"Grit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of monarchical Creation, in finding Yew and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, all as aforesaid, established in a country where the people air not absolute Loo- naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a Nip and Frizzle to the innermostest grit! Wheerfur—Theer!—I la'af! I Dew, ma'arm. I la'af!" And so he went, stamping and shaking his sides, along the platform all the way to ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... was clean grit, and at fifty cents found takers, who, two days later, set his eggs down intact at Linderman. But fifty cents a pound is a thousand dollars a ton, and his fifteen hundred pounds had exhausted his emergency fund and left him stranded at the Tantalus point where each day ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... kindly, sir," Larry managed to answer; "but 't is my last voyage, Mr. Neville." And the grit that lay hidden in the man's soul showed in his ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... most severe winter weather will work but slowly. Beneath this, or even in it, all burrowing roots, animals and insects are safe from freezing. Where the ground is packed hard, the flinty combination of ice and grit goes deepest, though even in exposed situations only to a depth of three feet or so. The woodchucks asleep in their burrows, the snakes, torpid in their holes, are as safe from frost-bite as if ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... well have one of these apiece," he said. "You've proved you have the grit to use one; and maybe the dirty rats will think twice about rushing us if we each have a load of ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... cleanliness. Keep clean—wash freely, bathe regularly. All the skin wants is leave to act, and it takes care of itself. In the matter of baths we do not strongly advocate a plunge in ice-cold water; it takes a woman with clear grit and a strong constitution to endure it. If a hot bath be used, let it come before retiring, as there is less danger of taking cold afterwards; and, besides, the body is weakened by the ablution and needs immediate rest. It is well to use a flesh-brush, and afterwards ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... laughed Martin, "haw, haw, haw! The little one was scared, see? She was scared, d' you understand? But did you see the grit she went at it with? Just took the bit in her teeth and got away. Haw, haw, haw! Now, that 's what I like. If all you girls had that spirit, we could do something in two weeks. Try ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... of a steel and iron foundry call for high scientific attainments, grit, and the power to control large bodies of labour. In addition to these qualities others are required at Jamsheedpur to deal with the many physical and social problems which the rapid growth of a very heterogeneous population and its harmonious and healthy governance present. What ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... slaves nowadays, one must take the scythe and axe oneself, and if one can't do that, no gardens will help one. Even the smallest success in farming is only gained in Russia at the price of a cruel struggle with nature, and wishing is not enough for the struggle, you need bodily strength and grit, you want traditions—and have young ladies all that? To advise young ladies to take up farming is much the same as to advise them to be bears, and to ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... it is true, while I called myself a Radical; but, except in name, I could not see much difference between our democratic tendencies. Runciman appeared to me a most earnest and able thinker, full of North-country grit, and overflowing with energy. ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... meant. If a man is clean of character, and has grit and snap in him, I don't know that one could reasonably look for anything further. I can't see how the fact that his grandfather was this or that is going to affect him. The man we're talking of has grit. I offered him promotion, and ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... that the work should be done thus cleanly, because if a spot of wax is dropped on the surface of the glass that is to be painted on, the spot must be carefully scraped off and every vestige of it removed with a wet duster dipped in a little grit of some kind—pigment does well—otherwise the glass is greasy and the painting ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... mastication of food in which sand has been mingled in immoderate proportion. All his life has been spent on the verge of the sea. He has never known smooth food. Before he left his mother's breast grit was on his lips, for in her sleep she snoodled naked in the sand. Hers was the age of bark rugs or none, and was ever lord of the beach who shared with his ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... have brought him hither to search him if he carries gold concealed. If not, and he proves to have spoken sooth, he may go his way or join with us, whichever likes him best. We could do with a few more bold lads, since death has been something busy of late; and he seems to have the grit in him one looks for in those who join with us. Moreover, he has the dark eyes, and would soon have the swarth skin, that ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... his own grit put those dollars there, Jimmie. Just put it out of your head that it's luck makes a ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... the other's view, that they could not arrive at an understanding on the point; each desired to appear more disinterested than he was; and so, after coming together to a certain extent—both were fine natures—the presence of grit in the machinery made itself gradually felt, and the friendship melted away. It was a case of each desiring the unalloyed pleasure of an admiring friendship, without accepting the responsibility of discovering that the other was not perfection, ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the lens and tool before new emery is introduced, a large enamelled iron bucket is very handy; the whole of the tool should be immersed and scrubbed with a nail-brush. The lens surface may be wiped with a bit of clean sponge, free from grit, or even a clean ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... at college, but I haven't seen him since. I'd be glad to see him again. A queer, dry fellow, but character and grit to his backbone." "I'd supposed he was younger," said Sherwen. "Anyway, he's comparatively new to the service. His rise is the more remarkable. At present, he's not only our quarantine representative, with full powers, but unofficially he acts, while on his roving commission, for ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... old man Annersley smiled as he choked back a word of appreciation for Pete's stubborn loyalty and grit. When he spoke again Pete at once caught the change ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... in their life-or-death push forward, followed by the surgeons and stretcher-bearers. Sometimes, he had been to the trenches to dress a wound that would not stop bleeding, but always he wondered at seeing the resolute grit and calmness of these young men, who had been the dandies in London drawing-rooms a year ago and who were now smoking placidly in ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... of these vessels were made for utilitarian purposes, and were usually glazed only on the inside. While some were made at Jamestown, the majority were imported from England. One type, a grit-tempered earthenware, was manufactured in North Devonshire. Another kind, a hard-fired earthenware, was also made in England. At least two distinct types of local-made earthenware have been found, and, as many examples have well-proportioned shapes and attractive designs, it is evident that they ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter
... unable to give an explanation. Twice he had taken the car to pieces without result—absolutely to pieces. Then, and not till then, had the creature found wit enough to think of the carburetter. There was the trouble, and nowhere else. All that delay and misery had been caused by some grit which had penetrated into the carburetter and prevented the needle working. This it was to have a donkey instead ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Flip," he protested, awkwardly patting the heavy braids of hair swung over her shoulder; "I wouldn't have told you if I'd thought you'd take it so. I thought you had so much grit that you'd stand by me and back me up if Aunt Eunice objected. We're not going to be separated for ever. From what the man told me of the business, I'm sure that I can make enough in a year or so to ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... is a story of a boy's life in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. Ben Burton, the hero, had a hard road to travel, but by grit and energy he advanced step by step until he found himself called upon to fill the position of chief engineer of the Kohinoor Coal Company. This is a book of extreme ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... like to wait out here for me, the Desmonds will gladly give you a home. He made the offer at once, and I know I couldn't leave you in better hands. Full details when we meet. It's a hard blow for us both; but you have grit enough for two, and here's a chance to prove it. Hurry ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... Retief, quietly, "I've a mighty fine respect for you. You ain't the cuckoo that many o' yer mates is. You've got grit, anyway. But that ain't all you need. 'Savee's' a mighty fine thing—on occasions. Now you need 'Savee.' I'll jest give yer a piece of advice right hyar. You go straight off down to Lablache's ranch. You'll find ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... of his sire's calling, was at least of a good old Newcastle border stock of fine "grit" and sturdily independent. He was proud of his stock, and he has often lamented, not merely in print, but to myself, how people would confound him with mere Fosters. "Now we," he would say vehemently, ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain: "Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane. Strong for the red rage of battle; sane, for I harry them sore; Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core; Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat, Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat. Send me the best of your breeding, lend me your chosen ones; Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons; Them will ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... their teeth for ever chattering, and their bodies for ever shivering! And as to the flint again, isn't it mashed and mollified and troubled and soothed, exactly as rags are in a paper-mill, until it is reduced to a pap so fine that it contains no atom of 'grit' perceptible to the nicest taste? And as to the flint and the clay together, are they not, after all this, mixed in the proportion of five of clay to one of flint, and isn't the compound - known as 'slip' - run into oblong ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... sand for keeping this vast machinery in good running condition. Do not shovel grit or gravel stones upon the bearings. A tiny copper shaving in a wheel box, or a scratch on a journal, may set a railway train on fire. The running of the business world is ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... asked only a chance to do the work for which she was trained, in order that she might go to the art classes at night. She had read in the papers of that mighty young city of the Middle West—the heart of the continent—of its brawn and its brain and its grit. She had supposed that Chicago, of all places, would appreciate what she wanted to do. The day she drew her hard-earned one hundred dollars from the bank in Denver—how the sun had shone that day in Denver, how clear the sky had been, and how bracing the air!—she had ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... representing the chief exploits of the departed upon one side, with ideographs and his own upon the opposite side. "The stone," Mr. Stephens observes, "of which all these altars and statues are made, is a soft grit-stone." [Footnote: Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, 1-153.] Norman had previously described the material used as a "fine concrete limestone." [Footnote: ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... of the day to earn money to learn to paint the other part. She was poor, but the same good grit that made her loyal to her old grandmother's name, unshortened and unbeautified, gave her courage to work on toward ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... the safety of his own skin that troubled him, but the success of the scheme he had planned. That little man was clean grit all through, without a soft spot in him. One ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... the squad at the gate, they found Willy still in much distress on Frank's account; but he wiped his eyes when his brother reappeared, and listened with pride to the soldiers' praise of Frank's "grit," as they called it. When they let the boys go, the little corporal wished Frank to accept a five-dollar gold piece; but he politely ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... it appear as if he were longer upon the road than he was. As he spoke, the blood darkened in his cheek, and his eye looked ominous and angry, as if he were enraged with the person to whom he was speaking; yet he had not real grit, for he had never said a word of his grievances to those concerned. "I mean to tell them of it by and by. I won't bear it more than three or four times more," ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... difficulties of the penal settlement days, in spite very often of their own unfitness for this to them strange service, did their work well, not perhaps always governing wisely, but holding to ground won in such circumstances and by such poor means as men with more brains and less "grit" ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... And up I climbed to sunlight green in birches, And the path turned to daisies among grass With bonfires of the broom beside, like flame Of burning straw: and I lookt into your valley. I could scarce look. Anger was smarting in my eyes like grit. O the fine earth and fine all for nothing! Mazed I walkt, seeing and smelling and hearing: The meadow lands all shining fearfully gold,— Cruel as fire the sight of them toucht my mind; Breathing was all a honey taste of clover And ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... but bathing had lost much of its attraction with the change of weather and was even rather dangerous. On one day the sand-storm was so bad that it was impossible to leave camp. Anything left in the open was rapidly buried, and our food and drink, our ears and eyes and mouths were kept full of grit ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... wonderfully self-possessed girl to such a display of emotion; she looked ever so much handsomer now that she was angry. His watery, awry eyes gleamed, and his thick underlip drooped complacently. He would see if she had as much grit as she laid claim to. It was all in the day's sport; but he would ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... words; neither was conversant with things, facts, deeds, and all that lay outside their inexpressibly artificial and specialized little spheres. Each had been "educated" out of physical manliness, self-reliance, courage, practical usefulness, adaptability, "grit" and ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... leaped down into the hole, and began scraping away the sand with his hands as though he had gone crazy. At last, with some difficulty, they tugged and hauled the chest up out of the sand to the surface, where it lay covered all over with the grit that clung to it. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... grab fled ship blot lump drab sled whip spot pump slab sped slip plot jump stab then drip trot hump brag bent spit clog bulk cram best crib frog just clan hemp gift plod drug clad vest king stop shut dash west grit clod hush ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... not be avoided except in some forms of this disease. 43. PREPARATION FOR COOKING.—To prepare asparagus for cooking, strip the tiny scales from the sides of the stems by means of a small paring knife. These hold sand and are responsible for the presence of the grit that is sometimes found in a cooked dish of asparagus even when the housewife feels certain that she has washed it as clean as possible. Then wash the stems thoroughly in several cold waters, lifting them out of the water after each washing instead ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 2 - Volume 2: Milk, Butter and Cheese; Eggs; Vegetables • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... when noon-heats are near, Glad the shelving banks to shun Red and steaming in the sun, Where the shrew-mouse with pale throat Burrows, and the speckled stoat; Where the quick sandpipers flit In and out the marl and grit That seems to breed them, brown as they: Naught disturbs its quiet way, Save some lazy stork that springs, Trailing it with legs and wings, Whom the shy fox from the hill Rouses, creep he ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... clattering down the face of the cliff. "Of course not!" she said energetically. "I was just wondering, that's all. I haven't lost faith in Antha and I don't doubt but what she'll brace up before the summer is over. If we only knew a recipe for developing grit!" ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... he turned burning eyes upon her. How he hated her, and how he hated the man who called himself his father, wherever he might be! He shut his teeth with a grit, and, unmindful of the cat, bent over Screech Owl. He forced her head so far back that she moaned and loosened her hold upon Black Pussy, who sprang snarling into ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... it's no great matter—You'll jist put Dick in my place: he's the true grit; thar'll be no mistake in Dick, for all he's only a young blubbering boy; and then it'll be jist all right, as before. And ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... sorry to be out of the scrimmage. It took all my grit to obey you, old man; but it was an order. Now it ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... about this, you blamed coyote," said Blunt, "and be quick. You've got about as much grit as a chipmunk, and if you don't talk we'll show you a trick or two that will make you ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... in watching the queer procession that she had not noticed the quiet approach of a bevy of happy-faced girls; but now, as she turned toward Myra with the remark, "She's clear grit. I'd choose a wife like that if I were a man," she found the laughing eyes of Grace Tilton staring at her, and before she could find her tongue to voice her surprise, Gwynne's regal head bobbed through the crowd toward her. Jessie and Julia, Vera and Kate, all her particular friends at ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... young sergeant was all there with the grit. He fired straight back at the leader, the bullet striking the rock before ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... husband's sleep if he had behaved so scandalously to his wife and family; he could go to bed and get up again hungry, and dry too, for all I cared; then he'd learn manners at last. But there's no grit in you—that's the trouble; you put up ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... is a cosmopolitan whose charity begins away from home. There were those among the Canadian Radicals who were as bad friends to Britain as they were good friends to the United States, but the Clear-Grit party up to confederation was true to Britain, largely because their leader, after 1850, was George Brown, and because Brown was the loyalest Scot in Canada. Brown was in a sense the most remarkable figure of the time in {341} his province. Fierce in his opinions, a vehement speaker, an agitator ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... have, on the side of your temple, a protuberance, which I have noticed in the crania of inventors. So I want you to go round the works, and observe for yourself how Life is thrown gayly away, in a moment, by needless accident, and painfully gnawed away by steel-dust, stone grit, sulphuret of lead, etc.; and then ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... blow or a fall. A heavy blow with a stick may at once cause fatal effusion of blood, but this might equally result from fracture of the skull resulting from a fall. The wound should be carefully examined for foreign bodies, such as grit, dirt, or sand. The distinction between incised wounds inflicted during life and after death is found in the fact that a wound inflicted during life presents the appearances already described, whereas in a post-mortem incised wound only a small ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... a team. There were the two heavy horses for 'shafters'; a stunted colt, that I'd bought out of the pound for thirty shillings; a light, spring-cart horse; an old grey mare, with points like a big red-and-white Australian store bullock, and with the grit of an old washerwoman to work; and a horse that had spanked along in Cob & Co.'s mail-coach in his time. I had a couple there that didn't belong to me: I worked them for the feeding of them in the dry weather. And I had all sorts of harness, that I mended and fixed up ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... Washington to follow Black Hawk and to take you with me as soldiers. I mean to do both. There are the flatboats drawn up on the shore, and here are Uncle Sam's men drawn up behind you on the prairie." The volunteers were quick-witted men, and knew true grit when they met it. They dissolved their meeting and crossed the river without Uncle Sam's men being called ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... their hair hanging in braids as they hurried to and fro between the different sheds, over the narrow wooden platforms, raised from the ground to prevent them from carrying in on the soles of their shoes any particles of grit, iron, steel, or glass, that might cause a spark among the high explosives. So well did these women work that near the end of the war in many places more shells were made in two weeks than previously ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... go in the shed-room thar, chile, an' if you hear anybody a-hollerin' an' a-squallin', thes shet your eyeleds an' grit your teeth, bekaze hit'll be your pore ole granny a-tryin' to git even ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... mildew will attack these when no other books on the same shelf show any signs of it. When discovered, carefully wipe it away, and then let the book remain a few days standing open, in the driest and airiest spot you can select. Great care should be taken not to let grit, such as blows in at the open window from many a dusty road, be upon your duster, or you will probably find fine scratches, like an outline map of Europe, all over your smooth calf, by which your heart and eye, as well as your ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... or deal a hand at poker for a month or—well, I needn't warn you further of what's going to happen. If you've got savvee you'll read through the lines. Maybe you'll take this hard—I can see it in your face. But you're a man, and you've got some grit—well, get right out and do things. That's ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... in the knees, Open your scarf'd chops till I blow grit within you, Spread your palms and lift the flaps of your pockets, I am not to be denied, I compel, I have stores plenty and to spare, And any thing I have ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... bloodhounds of the world,—at which, her life Dropt inwards from her eyes and followed it Beyond the hunters. Garibaldi's wife And child died so. And now, the seaweeds fit Her body, like a proper shroud and coif, And murmurously the ebbing waters grit The little pebbles while she lies interred In the sea-sand. Perhaps, ere dying thus, She looked up in his face (which never stirred From its clenched anguish) as to make excuse For leaving him for his, if so she erred. He well remembers that she could not choose. A memorable ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... A plumber's labourer (all these men who are somebody's "labourers" are poor samples of humanity, evidently lacking in grit, and destitute of ability to do any work which would mean decent wages). Judging from appearances, they will do nothing well. They are a kind of automaton, with the machinery rusty; slow, dull, and ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... parsonage. You know we had a smallpox scare at the Sem. that spring and all had to be vaccinated. I scratched mine, or something, and for weeks nearly died of blood-poisoning. That is where my neuritis started. They had to lance my arm to save my life, and when you examined me I had to grit my teeth to keep from screaming out when you took hold of that cut place. You believe I am brave, don't you, Doctor? It hurts there yet, but I didn't want to disturb you in the examination. Do you think there is any chance ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... swift glance took in the awful picture, and then she sank down on her knees beside him as he lay, bleeding and insensible, perhaps dead. For a moment she was ready to cast herself down on the snow in helplessness and in terror at the horrors of the situation; but the grit of stout Puritan ancestors was in her fibres, the moral endurance which finds in the sense of a duty to be done an inspiration that lifts above all difficulties. Her work was before her; ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... meaning of fear, and would not know how to begin to give in. Mr. Joubert, 'Slim (sly) Piet,' as he is called, possessing a considerable share of the real Africander cunning, is yet no match for his rival in diplomacy, and has none of his grit and courage. In later years this has been proved a score of times, and it is, therefore, the more interesting to recall that at the time of the annexation General Joubert refused to compromise his principles by taking ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... and soldiers who do not know it, but they are people of rare grit. The mass shudders; because you cannot suppress the flesh. This trembling must be taken into account in all organization, discipline, arrangements, movements, maneuvers, mode of action. All these are affected by the human weakness of the soldier ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... Masters estate and entire control of Blinkhampton for twenty-two thousand, Duplay would have had a hand in a good bargain. He thought the Sloyds would yield. "Be strong about it," Iver had said. "These young fellows have plenty of enterprise, plenty of shrewdness, but they haven't got the grit to take big chances. They'll catch at a certainty." Sloyd's manner had gone far to bear ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... criminals are sick people. No marriage for them until they're cured; no children for them until they're well. If they cure themselves, let 'em marry; let 'em breed; for then, if their children inherit the inclination, they also inherit the grit to cauterise ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... the member elect. "Say, boys, you'd know he had been a Grit—no honest, open-faced Conservative would ever think of a ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... brown, and in many places was killed down to the roots; there was no hay; myriads of swarming caterpillars devoured the fruit trees; the brooks were all dry; water for cattle had to be fetched from ponds and springs miles away; the roads were broken up; the air was loaded with grit; and the beautiful green of the hedges was choked with dust. Birds like the rook, which fed upon worms, were nearly starved, and were driven far and wide for strange food. It was pitiable to see them trying ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... Carr." Detis was gripping his hand now. "It was sheer grit and brains. You had them both. If you hadn't used them we'd all be corpses—or disintegrated—excepting Ora, perhaps. And you know the fate that awaited her. Instead, we are alive and well. The fleet is gone. Rapaju's body and that of his guard drift nameless in space where you disposed ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... print) and it should not be read as inspiring one to avarice. The vice of avarice is more honest than envy, but is not the less unpleasant and reprehensible. Let us suppose you are fortunate enough to have some grit and spunk about you. At the earliest point practicable you get something to do. Perhaps at a Fourth of July celebration your Sunday school teacher trusts you in a booth to deal out lemonade and handle money. It is a good ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... children of the lower class, and struggled with a fate which required grit, tenacity, and determination to win success. The artist of to-day is no social leader—"never the companion of man, but his slave or his despot." It is entirely her physical charms and the outward or artificial requisites of her ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... know them horsifers like I do; I ain't been in service all these years for nothin'. I tell yer, if there wasn't no danger they'd a sent one o' them blessed blacks to interprit instead o' you. They knows you've got the grit, so they sends you, and it's odds yer don't come back with ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... It is of various kinds and qualities, some about Birstwith is of a strong coarse grit, will bear an immense pressure, is well adapted for bridges, locks, wiers, &c. but is not to be had in blocks large enough for pier works. There is another kind of stone at Dacre-Pasture, of a much finer grit than the last, paler ...
— Report of the Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee • Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee
... that she could not control. To add to the strain, she could not forget the tragedy. She remained as close to the horror as on the first morning when the unexpected stalked into the cabin and took possession. In her daily ministrations upon the prisoner she was forced to grit her teeth and steel ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... strong enough to do all that can reasonably be required of it—if all the rest of the machinery is in good order, and the outside conditions are favourable. But the poor old pump cannot contend with grit ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... didn't give in—there was grit in that man. He borrowed a broken-down dray-horse in return for its keep, coupled it with his own old riding hack, and started to finish ploughing. The team wasn't a success. Whenever the draught horse's knees gave way and he stumbled forward, he jerked the lighter ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... greatest causes of waste from elevators is the wearing out of the piston packing, this being particularly troublesome in most of the Western cities, where the water supplied is to a large extent from turbid streams, carrying more or less fine sand or "grit," which cuts out the packing of the pistons very rapidly. The only practicable remedy for this is close inspection, to see that the pistons do not allow water to pass, a fact that can readily be determined from the noise made in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... at a door under a round arch in an immense wall, which not far off ran against the embankment, forming an impassable angle; it was built of millstone grit of the colour of burnt almonds, like that used for the Paris reservoirs; here dwelt ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... you are a Tory gay, Or a Grit, Throw your politics away, Do your bit, War is now the game ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... the artistic, impressionable temperament, easily disheartened, with little self-reliant courage or grit. But he seems to have felt a little ashamed of his plaint, for at midnight of the same day he wrote a second letter, half apologetic and much more hopeful, just because one or two people had been a little kind and he had been ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... we have spoken. His first beau ideal was to own the best horse in Baalbek; and to be able to ride to the camp of the Arabs and be mistaken for one of them, was his first great ambition. Which he realises sooner than he thought he would. For thrift, grit and perseverance, are a few of the rough grains in his character. But no sooner he is possessed of his ideal than he begins to loosen his hold upon it. He sold his mare to the tourist, and was glad he did not attain the same success in his first love. For he loved his mare, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... Grit is the grain of character. It may generally be described as heroism materialized,—spirit and will thrust into heart, brain, and backbone, so as to form part of the physical substance ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... natives of a Pacific island, comes into the story, being the person who found one of the ship's company who had been lost overboard in heavy weather. The latter had made his way ashore by sheer grit and determination (being a Sandwich Islander). They realise Harry is originally an English boy, and take him on board, and away from his savage masters who had been using him as ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... and miserable. Had they been of any other tribe they would have made up their minds to die—for nothing is easier to certain savages than suicide—and so have escaped from the puzzling difficulties of existence. But belonging, as they did, to a warlike tribe with filed teeth, they had more grit, and went on stupidly living through disease and sorrow. They did very little work, and had lost their splendid physique. Carlier and Kayerts doctored them assiduously without being able to bring them ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... the liquid over their heads, washing the dust from their skins. Then they began to climb the rough assent up which the wolverines had already vanished. The murk above them was less solid, but again the fine grit streaked their faces, ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... the same kind of grit in some hundreds of shellfish, and making the things work up a lot of fine ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... "My parents had not much property, but they were intelligent people; and my father was an honest man I expect, and tried to raise me honest, but I think none the better of him for that. My mother was of the pure grit; she learned me and all her children to steal as soon as we could walk and would hide for us whenever she could. At ten years old I was not a bad hand. The first good haul I made was from a pedler who lodged at ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... possibly survive an amputation, but that the loss of the breadwinner's limb would have been just as bad, as far as his family was concerned, as the death of the patient. There was nothing to do but grit one's teeth and take chances. I remained with him throughout the night, and in the morning was glad to detect some ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... his natural grit came to his rescue, and it was well it did, for the presence had assumed shape, and now sat on the window-ledge in the form of a hag, glaring at him from out of the depths of her unfathomable eyes, in which, despite their deadly greenness, there lurked a tinge of red caused by small ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... his own, whilst he scoffed at conventional elegance. Thus, he could not bear to hear the sound of his own steps, the grit of gravel; and therefore never willingly walked in the road, but in the grass, on mountains and in woods. His senses were acute, and he remarked that by night every dwelling-house gives out bad air, like a slaughter-house. He liked the ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... talks about sending a new preacher here, I hope they will send a strong healthy consecrated white man. A sickly man has no business here. Common sense and grit are needed more than learning. It will be no easy task for a white preacher to manage these black Presbyterians. I suspect it will require more tact and will power to manage this set, than ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... now fell to work in right good earnest. They had all the grit of the old sea-dogs in them—how, I know not, except in this, that their lives had been given to the one mistress. The thought of a brush-up put dash and daring into them; they had the boats cleared, the water-barrels filled, and the life-belts free, ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... man of bronze, who does not snivel or weep. I like Wigfall for his physique and his magnificent courage. It is the genuine thing. There is no put on there. He has native pluck—the actual article—and it is no strain on him to exhibit it. The grit is in him, and you ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... system that concerned itself with right and brave living, and was so far spiritual; but perhaps not much further. The best in men reacted against the sensuality of the mid-century, and made Stoicism strong; but this formed only a basis of moral grit for the higher teaching; of which, while we know it was there, there is not very much to say. I shall come to it presently; meanwhile, to something else.—In literature, this was the cycle of Spain: the Crest-Wave was largely there during the first thirteen decades of the Christian ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... if you want to save your good temper. There, she is looking back again—not at poor me, though. What a lovely girl she is!—and a real lady—l'air noble—the real genuine grit, as Sam Slick says, and no mistake. By Jove, what a face! what hands! what feet! what a figure—in spite of crinolines and all abominations! And didn't she know it? And didn't she know that you knew ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... that mews strangely. Then comes that little hissing sound I begin to know. Hiss—hiss! Oh, what a horrid feeling! I guess that the window is opening wider. You heard, as I did, Fandor, the revolting scales grit on the boards. But you didn't know what it was, whereas I did know it was the snake! I swear to you it needed all my pluck not to flinch, for I wanted at any cost to see it through to the end, and know whether, behind this reptile, ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... here I swear by this Cross I wear, I heard that "floater" say: "I am the man from whom you ran, the man you sought to slay. That you may note and gaze and gloat, and say 'Revenge is sweet', In the grit and grime of the river's slime I ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... don't respect Secesh like them," broke out Dyke. "Ye'll not sin his soul with a test-oath. Thar's grit thar. Well, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... off our guns. I don't think there was one among the five that had the first grain of hope. Kenton was leading and I was at his heels; all I could see was his tall figure, covered from head to foot with snow, as he plodded along with the grit he always showed. ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... on the rope, on the rope, on the rope; Their breasts are full of hope, full of hope, full of hope; They tell the teams they pull against That they're out to win the cup. Canadians do your bit, do your bit, show your grit; Lay back on that rope, legs well braced; never sit. Make your snow-clad country proud Of her boys who are ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson
... told her the admiral was dead. Her cheeks, already pale, grew white. I asked her the number of the space flyer's crew. She said ten. So far, four were dead, three alive, including myself, and the rest unaccounted for, I told her. She winced. In a moment, though, she pulled herself together with a grit which I could not deny, despite my disapproval of her ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... lands when first looked at are black and big labor and difficulties. When the problem is intelligently understood—undertaken with comprehension and some capital and plenty of grit—the solution is easy and the rewards ample ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell
... Leicester, who survived the dispersion of the Armada by only a few weeks. So long as he had been an aspirant to the hand of his royal mistress, he existed chiefly to trouble the minds of statesmen—a piece of grit in the machinery; an apparently quite worthless person After he had settled down into the less ambiguous position of a mere personal favourite, with no chance of satisfying swelling ambitions, he became a definite partisan ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... careful not to rub the dust into instead of off the edges. If mildew or damp is discovered, carefully wipe it away, and let the book stand open for some days in a very dry spot—but not in front of a fire. Be careful that no grit is on the duster, or it will surely mark your books. Do not wedge books in too tightly. Common-sense must dictate what is right, but every volume should fit easily in ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... the courtyard was grassless, a flooring of grit and loose stone, on which no impression could well be made by human foot. But Copplestone, carefully prospecting around and going a little way up the bank which lay between the tower and the moorland road, suddenly saw something ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... striking snake, and that always we traveled through dust so thick it made a fog. In this chalky land of northern France the brittle soil dries out after a rain very quickly, and turns into a white powder where there are wheels to churn it up and grit it fine. Here surely there was an abundance of wheels. We passed many marching men and many lumbering supply trains which were going our way, and we met many motor ambulances and many ammunition trucks which were ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... almost Shakespearean," said my companion. "It suggests that great hand at least, though it has not the grit and virility of the more primitive bard. What triumph and fresh morning power in Shakespeare's lines that will occur ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... began all this street fighting was a Frenchman—Eugene Delacroix. While still a youth he was bullied, and the bully was such a redoubtable giant that it took somebody with the grit and genius of Delacroix to tackle him, but tackle him he did. The story of the fight, which is a long and glorious one, is so admirably told in Madame Bussy's life of Delacroix, that I have obtained permission to give the essence of it in ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... broods o'er its own beauty. Nay, her fault (Don't laugh!) was just perfection: for suppose Only the little flaw, and I had peeped Inside it, learned what soul inside was like. At Rome some tourist raised the grit beneath A Venus' forehead with his whittling-knife— I wish,—now,—I had played that brute, brought blood To surface from the depths I fancied chalk! As it was, her mere face surprised so much That I stopped short there, struck on heap, as stares The cockney stranger at ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... and brawn he stands. A six-foot straight, "fine fellow of his hands." ENTELLUS, Champion of the Austral realm, Whose sight fat DARES seemed to overwhelm. ("Yah!" cried SAYERIUS, "brave HEENANUS stood Well over me; yes, and his grit was good. But did I funk the Big 'Un from the fust? No, nor when nine times I had bit the dust!") They both attentive stand with eyes intent, Their arms well up, their bodies backward bent. One on his clamorous "Corner" most relies; The other on his sinews and his size. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... urged, "be a real fellow. Show some grit, and purpose. No matter what you've done, or what you haven't done, show that you've sand enough to get up and walk back into camp with me—-to meet your father. Come, get up and come along, like a real fellow with ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... liquor and some hot tea and gave him a mouthful at a time. Just before daylight he rose on one elbow and lay there following us with his eyes, for he was too weak to talk. It seemed as if he was clean beat out and that his nerve was gone. What grit he had he had used up keeping away from ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... as rather underestimated. "They don't really understand me," I would think to myself. "They know that I possess brains and grit and all that sort of thing, but they are too commonplace to appreciate the subtlety of my ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... injured, and further impressed me with the conviction that we might have held on. Indeed, the battle of Chickamauga was somewhat like that of Stone River, victory resting with the side that had the grit to defer longest its ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Spencer, Prescott, remind us of the strength of human will that can override physical obstacles and by long effort produce a great achievement. But for one victor in this struggle of will against body there are a hundred vanquished; and even these men of genius and grit could have accomplished far more if they had had ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... the painting of a head without considering well that you are likely to have trouble, and that the trouble you will have is most likely to be of a kind that you don't expect. But, having begun, keep your head and your grit, and do the best you can. Remember that you learn by mistakes, and failures are a part of every man's work, and of every painter's experience, and not only of ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... had seen the Dead Rat, the Abbey, the Bal Tabarin the Red Mill, Maxim's, and the rest of the lot to the total number of perhaps ten or twelve. We had listened to bad singing, looked on bad dancing, sipped gingerly at bad drinks, and nibbled daintily at bad food; and the taste of it all was as grit and ashes in our mouths. We had learned for ourselves that the much-vaunted gay life of Paris was just as sad and sordid and sloppy and unsavory as the so-called gay life of any other city with a lesser reputation for gay life and gay ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... mushroom-table spread, After short prayers, they set on bread, A moon-parch'd grain of purest wheat, With some small glitt'ring grit, to eat His choice bits with; then in a trice They make a feast less great than nice. But all this while his eye is served, We must not think his ear was sterved; But that there was in place to stir His spleen, the chirring grasshopper, The merry cricket, puling fly, The piping gnat ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... amiable incapacity for responsibility. The second generation, as the Colonel was forced to admit, was a disappointment. Somehow these merchants had failed to transmit the iron in their blood to their children. The sons and sons-in-law either lacked ability and grit, or were ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... a cauliflower, it is a great extravagance to throw away the liquor; it is delicately flavored and forms the basis of a good soup. Wash well your cauliflower, taking great care to remove all grit and insects. Place it to simmer with its head downwards, in salted water; and, when it is tender, remove it. Now for the soup. Let all the outer leaves and odd bits simmer well, then pass them through a sieve. Fry some chopped onions, add ...
— The Belgian Cookbook • various various
... to injury. It's bad enough to injure a man, but when it comes to insulting him into the bargain, there must be but little grit in his natur' if it ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... shaped building occupied the entire width of the cave, without reaching to the roof. The floor of the house was scarcely two yards broad, but the building widened out very much, following the shape of the cave. The materials used in the construction were stone and mud or, rather, reddish grit; and smaller stones had been put between larger ones in an irregular way. The walls were only five or six inches thick and were plastered with mud. An upright pole supported the ceiling, which ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... always did suspect there was mighty few things Vee was afraid of, but I never thought she had so much clear grit stowed away in her system. For to sail past Belcher the way he looked then took a heap of nerve, believe me. But before he can get that thick tongue of his limbered up we're outside, with Vee snuggled up mufflin' the ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford |
