for tears. What is thy bliss, how much, I cannot tell; but thou ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... added must be part of a word, and not an odd letter thought of on the spur of the moment. When there is any doubt as to the letter used by the last player being correct, he may be challenged, and he will then have to give the word he was thinking of when adding the letter. If he cannot name the word, he loses a "life"; but if he ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... motion by desire:—the bird and the animal roam land and air in their desire to secure food and shelter, or for the purpose of breeding, man is also moved by these desires, but has in addition other and higher incentives to spur him to effort, among them is desire for rapidity of motion which led him to construct the steam engine and other devices that move in obedience ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... to examine these rocks, which extended up the mountain side, and my companions agreed with me that it was advisable to leave the bed of the river for the spur of the mountains where the river apparently took its rise. We crossed the stream, and commenced a gradual but oblique ascent of the spur. But after climbing for some hours we found our further progress stopped by a wide and deep gully, a sinister place, ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... veteran of many a round-up. No pony in the arduous work of cutting out was surer of eye or quicker of foot, and now this dodging back and forth brought a gleam into the bronco's eyes. There was no need of the goading spur of Perris to make it spring forth at full speed, running on nerve-power in place of the sapped ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... noon three days later. At the back of the scene, northward, rise the Michaelsberg heights; below stretches the panorama of the city and the Danube. On a secondary eminence forming a spur of the upper hill, a fire of logs is burning, the foremost group beside it being NAPOLEON and his staff, the former in his shabby greatcoat and plain turned-up hat, walking to and fro with his hands behind him, and ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... insure its safety. The antiquity of the state of mind may be judged by the perfection to which the spurs have attained and the remarkably skilful and definite way in which the creatures use them. The spur, which has arisen from the development of the scales and underlying bone of the bird's leg, is a singularly perfect structure, the finish of which cannot be judged in the degraded form in which it is found in our ordinary barnyard species. Although in its construction this ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... The rider shook himself clear and began to fight. Hugh was beaten to his knee beneath a heavy blow that his helm turned. He rose unhurt and rushed at the knight, who, in avoiding his onset, caught his spur on the body of a dead man and ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... so that the Blackfellows and the dogs easily followed every movement, as they pursued the hunt on a smoother level below. The Blacks were trying to hurry on, so as to cut off the Kangaroo's retreat at a spur of the hill, where, to get away, she would have to leave the rocks and descend towards them. In the meantime Dot's ears were filled with the sounds of snarling snaps from the dingo dogs, and hideous noises ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... we could have already got well forward with our plans and orders, as well as with the laying of our hands upon the thousand odds and ends demanded by the invasion of a barren, trackless extremity of an Empire—odds and ends never thought of by anyone until the spur of reality brought them galloping to the front. Then the moment the Fleet cried off, we might have had a dash in, right away, with what we have here. The onslaught could have been supported from Egypt and the 29th Division might have ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... them in honour and in rank. The infantry at the first onset have made the enemy give way: now that they have given way, do you give reins to your horses and drive them from the field. They will not stand your charge: even now they rather hesitate than resist." They spur on their horses, and drive in amongst the enemy who were already thrown into confusion by the attack of the infantry; and having broken through the ranks, and pushed on to the rear of their line, a part wheeling round in the open space, turn ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... national horizon. Let trade suffer as it might, there was nothing for it but to discard all new-fangled notions and to revert to the system which the usage of ages had sanctioned. The return was imperative. Failing what Junius stigmatised as the "spur of the Press," the right men in the right numbers were not to be procured. The wisdom of the nation was at fault. It ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... it clears up, with the sun shining brighter than ever, ain't that so, Tony? Of course it is. Well," went on Phil, sagely, "I guess I can size the McGee up, all right. He's just got a fiendish temper. He does things on the spur of the moment, that he's sorry for afterwards. All right. I can understand such a man; and Tony, take it for me, I'd rather deal with such a fiery disposition than the cold, calculating one of the man who ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... may be restored. The magistrate is incredulous, and declares that he would sooner believe that the fowls on which he was dining would rise again in full feather. The miracle is performed. The cock and hen spring from the ocean of their own gravy, clacking and crowing, with all appurtenances of spur, comb, and feather. Pierre, of course, is liberated, and declared innocent. The cock and hen become objects of veneration—live in a state of chastity—and are finally translated—leaving just two eggs, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... said that, though he could neither preach nor pray, he could be trusted. He was also "Dick Ingoldsby, the Regicide," who had unfortunately signed the death-warrant of Charles I., to please Cromwell; and that recollection was a spur to him now. Since the abdication of Richard, he had been telling people that he would thenceforth serve the King and no one else, even though his Majesty, when he came home, would probably cut off his head. That consequence, however, was to be avoided if possible; ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... of the bottle, and doled it out with strict impartiality. Under the spur of the fiery spirit, their ardour and their joviality ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... One night at dinner, when the two husbands were criticizing the novels their wives were reading, the wives suggested that their author husbands write a better one. The challenge was accepted. On the spur of the moment Warner and Clemens agreed that they would write a book together, and ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... less the better," her grandfather said, with a smile; "I should advise you not to prepare a set sermon, but to say nothing unless upon the spur of the moment, when something she does or says may ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... condemn it. Halm is certainly mistaken in saying that a laudatory epithet such as ingeniosissimi is necessary. I believe that the word opiniosissimi (an adj. not elsewhere used by Cic.) was manufactured on the spur of the moment, in order to ridicule these two philosophers, who are playfully described as men full of opinio or [Greek: doxa]—just the imputation which, as Stoics, they would most repel. Hermann's spinosissimi ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... himself behind the drawing-room door and watch. Perhaps "Fire" would be bobbery when the Colonel mounted him, would get "what-for" from whip and spur, and be put over the compound wall instead of being allowed to canter down the drive and ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... idea, he paid attention to his surroundings for the first time since leaving the museum. Hassan was just rounding the corner by Sahara Wells, turning into the new spur ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... and violet tints. In the west, surrounded by a host of golden stars that still glittered in the purple black depths of vanishing night, the silver moon hung half-way dipped as it slowly sank behind the towering crest of the Sahuaripa range, an isolated spur of the Sierra Madres. A vast plain intervened between them and the distant Sierras at whose foot dwelt ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... four or five spurs came down into the plain, parallel with each other and literally at right angles to the river. The key to these was a spur known as the Chivres hill or plateau. This we found impregnable to the attack of two brigades. It was steep and thickly wooded. Its assailants, too, could be heavily enfiladed ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... her hands away from a face that was white and miserable, and with angry spur and rein brought the mare back to the spot where the revolver lay. Slipping down, she hesitated a moment, glancing swiftly about as though afraid some one might see her, even with a look that was almost suspicious at the quiet body of Arthur Shandon, and stooping suddenly swept up the ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... the bristling 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 ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... was in splendid trim, and they played with great finish and judgment; but the sight of Grace, one side of whose face was tinged with blood that had risen to the surface from the deep scratch, seemed to spur the sophomores to the most spectacular ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... consolatory phrase, which he evidently devised on the spur of the moment, shows him to be a very ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... touch of the spur, the gray broncho went leaping forward, with Paddy's horse neck and neck at her side. From beyond the ridge, the trio of guns could be heard, barking ceaselessly, while their shells dropped thick into the laager, scarcely eight ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... courage is converted in a very few minutes into a dull helpless mass that has no more conscious volition than a machine. The animal remains on its feet, but exertion is impossible, and neither rein, whip, nor spur serves to stimulate the cunning poisoner's victim. About the facts there can now be no dispute: and this last wretched story supplies a copestone to a pile of similar tales which has been in course of building during the past three or four years. Enraged men have become outspoken, ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... Benevolences, when his influence alone averted a rising in the Eastern Counties. Since Buckingham's death his house stood at the head of the English nobility: his office of Lord Treasurer placed him high at the royal council board; and Henry's love for his niece, Anne Boleyn, gave a fresh spur to the duke's ambition. But his influence had till now been overshadowed by the greatness of Wolsey. With the Cardinal's fall however he at once came to the front. Though he had bowed to the royal policy, he was known as the leader of the party which ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... town was the step-father of Cole, the Oxford proctor: to this person, whose name was Master Wilkyns, the proctor had written a special letter, in addition to the commissary's circular; and the family connection acting as a spur to his natural activity, a coast guard had been set before Garret's arrival, to watch for him down the Avon banks, and along the Channel shore for fifteen miles. All the Friday night "the mayor, with the aldermen, and twenty ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... give no reply but that they had changed their mind. The Assyrian king thought Shebnah had made sport of him. He, therefore, ordered his attendants to bore a hole through his heels, tie him to the tail of a horse by them, and spur the horse on to run until Shebnah ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... was a thousand times worse than death on the field of battle. All at once I perceived a horse, about thirty paces before me, without a rider. The idea of being yet able to escape gave me fresh strength and served as a spur to me. I ran and laid hold of the bridle, which was fast in the hand of a man lying on the ground, whom I supposed dead; but, what was my surprise when the cowardly poltroon, who was suffering from nothing but fear, dared ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... not far distant; he is digging flints over the ridge, and, perhaps, at this moment rubbing the earth from a corroded Roman coin which he has found in the pit. Another is thatching, for there are three detached wheat-ricks round a spur of the Down a mile away, where the plain is arable, and there, too, a plough is at work. A shepherd is asleep on his back behind the furze a mile in the other direction. The fifth is a lad trudging with a message; he is in the nut-copse, over the next hill, very ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... threats would induce her to follow him, for he could not imagine her becoming attached to such a man as Holcroft had been described to be. Her uncompromising principle had entered but slightly into his calculations, and so, under the spur of anger and selfishness, he had easily entered upon a game of bluff He knew well enough that he had no claim upon Alida, yet it was in harmony with his false heart to try to make her think so. He had no serious intention of harming Holcroft—he would be afraid to attempt this—but ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... vestige of the dragoon's Christmas festivity. It may be urged that the enjoyments of which I have endeavoured to give a faithful narrative are gross and have no elevating tendency. I fear the men of the spur and sabre must bow to the justice of the criticism; and I know of nothing to advance in mitigation save the old Scotch proverb: "It is ill to mak' a silk purse ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... In spite of this spur to personal pride, the standard lessened in a few years, but not until certain weavers had won a fame that thrills even at this distance. Unfortunately, a great client was considered as important as a weaver, and it was often his arbitrary sign that was woven. And sometimes a dealer, wishing glory ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... store at Galena, the opportunity for a military life came knocking at the door, he welcomed it. For when morning broke on the 12th of April, 1861, and the first guns of the Civil War roared upon Sumter, Grant marched to the front, and soon became a brigadier-general "The spur of disappointed hopes, the fire of his ambition, and the iron will that lay back of many of his failures—all the qualities latent in the man of coming greatness, sprang ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... should take the opportunity of his absence to seduce his wife! It was a hideous and incredible idea, some mad mistake which could be easily explained. Dundee, throwing off his black and brooding burden of thought, would touch his horse with the spur and gallop for a mile in gayety of heart and then ride on his way, singing some Cavalier song, till Grimond, who kept away from his master those days and rode among the troopers, would shake his head, and say to himself, "God grant he be not fey" (possessed). ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... and south towered a spur of the Rocky Mountains. It would take hundreds of men a long time thoroughly to explore their recesses, and it was the intention of the leader to push in among them. The region resembled that to which he had been accustomed in California, and he would feel more ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... form may be useful, and the following has been considered a good one for a death-bed will, where the assistance of a solicitor could not be obtained; indeed, few solicitors can prepare a will on the spur of the moment: they require time and legal forms, which are by no means necessary, before they ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... men who, twenty-five years from now, will be the leaders in business, in society, in government, and in the Church, are not the pampered sons of the rich, but the young men who, with good health and good habits, with high ideals and strong ambition, are, under the spur of necessity, laying the foundation for future achievements, and these young men do not have a chance to become acquainted with the daughters of the very rich. Even if they did know them they might hesitate to enter upon the scale of expenditure to ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... suddenly pushed ahead in her studies and became a leader, this seemed the spur that made Edith display her enmity toward the girl. For Edith was so self-centered that any charm she might have possessed was being smothered and her sly and treacherous ways, kept her acquaintances either indifferent to her or decidedly ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... for it but to submit with a good grace. It is too late now for escape; you are in the toils. So you open your mouth for the bit, and are very manageable from the first. You give your rider no occasion to keep a tight rein, or to use the spur; and at last by imperceptible degrees you are quite ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata |
