"Dirt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... first found the yellow gold gleaming in the dirt of his mill-race, and all the world joined in a mad rush to the mines, the venturesome spirit of Capt. Dodson led him to press forward with the first, and he was a "forty-niner," that pride of the old Californians. In that surging crowd of wild adventurers from the ends of the earth, ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... eleven o'clock we were at the end of its summit and I could see a wide area to the west and north. The point appeared to be one of several similar projections though the one we were on was the most prominent. I selected a spot for a monument where we dug a hole in the rocks and dirt, and then cutting a tall slim pine and trimming it clean we hitched Yawger to it and made him drag it to the hole, where by a combination of science and strength we got it upright. While Andy, who had great strength, lifted and pushed after we had together got ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... whether I'm rude or not. You can't expect anything else from an old gold-digger, who has lived for years where there were no women except such as appeared to be made of mahogany, with nothing to cover 'em but a coating of dirt and a blue skirt. Besides, Willum told me at parting to look after you and see that you wanted for nothing, which I promised faithfully to do. You've some regard for Willum's wishes, ma'am?—you wouldn't have me break my promises to ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... fitted a long staff, together with two ropes, the former of which is used to thrust the hog under the ship's bottom, and the latter to guide and pull it up again close to the planks, so as to rub off all the dirt. This work is usually performed in ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... told you about washing your hands! You see, our hands touch so many dirty things, and handle so many things that other people's hands have touched, that we ought always to wash them before a meal for fear some of the dirt or germs on them may get into ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... the road that for some distance follows close to the base of that high wall of cliffs. By their ragged, nondescript clothing which, to say the least, was scant enough to afford them comfort and freedom of limb, and by the dirt, that covered them from the crowns of their bare, unkempt heads to the bottoms of their bare, unwashed feet, it was easy to identify the children as belonging to ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... the shop was dark, dingy, sombre, and dirty enough to have thrown an old Flemish Interior artist into hysterics of delight. There was an olla podrida browniness about it that would have entranced a native of Seville; and a collection of dirt around, that would have elevated a Chippeway Indian to an ecstasy of delight. The reed-mattings hung against the walls were of a gulden ochre-color, the smoked walls and ceiling the shade of asphaltum and burnt sienna, the unswept stone pavement a warm gray, the old tables and benches ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... to be supposed they should take delight in the dirt and nakedness and famine of our people, or envy them shoes for their feet ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... such purity lacks not e'en a purer. White those haunches as any cleanly-silver'd Salt, it takes you a month to barely dirt them. 20 Then like beans, or inert as e'er a pebble, Those impeccable heavy loins, a finger's Breadth from apathy ne'er seduced ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... however, and nearly all the women, wear the kaross, a kind of pelisse of skins sewn together, which is used at night as a wrap. The bodies of both sexes are smeared with a native ointment, buchu, which, aided by accretions of dust and dirt, soon forms a coating like a rind. Men and women often wear sandals of hide or plaited bast. They are fond of ornament, and decorate the arms, neck and legs with beads, iron or copper rings, teeth, hoofs, horns and shells, while they stick feathers or hares' tails in the hair. The women ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... he could not bring to a conclusion. Terrible doubts rose in his soul. Now he remembered Denisov with his changed expression, his submission, and the whole hospital, with arms and legs torn off and its dirt and disease. So vividly did he recall that hospital stench of dead flesh that he looked round to see where the smell came from. Next he thought of that self-satisfied Bonaparte, with his small white hand, who was now an Emperor, liked and respected by Alexander. Then why those ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... don't suppose the priest could tell whether she was guilty or not if you were to take corn meal or hominy grits) and put it in the wife's hands. And the priest is to take some "holy" water and scrape up the dirt off the floor of the Tabernacle, and put the dirt in the water and make the wife drink it. Now just imagine an infinite God getting up a scheme like that! Then the priest curses her and says if she is guilty she shall rot.... "and ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... debts to undertake management of business, and bind himself to so much a year. But there, Tom, if you won't read it, you miss the poor young fellow's character. He says that he has forgotten his station: fancied he was superior to trade, but hates debt; and will not allow anybody to throw dirt at his father's name, while he can work to clear it; and will sacrifice his pride. Come, Tom, that's manly, isn't it? I call ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... trees, and made a line of rifle-pits. The logs are piled one above another, as the backwoodsman builds a log-fence. There is a space five or six inches wide between the upper log and the one below it. They have dug a trench behind, and the dirt is thrown outside. ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... rode past a house, I saw where a Samoan had written a word on a board, and there was an [inverted A], perfectly formed, but upside down. You never saw such a thing in Europe; but it is as common as dirt in Polynesia. Men's names are tattooed on the forearm; it is common to find a subverted letter tattooed there. Here is a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... off his cloak) Lie there, golden cloak! There on thy kindred earth, lie there and rot! I dare not touch my forehead with my palm For fear my very flesh should turn to gold. Oh! let me curse thee, vilest, yellow dirt! Here, on my knees, thy martyr lifts his voice, A poor, starved wretch who can touch nought but thee[,] Wilt thou refresh me in the heat of noon? Canst thou be kindled for me when I'm cold? May all men, & the immortal Gods, Hate & spurn thee ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... that for countless centuries you and your man shall inhabit the carcasses of snakes, to eat dirt and be trodden on and crushed, until you learn to have respect ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... passed was Castle Thunder, of bloody repute. This occupied the same place in Confederate history, that, the dungeons beneath the level of the water did in the annals of the Venetian Council of Ten. It was believed that if the bricks in its somber, dirt-grimed walls could speak, each could tell a separate story of a life deemed dangerous to the State that had gone down in night, at the behest of the ruthless Confederate authorities. It was confidently asserted that among the commoner occurrences ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... in fearful alacrity, whereupon Sakr-el-Bahr released his hold and allowed the unfortunate fellow to rise at last, half-choked with dirt, livid of face, and quaking like a jelly, an object of ridicule and cruel ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... wandered over the desert. In course of his wanderings he thought of Krishna of unfading glory. The intelligent Rishi then beheld in that desert a naked hunter (of the Chandala class), all besmeared with dirt, surrounded by a pack of dogs. Extremely fierce-looking, he carried a sword and was armed with bow and arrows. That foremost of regenerate ones beheld copious streams of water issuing from the urinary organs of that hunter. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... breaks in Hunk eager, "and pullin' that swell line of patter, we could pack the reserved benches from dirt to canvas. Honest, we could! Say, Mister, lemme put it to you on the level. You buy in with me on this Great Australian Hippodrome, a half int'rest for twelve thou cash, leave me the transportation and talent ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... to notice here how intensely characteristic all this play is of Shakespeare. In the third scene of the third act, life in the country is contrasted to its advantage with life at Court; and then gold is treated as dirt by the princely brothers—both these, the love of country life, and the contempt of gold, are, as we shall see later, abiding peculiarities ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... When Lydia mounted to the deck she found it as clean scrubbed as her aunt's kitchen floor. Her glance of admiration was not lost upon Captain Jenness. "Yes, Miss Blood," said he, "one difference between an American ship and any other sort is dirt. I wish I could take you aboard an English vessel, so you could appreciate the Aroostook. But I guess you don't need it," he added, with a proud satisfaction in his laugh. "The Aroostook ain't in order yet; wait till we've been a few days at sea." The captain swept ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... of her nuns were too careful in this matter she would gravely reprove them, saying that "the purity of the body and its garments means the impurity of the soul."[21] Or, as the modern monk of Mount Athos still declares: "A man should live in dirt as in a coat of mail, so that his soul may sojourn ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... magic is the following: — A man, angered by finding that some one has deposited dirt in or about his property or premises, takes a few burning sticks and, thrusting them into the dirt, says, "Now let them suffer the ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... for comfort, civility, and fair charges. A walk into the town of Valence itself has very little in it to repay the traveller, with the exception of the Champ de Mars, a sort of public garden bordering on the Rhone. Certainly no place ever united such a degree of dirt and closeness to so smiling an exterior. Its old Gothic walls still remain, and the streets therefore are probably built on the same scale as in those times when they crowded together ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... way. The allotment of funds for desirable projects has already begun. The key men for the major responsibilities of this great task already have been selected. I well realize that the country is expecting before this year is out to see the "dirt fly", as they say, in carrying on the work, and I assure my fellow citizens that no energy will be spared in using these funds effectively to make a major attack upon the ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... gilt railings, while in the square at the stairs' foot were ranged benches and boards on trestles, and there the soldiers of the Guard sat in picturesque groups enough, contrasting in the carelessness and dirt of their general appearance with the lavish ornaments of marble and gilt work which served as a background to their figures. Marching orders, more or less thumbed and torn, hung in fragments from the panelled walls; names in pencil and names in ink, and names scrawled with a finger-nail, defaced ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... him as he rubbed his hands with dirt, Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt; Then while the New York pitcher ground the ball into his hip, Defiance gleamed in Casey's eye, a sneer ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... peeled, and abominable, and it was given over to the sportings and spoutings of devils who threw mud, and steam, and dirt at each other with whoops, and ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... didn't have our range. All of their shells flew screaming 1,000 yards to our left. Through my glasses I watched them strike. The effect on the hillock was exactly as though a geyser had suddenly spurted up. A vast cloud of dirt and stones and grass spouted up, and when the debris cleared away a ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... they were soon telling me their experience of the hard fighting in which they had been engaged. They were dirty, unshaven, dusty from head to foot, scorched by the August sun, in tattered uniforms and broken boots; but they were beautiful men for all their dirt, and the laughing courage, quiet confidence, and unbragging simplicity with which they assured me that the Germans would soon be caught in a death trap and sent to their destruction filled me with admiration which I cannot express in words. All the odds were against them; they had fought the hardest ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... now. I wouldn't stand here and see him punished for what he don't deserve. It's all that Mr Sam, who's ma's spoilt him, and indulged him, till he's grown into a nasty, overbearing, cigarette-smoking wretch, as treats servants as if they was the dirt under his feet." ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... ill-formed and ill-dressed rabble,—so much had my prejudices been changed by living among Indians and blacks: their eyes seemed to resemble those of a pig; their complexions were like the color of foul linen; they seemed to have no teeth, and to be covered over with rags and dirt. This prejudice, however, was not against these people only, but against all Europeans in general, when compared to the sparkling eyes, ivory teeth, shining skin, and remarkable cleanliness of those I had left behind me." Yet, in spite of these superior attractions, he never recrossed the Atlantic; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... dug ditches about four feet apart and threw up the sod and dirt between the ditches. The whole tribe then packed the ground in the tracks hard and smooth by riding their horses up and down those tracks to pack the dirt still more firmly. These tracks were generally one and one-eighth miles long. The Indians would then select a horse which ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... I am the dirt under your feet," she said, now white, now red, and mad with anger. "I'm not fit to speak with you—I'm a rag for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... him, and as they stood looking at the wreckage they had made, or, rather, that had been made through no direct fault of their own, the proprietor of the place came out, wearing a long dirt-smudged apron. ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... upon the invalid whose appetite I had the honour to represent. I thought bath-time would never come; I could not keep my eyes off the dial: where was the shadow now? could I go yet? At last it really was time: I scraped the dirt off, and made myself smart, turning my cloak inside out, so that the clean side might be uppermost. Among the numerous guests assembled at the door, whom should I see but the very man whose understudy I was to be, the invalid, in a litter! He was evidently in a sad ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... you do when a dirty man who smells, gets you down and under in the dirt and dust with a knee below your diaphragm and a large hairy hand squeezing your windpipe tighter and tighter in a quarrel that ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... squeezed it hard. I see it now, he remarked, and fetching from his pouch a pair of pincers he pulled from the cut a sliver of glass. Wrapping the cloth round it he tied it with a bit of black tape, and told me if I kept dirt out it would heal in a day or two. Asking me where I was going, we had some talk. He told me the parish of Dundonald was a long way off and he did not know anybody in it by the name of Askew. I was on the right road and could find out when I got there. He lit his pipe and ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... table, leaned his head on his hands, and looked with weary eyes about him. At tea, however, he began to talk. He was dissatisfied with his position. 'A screw—not a man,' so he spoke of his employer; 'people in a subordinate position are so much dirt to him, of no consequence whatever; and yet it's not so long since he was under the yoke himself. Nothing but cruelty and covetousness. It's a bondage worse than the government's! And all the trade here rests on swindling and flourishes ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... stamp it for her own, to say of this, perhaps: "It was the ninth of April when we went to Addington, and it was a heavenly day. There was a clear sky and I could see Farvie's beautiful nose and chin against it and Anne's feather all out of curl. Dear Anne! dear Farvie! Everything smelled of dirt, good, honest dirt, not city sculch, and I heard a robin. Anne heard him, too. I saw her smile." But really what Anne plucked out of the moment was a blurred feeling of peace. The day was like a cool, soft cheek, ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... he was tired, and at last, finding it grow dark, and that whichever way he turned he saw nothing but dirt instead of gold, he sat down in a dark corner ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... wildness and the loneliness appealed to him. It was primitive and at times uncomfortable. He slept in a bunk built against the wall, with hard boards under him and a sod roof over his head. There were times when the wind blew its fiercest and rattled dirt down into his face unless he covered it with a blanket. And every other day he had to wash the dishes and cook, and when it was Gene's turn to cook, Thurston chopped great armloads of wood for the fireplace to eat o' nights. Also he ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... Housemates:—"In such districts (as Gospel Oak) I am depressed by the flatness of an awful monotony. The slums vex me far less. There I find adventure and jest whatever the squalor; the marks of the primitive struggle through dirt and darkness towards release. Those horrible lines of moody, complacent streets represent not struggle, but the achievement of a worthless aspiration. The houses, with their deadly similarity, their smug, false exteriors, their conformity to an ideal which is typified by their poor imitative ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... both sides, and hold on and slop it out again, and then jump in. Water runs off them like it does off ducks' backs. I believe they oil themselves all over instead of using a bit of honest soap. Don't matter though; the dirt can't show. My word, we are going it. ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... wuz talk of Yankies cumin' de missie told me to git a box an she filled it with gold an' silver, lots of it, she wuz rich, an I dug a hole near de hen house an put in de box an' covered it with dirt an' smoothed it down an scattered some leaves an twigs ovah it. She told me nevah, nevah to tell about it and I nevah did until now. She showed me a big white card with writin' on it an' said it say ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... present payment'—at which I see Miss Murdstone secretly overjoyed. I pore over these cheeses without any result or enlightenment until dinner-time, when, having made a Mulatto of myself by getting the dirt of the slate into the pores of my skin, I have a slice of bread to help me out with the cheeses, and am considered in disgrace for the rest ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... there's altogether too much of this house-cleanin' business goin' on to suit me. I don't see any dirt anywheres." ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... had been promoted by him to high places," said a contemporary, "and were wont to worship him as a god, in hope that he would lift them up still higher, now deserted him, and ridiculed him, and joined the rest of the world in heaping dirt upon him." ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... comes to dealing with men," he said, "I pride myself upon being able to go back, rather incisively, to first motives. But the other sex is beyond me! She's always turned up her dainty nose at the noise and dirt before, and—and now she's ready to cry because I suggest that she wait with Miss ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... economical. Soap is never used in exact chemical equivalents, but an excess is always taken. Potash soap is much more soluble than a soda soap; it therefore penetrates the fiber, and consequently removes dirt and grease much more quickly. Notwithstanding, also, that its chemical combining equivalent is greater than that of soda, it is, nevertheless, the strongest base, and always combines with any substance in preference to soda. For these reasons—probably ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... reach of country which was not without rural aspects, it was marked too unmistakably with the squalor of a manufacturing district. Its existence impressed one as casual; it was a mere bit of Dunfield got away from the main mass, and having brought its dirt with it. The stretch of road between it and the bridge by which the river was crossed into Dunfield had in its long, hard ugliness something dispiriting. Though hedges bordered it here and there, they were stunted and grimed; ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... spirit constantly keeps (all about it) swept and watered, without any labour of man being required. A king of corrupt views once said, "Since you are able to do this, I will lead a multitude of troops and reside there till the dirt and filth has increased and accumulated, and (see) whether you can cleanse it away or not." The spirit thereupon raised a great wind, which blew (the filth away), and made the ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... one thinks of such a thing as wearing street shoes in the house. It would bring in dirt and soil the pretty white mats. That was why ...
— THE JAPANESE TWINS • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... money-interest. I hate it, that anybody is my equal who has the same amount of money as I have. I know I am better than all of them. I hate them. They are not my equals. I hate equality on a money basis. It is the equality of dirt." ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... would, under pretence of making studies in painting, test the hospitality of some peasants, procure himself the dress of a woodcutter and a hatchet, casting off the lion's skin to assume that of the woodman; then, with his hands covered with dirt, his hair darkened by means of a leaden comb, his complexion embrowned with a preparation for which one of his old comrades had given him the recipe, he intended, by following the wooded districts, to reach the nearest frontier, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Glen Falls from Crumville was thirty-five miles. The last half of the journey was over a winding dirt road, and the boys had calculated that it would take them two hours to ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... sir, that you sent for him just when you did!" announced Antoine, nearly bursting with importance. "The boys had heard queer sounds in the night, but could find nothing wrong. The prisoner had taken up the flooring at the back of the tool-house, and was scooping up the dirt. He'd got a place pretty near big enough to let him through. I suppose we ought to ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... exactly attractive, even when one isn't a criminal. But I don't know that it's any more repulsive than the apparatus of commerce, or business, as we call it. Some dirt seems to get on everybody's bread by the time he's earned it, or on his money even when he's made it in large ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... the most irrepressible thing in the world, had, perhaps, to-day some direction behind it. For the first time in my long acquaintance with Andrey Vassilievitch he interested me. The little man was distressed by the heat and dirt; his fingers were always flickering about his clothes. He was intensely polite to every one, especially to Trenchard, paying him many compliments about England and the English. The English were the only "sportsmen" in ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... may be arranged in three departments. The first should include the room devoted to sand-papering and filling. These processes, much more than any other part of furniture polishing, produce dirt and dust, and it is plain that the room devoted to them should be so far isolated from the varnishing room as not to introduce into it ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead
... No answer. He called. No reply. Then he drove around to the portico with the tall white pillars and tried the front door. It was locked. He peered through the half-open window into the drawing-room. The glass was crusted with dirt and the room was dark. He was trying to make out the outlines of the huddled furniture when he heard a step behind him. It was the old farmer from the nearest cottage ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... of just the one he wanted. She was a widow who lived a few squares from him. She was as sweet-tempered as a dove, and nobody could find a speck of dirt in her house if he was to search ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... are spoken of, some will speak gold of them, some silver, some iron, some lead, and some always speak dirt, for they have a natural attraction towards what is evil, and think it shows penetration in them. As a cat watching for mice does not look up though an elephant goes by, so are they so busy mousing for defects, that they let great excellences pass them unnoticed. I will not say it is not Christian ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... to be contradictory but the flood refers to the valley of the Nene and the lowlands which are apt to be flooded when the river overflows its banks. The mud and dirt consequently settle on the grass and make it unfit for hay, but the rainfall does good, causes the grass to grow and it is not injured ...
— Weather and Folk Lore of Peterborough and District • Charles Dack
... dirt, and glue, and it won't come off," said Toady, stroking his variegated countenance with grateful admiration for the ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... them represented. At these mountains we lay at the little village Kiskoi, wholly inhabited by Christians, as all the peasants of Bulgaria are. Their houses are nothing but little huts, raised of dirt baked in the sun; and they leave them and fly into the mountains, some months before the march of the Turkish army, who would else entirely ruin them, by driving away their whole flocks. This precaution ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... capacity of poeta sovrano, you must, as Dante says of Homer, pass on your way quietly and undisturbedly, si come sire. All this dirt does not touch you. Write your "Nibelungen," and be content to live ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... as I finished my third set of five shots, the last shot of which was my best and knocked dirt in the ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... his cart, who turns over the dust-bin, and calls it "good, very good, remarkably good." And in the midst of the pleasure that was afforded by the mere meeting of these folks, there shot up out of the great dirt-heap at Amack a stem, a tree, an immense flower, a great mushroom, a perfect roof, which formed a sort of warehouse for the worthy company, for in it hung everything they had given to the world during the Old Year. Out of the tree ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... I've wanted is solid. I've wanted to do something, and be something, and have something—and not be pushed back and trampled out of sight by people who used to hire out to my folks and can treat me like dirt to-day, just because they've got the money. Why haven't I got it, too? I'm fit for it. I had good schooling. Louisa Thorley—your own mother, that is—and me went to school together. Your father ran away with her and she died when you were born. We went to school to old Miss Brand—aunt ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... affirms its rights to existence and liberty, by repudiating ways in its eyes too patriarchal. So these young folks make efforts to set themselves up lavishly in the latest fashion, and rid themselves of useless property at dirt-cheap prices. Instead of filling their houses with objects which say: Remember! they garnish them with quite new furnishings that as yet have no meaning. Wait, I am wrong; these things are often symbols, as it were, of a facile and superficial existence. In their midst one breathes a certain ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... threw the first pack down. It left the mark of the rope in the soft dirt," explained the girl. "I am not gifted with second sight, but I did see that. What I started to say was that I know how the packs got in ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... given to him. If his atlas tells him that the world is flat he will not sail near what he believes to be the edge of our planet for fear of falling off. If his maps include a fountain of eternal youth, a Ponce de Leon will go in quest of it. If someone digs up yellow dirt that looks like gold, he will for a time act exactly as if he had found gold. The way in which the world is imagined determines at any particular moment what men will do. It does not determine what they will achieve. It determines their effort, their feelings, their hopes, ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... want me to work with Secret Service on this on the off chance that the Soviet Complex is doing us deliberate dirt." ...
— Status Quo • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... of the platter may be, the outside is far from clean. They walk by day and they sleep by night in the same old snuffy robe, which is not kept from contact with the skin by any luxury of linen, until it is worn out. Dirt and piety seem to them synonymous. Sometimes I have deemed, foolishly perhaps, but after the manner of my nation, that their goodness would not wash off with the soil of the skin,—that it was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... telling on my nerves," said Mr. Sweetsir—"the horrid weight of the atmosphere, after the exhilarating air of Paris; the intolerable dirt and dullness of London, you know. I was in bed, my dear aunt, when I received your letter. You may imagine the completely demoralised?? state I was in, when I tell you of the effect which the news of the robbery produced ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... 110 And, as they are unknown, are safe and wise. At whomsoever aim'd, howe'er severe, The envenom'd slander flies, no names appear: Prudence forbids that step;—then all might know, And on more equal terms engage the foe. But now, what Quixote of the age would care To wage a war with dirt, and fight with air? By interest join'd, the expert confederates stand, And play the game into each other's hand: The vile abuse, in turn by all denied, 120 Is bandied up and down, from side to side: It flies—hey!—presto!—like a juggler's ball, Till it belongs to nobody ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... the bonny blade carouses, Pockets full, and spirits high— What are acres? what are houses? Only dirt, or ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... to hang. As the capstans turned, the pole was gradually drawn up, and the Professor stood ready with the forked standards to prevent the flagstaff from falling back. In less than an hour it was erect, and the work of tamping in the dirt and stone around the base was in order, ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... have time to reply. The truck stopped outside a high, barbed wire fence. The gate swung open; the truck bounced down the bumpy dirt road. Jack saw some black-uniformed Bohas seated by heavy machine guns. They halted at another entrance; more barbed wire was passed. Huge Dobermann pinschers looked at the transies with cold, steady eyes. The dust of another section of road swirled up before they squeaked to a standstill and ...
— They Twinkled Like Jewels • Philip Jose Farmer
... reeking tenements houses a family or two. In one room a missionary found a man ill with small-pox, his wife just recovering from her confinement, and the children running about half naked and covered with dirt. Here are seven people living in one underground kitchen, and a little dead child lying in the same room. Here live a widow and her six children, two of whom are ill with scarlet fever. In another, nine brothers and sisters, ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... 'dreck', meaning dirt] n. Deliberate distortion of DECNET, a networking protocol used in the {VMS} community. So called because DEC helped write the Ethernet specification and then (either stupidly or as a malignant customer-control tactic) violated that ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... face—one of sadness and seriousness unfamiliar to its almost child-like features, and it was not easy for her to smile in her ordinary bright way at the round of scolding which Priscilla administered every morning to the maids who swept and scrubbed and dusted and scoured the kitchen till no speck of dirt was anywhere visible, till the copper shone like mirrors, and the tables were nearly as smooth as polished silver or ivory. Going into the dairy where pans of new milk stood ready for skimming, and looking out for a moment through the ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... useful place of abode, was far from being the caravanserai of the luxurious order. The stranger, whoever he might be, however, was either not fastidious, or as is more probable, was used to similar accommodation, for he paid as little attention to the perfume of the bar as he did to the dirt upon the floor and walls, and also upon the landlord's hands. Having stipulated for a room to himself, he desired to be shown to it forthwith, whereupon Manuel led him through the house to a small yard at ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... Rose Mamie, that Tobe fell on a polecat under a fence he was a-chasing, and he smells so awful Uncle Tuck have burned his britches and shirt on the end of a stick and have got him buried in dirt up to jest his nose. Burying in dirt is the onliest thing that'll take off the smell. We comed to ask you to watch Shoofly while he's buried, cause Mis' Poteet will be mad at him when she comes home if Shoofly smells. We're all ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... What a glorious luxury after the six days' confinement, without any means of washing one's skin! Some of the prisoners, I understand, regard the first bath as the worst part of the punishment. They are brought up in dirt, and love it; like the Italian who deserted the English girl he was engaged to, and justified himself by saying: "Oh, if I marry her, she wash me, and then I die." We, however, splashed about in our baths, uttering ejaculations ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... returned, and the merchant went up-stairs to see, for the first time, the wretched family in rags, dirt, and misery. He comforted them with hope of better days, and bidding the man take a hasty meal below, took him with him, and helped with his own hands to load a cart with bed, bedding, clothes, furniture, and food for ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... brushing the dirt from her skirts and daintily shaking out the fluffy dog. "See what a darling he is, Bob. Do you suppose I could let a train ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... the phrase is, the ladder which raised him. No man maltreats his wild brother so much as the so-called 'civilised' negro: he never addresses his congener except by 'You jackass!' and tells him ten times a day that he considers such trash like the dirt beneath his feet. Consequently he is hated and despised withal, being of the same colour as, while assuming such excessive superiority over, his former equals. No one also is more hopeless about the civilisation of Africa ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... sunshine. The people live much out of doors here, you can see 'em washin' and dressin' the children, and doin' housework, and everything right from the street, and though I don't spoze the poor suffer so much here on account of the warm climate, yet dirt and rags and filth and vermin didn't look any better to me here than they ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... himself And stretch himself to walk away. He tried to go inside the dirt, But Dickie made him ...
— Under the Tree • Elizabeth Madox Roberts
... of no more value than the dirt under your feet,' said Bradley to Eugene, speaking in a carefully weighed and measured tone, or he could ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... the man from Eldorado, and he's just arrived in town, In moccasins and oily buckskin shirt. He's gaunt as any Indian, and pretty nigh as brown; He's greasy, and he smells of sweat and dirt. He sports a crop of whiskers that would shame a healthy hog; Hard work has racked his joints and stooped his back; He slops along the sidewalk followed by his yellow dog, But he's got a bunch of ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... Rogers!" shouted Murray and Adair, for they both saw him at the same time. They were certain of it, though his features were considerably begrimed with powder, smoke, and dirt. This was incentive enough to make them push on with still greater haste, had they not been eager to punish the abominable slave-dealers and their crew of ruffians. The brave fellows little knew the terrible trap prepared for them. Murray and Adair ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... very irrational animal at best," quoth the sage, soliloquizing, "and is frightened by strange buggaboos! 'T is but a piece of wood! how little it really injures! And, after all, the holes are but rests to the legs, and keep the feet out of the dirt. And this green bank to sit upon, under the shade of the elm-tree-verily the position must be more pleasant than otherwise! I've a great mind—" Here the doctor looked around, and seeing the coast still clear, the oddest notion imaginable took possession ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it all have often assured me that the miseries of the summers—of some part of them at least—were in their way quite as great, or worse. What could be much worse? The suffocating heat; the absence, or almost total absence, of shade; the dust and the dirt, and the poisonous flies; the foul water and half-putrid food? Bad for the sound ones, or those as yet so—and oh, how intolerably ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... San Pedro de Macoris has become available for automobiles; and the royal road in the Cibao from La Vega through Moca and Santiago to Monte Cristi, a distance of about 100 miles, formerly a horror, has been converted into a fair dirt road. The amount of work to be done appears all the more appalling when it is considered that in the small island of Jamaica, less than one-fourth the size of the Dominican Republic, there are 1000 miles of fine roads. The American authorities in the island ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... ill-tempered, and that, if Mother had not the temper of an angel, the house could never hold together. Mother was very angry, but Father did not mind. He says our house will hold together much longer than most houses, because he swore at the workmen, and went to law with the builder for using dirt instead of mortar, so the builder had to pull down what was done wrong, and do it right; and Father says he knows he has a bad temper, but he does not mean to pull the house over our heads at present, unless he has to get bricks out to heave ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... my duck o' diamonds. I'm a respectable Yankee peddler, trying to turn an honest penny by selling knickknacks to the fair sect. Do let me in, there's a pretty dear! You hain't no idee of the lovely things I've got in my pack—all dirt cheap, too!" ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... alternative, it is none the less infamous of society to offer such alternatives. For the alternatives offered are not morality and immorality, but two sorts of immorality. The man who cannot see that starvation, overwork, dirt, and disease are as anti-social as prostitution—that they are the vices and crimes of a nation, and not merely its misfortunes—is (to put it as politely as possible) a hopelessly ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... with one of his regular pans. He became absorbed in his experiment. He washed panful after panful, slowly, carefully, collectedly. Suddenly he stood up, swore softly, and flung the half-washed dirt of the last pan on the rocks. "I'm a nut!" he exclaimed. "This livin' in civilization has been puttin' my intellec' to the bad. Too much Eastern sassiety." And with this inexplicable self-arraignment ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... weary workers hunted the town over for paint, and found only enough for the big tent, upon which they worked hard all the next morning. Then they had to go to the woods for branches for the rest. Scratched and bleeding and streaked with perspiration and dirt, they finished their work at last, and the white tents had disappeared into the green and the yellow and the brown of the hillside. Their beautiful military whiteness was gone, but they were hidden safe from the enemy and the work might ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... raking does not remove the dirty material, but loosens up the pores of the surface, and through this porosity permits clogging to penetrate deeper into the filter. The method of raking with water on the bed, although it removes some of the organic dirt, also permits deeper penetration of the remainder. The latest devised system of washing the sand in place, by upward spraying with water, called the "Blaisdell method," thoroughly destroys the Schmutzdecke above, and, at the same time, ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXXII, June, 1911 • E. D. Hardy
... Miss Ruey, as the sound of a footstep fell upon her ear. "Bless me," she added, as she started up to look, "if folks ain't always nearest when you're talkin' about 'em. Why, Mara; you come down here and catched us in all our dirt! Well now, we're glad to see you, if we be," said ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... had real fine hands," said the coroner. "But they did have a little dirt on 'em—right on three of the knuckles of the left hand and on one on the right—the kind of dirt you ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... of link mail showed beneath the gown as he walked, and a pair of soft undressed leather riding-boots were laced as high as the knee, protecting his scarlet hose from mud and dirt. Over his shoulders he wore a collar of enamelled gold, from which hung a magnificent jewelled pendant, and upon his fist he carried a ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle |
