"Grit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... quarter-miles of "Lidgerwood flats" piled high with broken rock and earth, to scream at the American conductor and his black brakemen, often to find myself, by the time I had set down one of them, carried entirely out of my district, to Pedro Miguel or beyond the Chagres, and have to "hit the grit" in "hobo" fashion and catch something back to the spot where I left off. In short I poked into every corner of the "cut" known to man, bawling in the November-first voice of a presidential candidate to everything ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... out, but this time she had the presence of mind to turn over on her back and rest, and went on again when she had her breath back. Nyoda noted this manoeuver approvingly. It indicated good sense. Gladys covered the last twenty-five yards by sheer grit. Every breath was a gasp, the shore line wavered dizzily before her, and it seemed that she was pushing against an immovable wall. Nyoda watched her closely, and saw her rear up her head and set her teeth and battle on against wind and ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... thing about it all is that the one who has indulged and spoiled the baby usually does not possess the requisite nerve, grit, and will power to carry out the necessary program for baby's cure. And the pity of it all is that overindulgence in babyhood so often means wrecked nerves and shattered happiness in later life. So, fond, indulgent parents, do your offspring the very great kindness to ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... or Cannon Ball River on the L. Side about 140 yards Wide, and heads near the Black Mountains above the mouth of this River, in and at the foot of the Bluff, and in the water is a number of round Stones, resembling Shells and Cannon balls of Different Sises, and of excellent grit for Grindstons- the Bluff continus for about a mile, The water of this River is confined within 40 yards- we met 2 french men in a Canoe, who informed us they wer trapping near the mandans and were robed of 4 Traps, & part ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... no more; but I was helpless to save myself, for the current had sucked my legs under the ice, and now held them securely there, sweeping them from side to side, all the while tugging as if to wrench me from my hold. The most I could do was to resist the pull, to grit my teeth and cling to the advantage I had. It was for John to make ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... up within the week, and dropped over to make a hole in the water. I don't know whether I'm going to get well anywhere, but if I do, it's right here. Now just hear me. You're the only living soul in this blasted Congo Free State that I can trust worth a cent, and I believe you've got grit enough to get me cured if only you'll take the trouble to do it. I'm too weak to take on the job myself; and, even if I was sound, I reckon it would be beyond my weight. I tell you it's a mighty big contract. But then, as I've seen for myself, ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... his curiosity aroused, watched her for a moment, forgetting for the time his own anxieties. He liked a skilled hand, and he liked push and grit. This woman seemed to possess all three. He was amazed at the way in which she handled her men. He wished somebody as clearheaded and as capable were unloading his boat. He began to wonder who she might be. There was no mistaking her nationality. Slight as was her ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... intercollegiate athletic events depends on will power and physical endurance. This is particularly apparent in football. Frequently it is not the team with the greater muscular development or speed of foot that wins the victory, but the one with the more grit and perseverance. At the conclusion of a game players are often unable to walk from the field and need to be carried. Occasionally the winning team has actually worked the harder and received the more serious injuries. Regardless of this fact, it is usually true that the victorious team ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... he called out hilariously as he saw her. "Not froze nuther! You're clear grit! I told your Aunt Betty so, and she said 'seein' was believin'.' As soon as I've thawed my hands a mite, we'll be joggin'. Dan, that's the hoss, isn't the safest ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... narrow escape from death and Joel's heroic rescue were nine-day wonders in the little world of the academy and village. In every room that night the incident was discussed from A to Z: Clausen's foolhardiness, March's grit and courage, West's coolness, Cloud's cowardice. And next morning at chapel when Joel, fearing to be late, hurried in and down the side aisle to his seat, his appearance was the signal for such an enthusiastic outburst of cheers and acclamations that he stopped, looked about in bewilderment, ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... those of average capacity who have succeeded by the use of ordinary means, by dint of indomitable will and inflexible purpose: these will most inspire the ambitious youth. The author teaches that there are bread and success for every youth under the American flag who has the grit to seize his chance and work his way to his own loaf; that the barriers are not yet erected which declare to aspiring talent, "Thus far and no farther"; that the most forbidding circumstances cannot repress a longing for knowledge, a yearning for growth; that poverty, humble birth, loss of limbs ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... in the first five minutes. Yet always, peering back through the little peephole, he saw Calendar's cab pelting doggedly in their rear—a hundred yards behind, no more, no less, hanging on with indomitable grit and determination. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... find him as I expected to!" exclaimed Ryan, for he it was who was galloping behind the unconscious form of Jack Bailey. "He's sticking to his horse, but he must be all in. That lad's got grit and pluck, and I'm almost sorry I had to do him up. But I had to. We simply must get the information about that mine, and this was the only plan I thought would work. But he sure has grit and spunk to ride on with that dose ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster
... than during the siege of 1745. The broken walls have been repaired, but the filling is false,—sand grit. Its population is some four thousand, of whom three thousand eight hundred are the garrison. On the ships lying in the harbor are three thousand marines, a defensive force, in all, {253} of six thousand eight hundred. On walls and in bastions are some four hundred and fifty heavy guns, cannon, ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... occurred. The children often dined in the garden in those early days, and once a piece of apple-dumpling Beth was eating slid off her plate on to the gravelled walk. Some one picked it up, and put it on her plate again, all covered with stones and grit, and the sight of hot apple-dumpling made her think of gravel ever afterwards, and filled her with disgust; so that she could not eat it. She had a great aversion to bread and butter too for a long time, but that she got over. It would ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... many elegances of 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... as those men who were out on strike. Another reason why it would have been better to have had older men and married men at the bases lay in the temptations surrounding the men there on every side. These also have to be reckoned with as part of the inevitable cost of war. It says much for the grit and character of the average Briton that ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... departure of this first band there was a regular epidemic of departure at the Tocsin. Carter and Simpkins turned up at the office one afternoon very much in earnest about it all and persuaded that a little British grit was what was needed in Cuba, "to keep things humming." Simpkins recalled his old army days and the valour he had several times displayed when under the influence of liquor. He waved an old belt appertaining to those times, ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... 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 ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... hard, decided to make a speech. His face was badly swollen and he could only see through a slit in one eye, so severe had been the beating administered by Wampus earlier in the day; but the fellow had grit, in spite of his other unmanly qualities, and his imperturbable good humor had scarcely been disturbed by the punishment the Canadian ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... more genial than that of the higher ones. Mr. Prestwich inclines to this opinion. None of those contortions of the strata above described have as yet been observed in the lower drift. It contains large blocks of Tertiary sandstone and grit, which may have required the aid of ice to convey them to their present sites; but as such blocks already abounded in the older and higher alluvium, they may simply be monuments of its destruction, having been let down successively ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... death was the result of a 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 ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... boldness, spoke with downright plainness to the men against it. That was at the little hall a week after the attempt on Mr. Winter's life. Philip's part in that night's event had added to his reputation and his popularity with the men. They admired his courage and his grit. Most of them were ashamed of the whole affair, especially after they had sobered down and it had been proved that Mr. Winter had not touched the man. So Philip was welcomed with applause as he came out on the little platform and looked over the crowded ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... reporter realized that three lives—his own, Lathrop's and that of the long missing explorer depended alone now on their skill and grit. ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... liking. There was a quality very winning in the youthful East-sider and now that the chance for betterment had come his way Steve felt sure that the boy would make good. There was a lot of pluck and grit in that wiry little frame; a lot of honesty too, Stephen reflected, with a blush. He was not at all sure but that in the matter of fearlessness and moral courage the New York lad had the lead of ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... 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 ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... and went downstairs to the kitchen. There was hot water in the kettle. He fetched it back, bathed her feet, drew out from the cut and scratch the flakes of granite-grit and ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... man, suffering from asthma and stomach trouble. When he got back into the world again, he was as husky as almost any man I have ever seen who wasn't dependent on his arms for his livelihood. He weighed one hundred and fifty pounds, and was clear bone, muscle, and grit." ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... raised my "grit," and I never flinched a bit, And my nerves they got as strong as steel or brass; And when I fired again I was sure that I had hit, For I saw the skulking devil ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... what a long one it was to be sure! and me without a wink of sleep, thinkin' of Wash and the cent, my emptins and the baby. Next day come, but no Lisha, no message, no nuthin', and I began to think I'd got my match though I had a sight of grit in them days. I sewed, and Mis Bascum she clacked; but I didn't say much, and jest worked like sixty to pay for my keep, for I warn't goin' to be ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... much in the size of her, as in her glorious disposition." Aunt Rachel makes three or four turns, like a peacock on a pedestal, to amuse her admirers. Again, Mr. Wormlock intimates, in a tone that the vender may hear, that she has some grit, for he sees it in her demeanour, which is assuming the tragic. Her eyes, as she turns, rest upon the crispy face of Romescos. She views him for a few moments-she fears he will become her purchaser. Her lip ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... among our familiar wild animals. Who ever saw a coon show the white feather? He will face any odds with perfect composure. I have seen a coon upon the ground, beset by four men and two dogs, and never for a moment losing his presence of mind, or showing a sign of fear. The raccoon is clear grit. ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... I wrote to Levet.—We went to see the looking-glasses wrought. They come from Normandy in cast plates, perhaps the third of an inch thick. At Paris they are ground upon a marble table, by rubbing one plate upon another with grit between them. The various sands, of which there are said to be five, I could not learn. The handle, by which the upper glass is moved, has the form of a wheel, which may be moved in all directions. The plates are sent up with their surfaces ground, but not polished, and so continue ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... and that he never could have hit a downright blow, and was altogether an unsuitable person to receive one. I beheld him not in his armor, but in his peacefulest robes. Nevertheless, drawing my conclusion merely from what I saw, it would have occurred to me that his main deficiency was a lack of grit. Though anything but a timid man, the combative and defensive elements were not prominently developed in his character, and could have been made available only when he put an unnatural force upon his instincts. ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... dear Madame Mignon," cried the notary's wife, as soon as the gravel was heard to grit under the feet of the Parisians, "what ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... he felt any particular sympathy for the German cause; but, boy-like, he could admire grit and daring, no matter under what flag it might be found. That bold flight of the Taube operator in the face of the flying missiles was quite enough to arouse the spirit of any one with ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... would seduce a continent into barking after false gods. You've an inexplicable chemistry of ungovernable passions and wild whims and you may go through hell first but when the final test comes—you'll ring true. Mark that, old man, you'll ring true. I tell you I know! There's sanity and will and grit ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... spoke stern an strong as if we his sogers. An Missy Mara look 'im in de eyes an say, you—dat's you, Marse Clancy—may be dead, or you may be dyin, an dat she can't leab you an she won leab you. She got de grit ob true lub, an dere'll neber be any runin away in her heart. Wot you an Marse Bodine gwine ter do 'bout sich lub as dat? 'Fo' de Lawd my honey lam' die ef you an Marse Bodine 'sist on bein so orful hon'ble. She ain't one ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... intended. In France the lettuces are sometimes merely wiped with a cloth and not washed, the cooks there declaring that the act of washing them injuriously affects the pleasant crispness of the plant: in this case scrupulous attention must be paid to each leaf, and the grit ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... playground. The fellows seemed to him to have grown smaller: that was because a sprinter had knocked him down the day before, a fellow out of second of grammar. He had been thrown by the fellow's machine lightly on the cinder path and his spectacles had been broken in three pieces and some of the grit of the cinders had ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... compose herself a little. But this she could not do, for her nerves were too shaken. Noticing that the key of the little room was stained with blood, she wiped it two or three times. But the blood did not go. She washed it well, and even rubbed it with sand and grit. Always the blood remained. For the key was bewitched, and there was no means of cleaning it completely. When the blood was removed from one side, it ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... call, I tell you, to get off without a shindy. Please forgive me, Miss Fontonelles. When you get this, I shall be going back home to America, but you might write to me at Denver City, saying you're all right. I liked your style; I liked your grit in standing up to me in the garden until you had your say, when you thought I was the Lord knows what—though I never understood a word you got off—not knowing French. But it's all the same now. ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... in spring went off into the woods to 'flawing,' i.e. to barking the oak which is thrown in May—the bark is often used now for decoration, like the Spanish cork bark. Some were talking already of the 'grit' work and looking forward to it, that is, to mowing and haymaking, which mean better wages. The farmers were grumbling that their oats were cuckoo oats, not sown till the cuckoo cried, and not likely to come ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... like that uncompromising New England grit," exclaimed Miss Maxwell, "and so far, I don't regret one burden that Rebecca has borne or one sorrow that she has shared. Necessity has only made her brave; poverty has only made her daring and self-reliant. As to her present needs, there are certain things only ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... above record; for whereas the Royal letter is dated the 25th day of September, 1512, it is stated to have been produced by the vicar before the Court of Master David Abercrummy on the 5th day of March, 1511. The explanation may be that it was found difficult to grit the augmentation out of the clutches of the Stirling Canons, even after the Bishop of Candida Casa (Whithorn) had decreed in the vicar's favour, and that the Royal authority had again to be invoked to give effect to it. However this may be, it is certain that Master John Broune gained his point, ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... 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 of ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... them under terrible fire 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
... could do for a long time. And so the said Mr Allan was carried to a secret chamber: with him passed the honourable Earl, his worshipful brother, and such as were appointed to be servants at that banquet. In the chamber there was a grit iron chimlay, under it a fire; other grit provision was not seen. The first course was,—'My Lord Abbot,' (said the Earl,) 'it will please you confess here, that with your own consent you remain in my ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... "True grit!" remarked Abram to Basha, in an undertone, as she paused in her walk to and fro by the spinning-wheel to join a broken thread. "But there never was a coward yet, man or woman, 'mong the Heaths, an' I've known 'em off an' on these seventy year. ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... not.' Dear brethren! we all get weary of our work. Custom presses upon us, 'with a weight heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.' It is easy to do things with a spurt, but it is the keeping on at the monotonous, trivial, and sometimes unintelligible duties that is the test of a man's grit, and of his goodness too. So, although it is a very, very threadbare lesson —one that you may think it was not worth while for me to bring you all here to receive—I am sure that there are few things needed more by us ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... crushing {138} victory at the polls and a puny opposition in the House were not unmixed blessings. It began to fall apart by its own sheer weight. A Radical wing, both English and French, soon developed. The 'Clear Grit' party in Upper Canada was moving straight towards republicanism, and so was Papineau's Parti Rouge, with its organ L'Avenir openly preaching Annexation. Canadian eyes were still dazzled by the marvellously rapid growth of the United States. American democracy ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... by the shells starting wide open. After they are done, they should be taken from the shells, washed thoroughly in their own water, and put in a stewing pan. The water should then be strained through a cloth, so as to get out all the grit; the clams should be simmered in it ten or fifteen minutes; a little thickening of flour and water added; half a dozen slices of toasted bread or cracker; and pepper, vinegar and butter to your taste. Salt ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... audience, Governor Kirkwood once said: "We are rearing the typical Americans, the Western Yankee if you choose to call him so, the man of grit, the man of nerve, the man of broad and liberal views, the man of tolerance of opinion, the man of energy, the man who will some day dominate this empire of ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh
... Isn't it the truth? Dad's no grit. He gits drunk whenever he has a chance. Marm's a good, hard-workin' woman. She'd git along well ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger
... high state of cultivation with good buildings on it, at a high price, than to buy this exhausted piece of land with poor buildings or none at all, is a question for the individual to decide. It depends on your energy, grit, age, and how much money you have. It is much easier to take advantage of what the other fellow has done, than it is to build from the stump. You must bear in mind, however, that well kept land in a high state of cultivation seldom goes begging ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... then the explanation of the hatred, of the intense animosity, shown by these people? Was that then the reason why these two Berlin constables, for one of them at least knew Jules and Henri to be French—why they too should grit their teeth, should scowl and mutter at the name of Britain? Yes, indeed, that was the reason why all the subjects of the Kaiser, deliriously happy but a few hours ago, were now snarling with anger, ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... they ought to have and no more. It was the Express that managed, while elaborately abstaining from improper comment upon a matter sub judice, to feed and support the general conviction of young Ormiston's innocence, and thereby win for itself, though a "Grit" paper, wide reading in that hotbed of Toryism, Moneida Reservation, while the Conservative Mercury, with its reckless sympathy for an old party name, made itself criminally liable by reviewing cases of hard dealing ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... to the days that were coming when Stella would shine as a queen—his queen—among an envious crowd. Her position assured as his wife, even Lady Harriet herself would have to lower her flag. And how little Netta Ermsted would grit her teeth! He laughed to himself whenever he thought of that. Netta had become too uppish of late. It would be amusing to see ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... I 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 he ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... became a skilful rider. A story is told of him which indicates not only that he was a good horseman, but that he had "bulldog grit" as well. One day when he was at a circus, the manager offered a silver dollar to any one who could ride a certain mule around the ring. Several persons, one after the other, mounted the animal, only to be thrown over its ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... unstaged, unconscious demonstration of nerve and grit and it proved beyond all question the capacity of American artillerymen to stand by ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... gallant companions — had planted his country's flag so infinitely nearer to the goal than any of his precursors. Sir Ernest Shackleton's name will always be written in the annals of Antarctic exploration in letters of fire. Pluck and grit can work wonders, and I know of no better example of this than what that man ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... the Old Senior Surgeon, cocking his head thoughtfully, "there was the business-like little party on a broomstick, carrying grit—plain grit." ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... corn and rice meal. If a sample of the flour be thrown on the surface of a glassful of water, the corn and rice, being heavier, will sink; grit and sand may be detected in the same way. If the flour has been adulterated with mineral substances it may be shown by burning a portion down to an ash; the ash of pure flour should not exceed two per cent of the total amount; if mineral substances ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... and sand. Wherever the latter had accumulated, or predominated, the gradual working of water had washed it away, and left the more compact body, in some places, so delicately hollowed out, that it seemed rather the work of art than of nature. This singular formation rested on a coarse grit, that ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... report, Lieutenant. That youngster there," pointing to Ned, "is real grit. I seed the arrer strike him, and he a-pullin' of it out, runnin' towards 'em all the time. Jest as sure's yer live, yer can call Tom Pope a liar, if Jerry Vance didn't save that gal's life; 'cause, if we'd ever attacked ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... his greatest work, was composed with pain and difficulty when he was seventy years old; even it is but a quarry from which a reader may dig the ore of a sound critical judgment summing up a life's reflection, out of the grit and dust of perfunctory biographical compilations. There was hardly one of the literary coterie over which he presided that was not doing better and more lasting work. Nothing that Johnson wrote is to be compared, for excellence in its own manner, with Tom Jones or the Vicar ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... honest zeal, absorbed, intent, And cheerfully credulous. MARABOUT has bent To the Commercial Dagon He publicly derides; but many here Will toast 'his genuine grit, his manly cheer,' Over a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... race-way, but that was all. That captain of ours must have been on good terms with the old serpent that keeps the gate, or he never could have got through so easy. Now that it was over, I almost wished I had found grit enough to see how it was done. As it was, my eyes were hid, and I did not even see the ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... strongly in the Indian's favour. The food supply, the transportation facilities, and advantage of position in case game should be encountered were all his. Against him he need count seriously only the offset of dogged Anglo-Saxon grit. But as the travel defined itself, certain compensations ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... very human—neither angels nor monstrosities, but, for the most part, ardent, impulsive, out-and-out, work-a-day lads; with the faults and failings of inexperience and impetuosity, no doubt, but also with that moral grit and downright honesty of purpose that are still, we believe, the distinguishing mark of the true British public-school boy. Hence one is impelled to take from the outset a most genuine interest in them and their affairs, and to feel quite as though one had known ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... of 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, ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... money. A secret agent of Standard Steel! What a newspaper story she would make—"Society Favorite a Paid Spy"; "Woman Lobbyist Flees Capital." The sensational headlines flitted through her mind. Then she would grit her teeth and dig her finger nails into her palms. She had to have money to carry on the life she loved so well. She must continue as she had begun. After all, she reasoned, nothing definite could ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... saunderers, and some noted climbers; but as a staple recreation, as a daily practice, the mass of the people dislike and despise walking. Thoreau said he was a good horse, but a poor roadster. I chant the virtues of the roadster as well. I sing of the sweetness of gravel, good sharp quartz-grit. It is the proper condiment for the sterner seasons, and many a human gizzard would be cured of half its ills by a suitable daily allowance of it. I think Thoreau himself would have profited immensely by it. His diet was too exclusively vegetable. A man cannot live on grass alone. If one ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... because it gives a mark of distinction. It is a delicious moment for Mrs. Johnson when she is able to say to Mrs. Thompson, 'My dear, I am quite worn-out; we dined out every day last week, and have four more dinners in the next five days.' These good people show their British grit by the persistency with which they go on with their penitential hospitality, and their lack of ideas in never attempting to modify it so as to make it a pleasure instead of ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... 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 one of ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... down yondah, de ole place frum de top uv de hill—de ole house sottin' back in de cool shade. He tuck a hitch on his rotten britches an' hit de grit. ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... and otherwise, in building his house. When I look back to the conditions that existed on this bit of Lake-front three years ago—the frog-hollows, tiling, the wasting bluffs, excavation, thirty-five cords of boulders unloaded perversely—the mere enumeration chafes like grit upon surfaces still sore.... I have sadly neglected the study of house-building in this book. It would not do now. The fact is, I don't know how to build a house, but one learns much that one didn't know about men and money. I sat ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... follow, and they had evidently tried to follow our former tracks. Having no trail to follow we passed on as best we could and came to a wide piece of land on which were growing a great many cabbage trees. The soil was of the finest dust with no grit in it, and not long before a light shower had fallen, making it very soft and hard to get along in with the moccasins. The women had to stop to rest frequently, so our progress was very slow. Rogers and I had feet about as hard as those of the oxen, so we removed our moccasins and went barefoot, ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... defence committee. Later, he served on a commission with Dix to try prisoners of state, and in 1864 advocated the election of Lincoln. There was no dough about Pierrepont. He had shown himself an embodied influence, speaking with force, and usually with success. He possessed the grit and the breadth of his ancestors, one of whom was a chief founder of Yale College, and his presence in the State convention, although he had not been at Philadelphia, encouraged the hope that it would concentrate ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... dreadful in having some sense? Too bad about the boy. He set his teeth and didn't make a sound when that fool of an Irishman was sawing at him as if he was a log. I never saw such grit. If they've got many like him they'll be a great people ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... indeed. I wonder you didn't see it in the paper. In a dense fog on the moor yesterday good old Crawshay made a bolt for it, and got away without a scratch under heavy fire. All honor to him, I agree; a fellow with that much grit deserves his liberty. But Crawshay has a good deal more. They hunted him all night long; couldn't find him for nuts; and that was all you missed ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... to Mexico, cruised the Mediterranean in a ten-ton yawl, and canoed from Germany to the Black Sea across the heart of Europe. They were a royal pair of wanderlusters, he, big and broad-shouldered, she a small, brunette, and happy woman, whose one hundred and fifteen pounds were all grit and endurance, and withal, pleasing ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... justified. This torrent of majestic crystal—seen from above so smooth and bountiful—a flood of the milk of Nature dispensed from the white bosom of the hills! Now, near at hand, what do we find it? A medley of opaque blocks, smeared with grit and rubbish; a vast ruin of avalanches hurled together and consolidated, and of the colour ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... The old bear is not going to drop his dead donkey without a snap and a hug. Come along, and tell people what it's all really like. There will be a dozen Cockneys writing battle songs, I'll warrant, who never saw a man shot in their lives, not even a hare. Come and give us the real genuine grit of it,—for ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... at Dick fixedly. "Rennell, we may be fools," he said, "but we realize what we're up against. It's a big thing, and we're going to need all our fighting grit to overcome it. You're one of the four men we're depending on. We're counting on you because of your record, and because of your degree in science at Heidelberg. The President wishes you to take charge of the whole Eastern Intelligence District, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... intelligently taught, can be learned in six months' training, though one feels bound to add it requires moral "grit" in the character to make one unswervingly faithful in observing it. The midwife, too, should run no risk of carrying infection from others, as ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... addressed, a man of his own age, though his spare form and smooth-shaven cheek and chin made him look ten years younger—"I think it is that Graham has been tried in all manner of ways and has proved equal to every occasion. They say he's sheer grit." ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... impenetrable ice blanket through which the 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 they had migrated to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. The rootlets ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... the loose screw the moment you see it is loose. Pull the strap through the buckle as soon as you feel it give. Wipe the axle over which you have charge, clean of dust or grit. If your soul is in the balance, stop now, today, this very moment, and see that all is right between ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... of you to take it in such a manly fashion, old chap. It's great. Not many fellows could have done what you've done. I'm sure I couldn't. It took grit to come out here and tell me this. Shake hands again, my boy. And I now promise that I shall keep her happy if it lies in the power of a human being to do so. You may ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... stated. "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 my father's ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... objectors at Newhaven have complained that their food often contains sandy substances. It seems a pity that the authorities cannot find some better way of getting a little grit into these poor fellows. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... 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, and he ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... 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 was rather pretty, consisting of reeds resting on ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... returned this fire by an occasional rifle-shot, to show that they were still on hand, and through the interminable hours of that blistering day they simply clung by sheer grit to the ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... powerful rich, an' he hadn't but little; 'n' for all she was so much in love with him, she couldn't help a-throwin' it up to him, sort o', an' he couldn't stan' it. So he jest lit out; an' he'd never ha' gone back to her,—never under the shining sun. He'd got jest that grit in him. She'd been a-huntin' everywhere, they said,—all over Europe, 'n' Azhay, 'n' Africa, till she'd given up huntin'; an' he was right close tu hum all the time. He was a first-rate feller, 'n' we was all glad when his luck come ter him 't last. I wished I could ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... the private income his father offered to settle on him. He would earn his own living. A man who has his bread buttered for him seldom accomplishes anything he had said, and while his father had appeared to be angry at this open opposition to his will, he was secretly pleased at his son's grit. Jefferson was thoroughly in earnest. If needs be, he would forego the great fortune that awaited him rather than be forced into questionable business methods against which his whole ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... gradually eat their way along the surface of their rocky flooring, the carbonic acid in the water acting chemically on the stone in addition to the wearing force of the element. Once a shallow channel is worn, new forces set to work to deepen it: sand, pebbles and grit of all kinds, washed down by the current, grind and wear away the rock. In course of time great depths are hollowed out, and if it happens that some obstacle turns the course of the water, and the river finds a new outlet, a long deep gallery ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... of grit will take you a long ways, Toby, believe me, "said Jack encouragingly. "All of us fall far short of perfection; but Joe is persistent and I've no doubt he already knows just who the members of the team will be, barring ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... there are great expanses of brown table-land that form themselves into long parallel lines in the distance, and give a sense of wild desolation in some ways more striking than the peaks of Scotland or Wales. The thick formations of millstone grit and limestone that rest upon the shale have generally avoided crumpling or distortion, and thus give the mountain views the appearance of having had all the upper surfaces rolled flat when they were in a plastic condition. Denudation and the action of ice in ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... flogged her as he would have flogged a boy—only using his hard hand instead of a stick. "Get thee behind her, Satan! Get thee behind her, Satan! Get thee behind her, Satan!" he groaned with every blow, while Joan grit her teeth and bore it as long as she could, then screamed and fainted. That was how the truth about heaven and hell came to her. She had never felt physical pain before, and eternal torment was merely an idea. From that day, however, she was frightened and listened to her father ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... prince cleft High fences of the sea; The ropes of the King's ship Are strained to the utmost; The wind is unfriendly Against the anchor-iron out-hollowed, Grit and wind-squalls ugly ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... the fault must have lain with Jeffrey; the qualifications that Lord Cockburn admired so much were not likely to be to the taste of a man of Mr. Carlyle's grit. That did not prevent the most original of Mr. Napier's contributors from being one of the most ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... a broken heart.' 'What!' I says I, 'have the gals been jiltin' you?' 'No, no,' says he; 'I beant such a fool as that, neither.' 'Well,' says I, 'have you made a bad speculation?' 'No,' says he, shakin' his head, 'I hope I have too much clear grit in me to take on so bad for that.' 'What under the sun is it, then?' said I. 'Why,' says he, 'I made a bet the fore part of the summer with Leftenant Oby Knowles that I could shoulder the best bower of the Constitution ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... then dropped him to the ground, where he was surrounded by his late persecutors, who now, looking pleasant enough, proceeded to clap him on the back, and tell him very emphatically that he was "a plucky little chap"; "one of the right sort"; "true grit," ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... them and bore cheerfully and tactfully with their increasing crotchetiness and impatience of old age, or left them to eke out a purposely small income in a second-rate hotel or a six by six apartment barely on the edge of the map. A timid woman, all for peace, without the grit and courage that goes with self-direction, she pursued the easy policy of least resistance, sacrificed her youth on the altar of Comfort and dwindled with only a few secret pangs into middle age. From time to time, with Joan, ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... be mistook, Nels. That abolition hoss-thief was a mighty palavering sort of chap, but he didn't have no such grit." ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... had been made there stretched a wide, flat space of comparatively firm ground a so-called anp, or shallow vlei, in which at some time water had accumulated. Here there was very little sand, its place being taken by a deposit of fine loose grit, made up of a variety of tiny stones all about the size of ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... 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
... for a week. Edwin's act would become historic; it already was historic. And not only was the act in itself wonderful and admirable and epoch-making; but it proved that Edwin, despite his blondness, his finickingness, his hesitations, had grit. That was the point: the lad had grit; there was material in the lad of which much could be made. Add to this, the father's mere instinctive gratitude—a gratitude of such unguessed depth that it had prevented him even from being ashamed of having ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... buck!" shouted the soldiers; I felt the fisherman step in, as a matter of fact he stepped in on to my toes; a dozen hands were on the gunwales: six soldier yells resounded, it seemed, in my very ears: there was the grit and rush of pebbles under the keel: a sudden lurch up of the bows, which brought the fairy lady's honey-scented lips to mine, and then the gentle lapping of deep ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... nearly dying from a bad septic wound of his right arm. I judged that he might 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 ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... of grit, but of that unflawed nerve which is so much the result of perfect physical fitness. Clay's years of clean life on the desert counted heavily now. He was master of himself, though his mouth was dry as a whisper and there were ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... he told his men. "Those girls have the grit many a boy might well boast of, and when I saw her drop from that pier I did not have to hold my breath. I ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... might be said 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, "are Forsters with an r." When he became acquainted with a person nearly connected ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... 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 ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... from what quarters of the globe the hurricane came which last night tore up the old oak tree. You can read a dozen fat volumes on the Holstein problem, and still you will not be convinced. Schleswig-Holsteiners in their rock-grit lands on the North Sea had their political troubles about the right of succession, and that sort of thing; the spit of land up there was aflame with ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... Swanston shepherd. Not that John and Robert drew very close together in their lives; for John was rough, he smelt of the windy brae; and Robert was gentle, and smacked of the garden in the hollow. Perhaps it is to my shame that I liked John the better of the two; he had grit and dash, and that salt of the Old Adam that pleases men with any savage inheritance of blood; and he was a way-farer besides, and took my gipsy fancy. But however that may be, and however Robert's profile may be blurred in the ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... starving. To-day they have been fishing for albatrosses. A few minutes after they caught the first one its carcase was flung overboard. Mr. Pike studied it through his sea-glasses, and I heard him grit his teeth when he made certain that it was not the mere feathers and skin but the entire carcass. They had taken only its wing- bones to make into pipe-stems. The inference was obvious: starving men would not throw ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... of 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
... service he needed a man with a cool head, good sense, great courage, and, above all, what boys call "grit;" for whoever should go would have to make his way for many hundreds of miles through a trackless wilderness, over mountains and rivers, and among hostile Indians. Young Washington had already shown what stuff he was ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... admire the woman for her eternal grit. She won't give up for a minute. She is going to run her house just so if she has to train up a million girls and lose them all. Half the time she has to do her own work, but I'll bet that when she has the luncheon ready she puts her little white lace napkin ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... and no logical objection could be made to it, anyway. Isn't it a pretty good test of a man's determination? It's hard to see why he should make a worse doctor, engineer, or preacher, because he has the grit to earn his training by carrying plates, or chopping trees, which some of our ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... raged with great ferocity. But American grit and steadfastness never wavered and the enemy was forced to retire with heavy loss. Not only had they failed to drive the Americans from their positions, but they had been driven back and forced to surrender a large ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall |
