"Grit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a man's fight against a river and of a struggle between honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and shrewdness on ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... 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 was rather ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... understand such language,' said Alden. (For he was fairly riled, and got his dander up, and when he shows clear grit, he looks wicked ugly, I tell you.) 'I don't understand such language, sir; I came here to consult you professionally, and not to be—' 'Don't understand!' said the Doctor, 'why it's plain English; but here, read my book!' and he shoved a book into his hands ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... and only for your partner's grit the teams wouldn't have been saved. When we saw the whole blame ravine tumbling in the only thing that struck us was to light out quick, and we did it in a hurry, not stopping to think. Something else struck your partner, too, a devastatin' load of dirt coming down on the teams, and he ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... sitting-room, he found a torn envelope, and began picking up some specks of grit from the carpet, each of which went into a corner of the envelope, which he folded and stowed away. Then he bent over the fireplace and rummaged among the cinders. Three calcined lumps, not wholly consumed, ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... 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, ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... run to buy that good plot of land in a 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 ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... the quicker and briefer? (b) Apply a fairly strong auditory stimulus (a sudden noise) a fraction of a second before the tap on the tendon, and see whether the reflex response is reinforced, (c) Ask the subject to clench his fists or grit his teeth, and tap the tendon as he does so. Reinforcement? (d) Where is the reflex center for the patellar reflex, and whence comes ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... about money-making, especially, but he did believe in work, for himself and his children. When the father died, and his son was left with enough money to have lived all his days without doing a stroke of work, he already had too much grit to think of such a life. And he had too much good sense to start out to become a millionaire and to pile million ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... You tell me you are a gentleman. Sir! I had as lief you said you were a blacksmith. In this grand country of ours, where progress is the watchword, effete standards and dogging traditions must go by the board. Grit is of more use to us than gentility. Each single bricklayer who unships serves the colony better than ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... his boots as well as the lantern she had used. Yet to her ears the roar of the advancing tide seemed to stifle all other sounds. Past the other huts they went in silence, then came a precipitous path up the cliff, steps cut in the hard sandy grit, but very crumbling, and in places supplemented by a rude ladder of sticks and rope. Peregrine went before Anne, Hans behind. Each had hung the lantern from his neck, so as to have hands free to draw her, ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... any force of current or of wind, not only without complaining, but without being compelled to give in until the set task was accomplished, though it should involve some miles of hard pulling. These facts indicate the amount of "grit" that lay under the outward appearance of weakness and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... of the prince at the Pitti Palace till he was about twenty years old. How far physiologists may deem that such an abnormal circumstance may have been influential in producing a diathesis of mind and body deficient in vigor, energy and "hard grit" of any kind, I do not know. But if that is what such a bringing-up may be expected to produce, then the expectation was in the case in question certainly justified. Nevertheless, Italians had been for so many generations and centuries taught by bitter experience to consider kings ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... need to learn the language of the peasants in these market towns. Soldiers from Somerset used many old Saxon words which puzzled their cockney friends, and the Lancashire men brought the northern bur with them and the grit of the northern spirit. And Ireland, though she would not have conscription, sent some of the bravest of her boys out there, and in all the bloodiest battles since that day at Mons the old fighting qualities of the Irish race shone ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... important of these being garnet, which is found in great quantities in the Adirondacks. Crude garnet from several mines, the ground and cleaned garnet, and grades of garnet paper were shown. A small millstone to represent the celebrated Esopus grit, emery ore from Peekskill, and quartz and sand from many localities were also exhibited in this case. Another case was filled with feldspar, mica and quartz, which usually occur associated with each other in the form of pegmetite dikes in the crystalline rocks of the Adirondacks and ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... badly 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 relinquishment ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... with the grit of Old Hickory himself" was the cabinet-officer's opinion of the country lad. He commended him to the West Point Board of Examiners in terms that secured him admission to the Military Academy in spite of certain grave deficiencies in ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... "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. Now there ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... 8. The plates, cleaned as already described, are carried upon the cords under a brass roller, the weight of which causes sufficient friction to keep the plates from tilting; they next pass under a soft camel's hair brush to remove anything in the shape of dust or grit, and are then coated. They afterward pass over a series of accurately leveled wheels running in a tank of water kept exact by an automatic regulator at a temperature of from 80 deg. Fah. to 100 deg. Fah., by ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • 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 accidents, also the ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... '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. ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... drift back to the States; and the keel-boats, looking very fat and lazy, unloaded supplies in the late fall that were loaded at St. Louis in the early spring. And these had come all the way without the stroke of a piston or the crunch of a paddle-wheel or a pound of steam. Nothing but grit and man-muscle to drag them a small matter of two or three thousand miles up the current of the most eccentric old duffer of ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... we fall into the sea we shan't hurt ourselves so much as if it were land. I've got a couple of lifebuoys. If a storm comes on, too bad to sail through, we must come down and wait till it's over. Of course any accident may stop us, even a speck of grit in the engine; but you're the last man in the world to be put off a thing by any bogey of what-might-be, and I'm going to look at the bright side. It's time I was off, so I'll take the things you've brought—oh, I see Roddy has already shipped them, ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... "And you need not shut your jaw hard and grit your teeth that way. That is exactly what he did when he found out about Mr. Raybold. It is of no use to get angry, for you can't do anything without my permission; and, besides, I tell you that if I were condemned by a court to be made love to, I would much rather have Martin make it than ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... about the year you were born. She was Vanhuyten's cousin and the finest thing that ever wore a woman's shape. Northern grit and Southern fire, for she sprang from New England and good Virginia stock; I've seen no woman with her superb confidence. Well, I was a contrabandista with some ugly tales against my name, but I fell in love with Hattie and ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... the fellow that carried off the Marathon at the Olympic Games in Berlin. And he's as game as he is speedy. You ought to have seen the way he stood McAlpin on his head when we played the Army. That fellow was as big as a house and as full of grit as a gravel path, but he wasn't one-two-three with Wilson. If all the boys were like him I'd have ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... he mumbled in the midst of mouthfuls. "I had to. I missed the French Hill Benches, the Big Skookum, and Monte Cristo, and then it was Surprise Lake or bust. And here I am. My wife knew I'd strike it. I've got faith enough, but hers knocks mine galleywest. She's a corker, a crackerjack—dead game, grit to her finger-ends, never-say-die, a fighter from the drop of the hat, the one woman for me, true blue and all the rest. Take ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... construction of its walls and stone roof, formed as that roof is of three layers—viz., 1. The layer consisting of the proper stones of the arch of the cell interiorly; 2. The layer of outer roofing stones placed exteriorly; and 3. The intermediate layer of lime, and grit or small stones, cementing and binding together these ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... Honeywood Hall had come to an end, the little gentleman had more than once seen the Swirl swollen to its fullest dimensions, and been enabled to recognize the use of the bridge, and the full force of the local expression - "the waeter is grit." ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... 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. ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... 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 ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... very aggravating about a race like that. In a rowing race you may break your back if you choose, trying to catch the boat in front; and even in a sailing race you may do something. But when it comes to steam you can only grit your teeth and walk up and down and watch and try not to let anybody see how anxious ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... mind. It was being borne in upon him gradually that he was not a shouting success in business so far. The rosy dreams that had floated near all through his days of hard study had one by one left him, until his path was now leading through a murky gray way with little hope ahead. Nothing but sheer grit kept him at it, and he began to wonder how long he could stick it out if nothing ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... no place like Devon, in all the earth, and no spot like Chagford in Devon. I'm too hard grit to wink an eyelid at sight of the old scenes again myself; but Martin, when he caught first sight of great rolling Cosdon crowning the land—why, his eyes were wetted, ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... read of his court-martialings, the degradations and the petty insults inflicted upon him can help feeling that he returns home to-day, in spite of the Phoenix's sneers, a young hero who has 'passed' in grit, pluck, perseverance, and all the better qualities which go to make up true manhood, and only has been 'found' because rebel sympathizers at West Point, the fledglings of caste, and the Secretary of War, do ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... magazines were open to him, although he was tied down to write for no other newspaper. The passionate effort of one night of misery had brought him out for ever from amongst the purgatory of the unrecognised. For his work was full of grit, often brilliant, never dull. Even Drexley, who hated him, admitted it. Emily ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... allegories. Many readers are able, no doubt, merely to disregard them, but there are others, like Lowell, to whom the moral, 'when they come suddenly upon it, gives a shock of unpleasant surprise, as when in eating strawberries one's teeth encounter grit.' ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... did see yet! And if I hain't found the eighth wonder of Monarchical Creation, in finding Yew and Yewer fixins, solid and liquid, in a country where the people air not absolute Loo-naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a nip and frizzle to the innermost grit! Wheerfore—Theer!—I la'af! I Dew, ma'arm. I la'af!" A calotype, or rather, literally, a speaking likeness, so true to the life as that, would be a trifle, we take it, beyond the mimetic powers and ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... materials, these are not dealt with in the London Building Act to the same extent as in the New York; for example, in the New York acts (parts 4 and 5)[2] it is prescribed that the bricks used shall be good, hard, well-burned bricks. The sand used for mortar shall be clean, sharp, grit sand, free from loam or dirt, and shall not be finer than the standard samples kept in the office of the department of buildings; also the quality of lime and mortar is fully described, and the strengths of steel and cast-iron, and tests of new materials. Also it is ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... out the sink and then scald it with boiling water. Now place a clean cloth over the drain and turn the spinach into the sink. Use plenty of lukewarm water to wash with. This is necessary to free these crinky little leaves from the sand and grit. Now rinse in plenty of cold water to crisp it. Shake the spinach dry and place in a deep saucepan and cover and then steam gently until tender. Do not add any water. In this manner the spinach is virtually cooked in its own juices. Now turn ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson
... 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 ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster
... credit that she would give up her own interests unselfishly and come here to devote her life to the care of a relative whom she had never seen before. I've an idea that the girl who would do that is the kind of a girl who's got grit enough ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... wind over the snow of the moor; and now the long wading of that icy water might have ended upon the shores of Acheron. However, he was just about to start upon that passage—for the spirit of his race was up—when a dull grating sound, as of footsteps crunching grit, came to his prettily ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... nearly sunset, blasting clear minor reefs and ledges until he attacked the mother rock under the lip of a clashing fall. The fee promised was by no means large, and, because current wages prohibited assistance, he did all the work himself. So he shoveled debris and drilled holes in the hard blue grit; and drilling, single-handed, is a difficult operation, damaging to the knuckles of the man attempting it. He waded waist-deep in water, learned to carry heavy burdens on his shoulder, and found his interest in the task growing upon him. He felt that much depended upon the ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... gazed wildly around. He was one color, from head to foot—and it was a decidedly local color. His jeans were torn and his cotton shirt was in rags, but his grit ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... than 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
... water on their west sides, but on the east, and more especially the south-east, they present steep cliffs; and the same conformation seemed to prevail in the other islands. The stone of the upper parts is grit or sandstone, of a close texture; but the lower part of the cliffs is argillaceous and stratified, splitting in layers of different thicknesses, from that of a shilling to two or three feet; and the strata dip to the westward, about 15 deg.. On breaking some pieces out of the cliffs, I found ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... on that dusty perch for the blacks and flies to settle on, instead of giving them a place at home. Of course I had no experience of a London summer day, and my spirits may have been oppressed by the hot exhausted air, and by the dust and grit that lay thick on everything. But I sat wondering and waiting in Mr. Jaggers's close room, until I really could not bear the two casts on the shelf above Mr. Jaggers's chair, and got up and ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... cultivated lively young native B.A.'s, both here and in my country, who are quite capable to appreciate really fine writing and sonoriferous periods if published in your paper, and which would infallibly result in a feather in your cap and bring increase of grit to the mill. ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... 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
... and opportunity! The land where everyone's rights are respected! The land where the son of a shiftless drunkard can grit his teeth and say, "I'm going to be rich and famous some day!" Here in America we pride ourselves on the fact that everyone has the right to live his own life as he pleases—provided, that is, that he does not infringe upon the rights of ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... discrepancy in the 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 ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... boys to understand the word Missions. Perhaps it is hopelessly confused with heathen—a poor, unfortunate, know-nothing, worth-little crowd of black or yellow people—who can never amount to anything, unless money be given to put grit enough into them to get them to try to live right—a pretty doubtful investment, after all. Yes, this is the logic of the average boy, due to the information of the non-christian's degradation, lack of ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... mane of his mount like a chased Indian on the plains. Once he looked back, seeing the patient little figure standing like a mile-stone at the roadside. On he sped, tasting the dust pounded into the air by Drake's horse, and feeling the grit between his teeth. No one was in sight. The lights of the farmhouses on the road moved backward like ships in a fog. Suddenly, some distance ahead, he saw a rider dismounting. It was Drake, who now stooped down to pick up something he had dropped. As he did so he saw the ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... Minute Structure of the Bone.*—Prepare a section of bone for microscopic study as follows: With a jeweler's saw cut as thin a slice as possible. Place this upon a good-sized whetstone, not having too much grit, and keeping it wet rub it under the finger, or a piece of leather, until it is thin enough to let the light shine through. The section may then be washed and examined with the microscope. If the specimen is to be preserved for future study, it may be mounted in the usual way, ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... said Curtis to me one day, "that that fellow Quite So is clear grit, and when we come to close quarters with our Palmetto brethren over yonder, he'll ...
— Quite So • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... strings to it, and it utters no empty phrases, but music with a sting in its tail. It acts differently upon different people: some find it rich in national sweetness; some of us are rather constrained to grit our teeth and howl in melancholy wise. Never was stinging music delivered ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... O'Groat's house, and we had seen Land's End many a time coming up Channel. We knew, too, that among scorching cyclists "Land's End to John O'Groat's" was a classic itinerary for those who would boast of their prowess and their grit. ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... several inches, making an almost 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 ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... 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 ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... 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 blue waters ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... step was to take my old girl into the secret, she being a Tongan, as I've already said, and as true as steel. She didn't say much, but I guess it would have done Old Dibs good to have seen her eyes flash, and the way her teeth grit, and how quick she was to understand her part—which was, to pack his clothes in camphor-wood chests under a top dressing of trade. Old Dibs made no bones about giving her the keys, while I took it on myself to tell Iosefo the enemy had arrived, ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... chip shot bump 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 ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... had unbounded admiration for their hearts; but she thought that Dick was a little too brusque, a little too clownish, to be quite a gentleman. And though Lily was perfectly ladylike, in Constance's opinion she lacked backbone, or grit, or independence of spirit. Further, Constance considered that the disparity of age between them was excessive. It is to be doubted whether, when all was said, Constance had such a very great deal to learn from the self-confident wisdom ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... "nimini-pimimi" mouths, too small by half To stretch themselves to a Homeric laugh, Mince, in a mirror, to the "Paphian Mimp!" MOMUS is dead, and e'en that tricksy imp Preposterous Puck hath too much native grit To take the taste of OSRICK turned a wit. Humour baccilophil, microbic merriment, Might suit him better. He will try the experiment. His mirth's a smirk and not a paroxysm; "Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... lonely spot. Rocks hemmed it in; big breakers walled it. The sou'-wester roared through the gap. I rode down among loose stones and water-worn channels in the solid grit very carefully. But the man in brown had torn over the wild path with reckless haste, zigzagging madly, and was now on the little three-cornered patch of beach, undressing himself with a sort of careless glee, and flinging his clothes down anyhow on the shingle ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... placed in the grammar school at Manchester, his guardians expecting that a three years' course in this school would bring him a scholarship at Oxford. However, the new environment proved wholly uncongenial, and the sensitive boy who, in spite of his shyness and his slender frame, possessed grit in abundance, and who was through life more or less a law to himself, made up his mind to run away. His flight was significant. Early on a July morning he slipped quietly off—in one pocket a copy of an English poet, a volume of Euripides in the other. His ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... with his young wife, who loved him; he went almost distracted when the baby, which was delicate, cried or gave trouble. He grumbled for hours to his mother. She only said: "Well, my lad, you did it yourself, now you must make the best of it." And then the grit came out in him. He buckled to work, undertook his responsibilities, acknowledged that he belonged to his wife and child, and did make a good best of it. He had never been very closely inbound into the family. Now he was ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... he had crawled in he had not noticed the springiness of the poles, but now his imagination tormented him with the sensation of sagging and swaying. When his feet pushed through the opening he had to grit his teeth to hold himself steady. It seemed as if someone were reaching up in the dark to catch him by the legs and pull him out. Nothing happened, however, and after a little he inched backward until he hung with ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... 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 ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... harm; he's only a young dog, anyhow. Ain't you a young dog, a regular puppy? But, Lettice, he's got the grit of General Jackson; he stood right up against the crowd at ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... law!" said the ruffian, now recovering himself. "That's a good one. Why, ever'thin' I've done for twenty years has been against the law. I cracked up the law for chicken-grit years ago." ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... us. Flat Crick don't pay no 'nsurance, you bet! Any other trustees? Wal, yes. But as I pay the most taxes, t'others jist let me run the thing. You can begin right off a Monday. They a'n't been no other applications. You see, it takes grit to apply for this school. The last master had a black eye for a month. But, as I wuz sayin', you can jist roll up and wade in. I 'low you've got spunk, maybe, and that goes for a heap sight more'n sinnoo with boys. Walk in, and stay over Sunday with me. You'll ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... What he is looking out for, I don't know, but it may be that they expect the cavalry even more than we do. They possibly have had signal fires from the reservation warning them that the cavalry have already left the Verde. I hope and pray they have. Now, keep up your grit, Jim; don't let anything phaze you. If you want help, or see anything, whistle, and I'll ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... man is the fight he makes, The grit that he daily shows: The way he stands on his feet and takes Fate's numerous bumps and blows, A coward can smile when there's naught to fear, When nothing his progress bars, But it takes a man to stand and cheer ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... another reckoning. These fellows were largely what their fathers had made them; they had birth, schooling, the influences of cultured homes. But out in the big world a man's own grit and will and ability to keep on working in the face of every difficulty counted in the long run. Anthony clenched his teeth, feeling his backbone actually stiffen with the strength of his resolution. Then he had the humor and ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... officer 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
... 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 wish ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... you! I admire your pluck!" said James, slapping Mark on the back. "You are true grit, you are! Just ...
— Making His Way - Frank Courtney's Struggle Upward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... 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 ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... to give up-like—you will make a final mess of your life; but if you fight your way up you'll be a good deal of a man. Seems to me if I was as young and strong as you be, I'd pitch in. I'd spite myself; I'd spite the devil; I'd beat the world; I'd just grit my teeth, and go fur myself and everything else that stood in my way, and I'd whip 'em all out, or I'd die a-fightin'. But I've got so old and rheumatic that all I can do is ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... his pluck, sagacity, and perseverance is the magnificent laboratory which has been built through his own efforts at Llewellyn Park. [One of his characteristic sayings may be quoted here: 'Genius is an exhaustless capacity for work in detail, which, combined with grit and gumption and love of right, ensures to every man success and happiness in this ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... upon the cluster of shacks. The wind that bore the rumble of the quarry upward was sharp and gusty and laden with stinging particles of grit. A group of Italian women, chattering and gesticulating in, apparently, unheeded unison, lingered near the shack where Brian lay, agonizingly conscious of nerve and body, irritably weary of the inevitable doctor at his bedside. ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... marshes, and has gently reproved my ignorance in having supposed them to be impregnated with salt. His manner of imparting information, is thoughtful, and appropriate to the scene. As he reclines beside me, he pitches into the river, a little stone or piece of grit, and then delivers himself oracularly, as though he spoke out of the centre of the spreading circle that it makes in the water. He never improves my mind without ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... nerve, Bruce, my boy, we'd have been minus film and motor truck. For pure grit, I think you scouts take the prize. I wish I could think of some way to repay you," cried Mr. Dickle, pumping Bruce around ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... nurse deals with those in whom the "urge" is weakened—the depressed and discouraged; with those whose spirits never flag in their steady shining—those brave souls we could almost worship; and those others who hold grimly on with quiet grit and courage, but with no cheer; and with the unstable ones of neuropathic or psychopathic tendency who become hysteric ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... corner, and the world became a waste of wind and spindrift driving inland. The noise of the gale made it impossible for anybody to talk, and Mark was left wondering whether the ship had actually struck or not. The wind drummed in his ears, the flying grit and gravel and spray stung his face; but he struggled on hoping that this midnight walk would not come to an abrupt end by his grandfather's declining to go any farther. Above the drumming of the wind the roar of the sea became more audible every moment; the ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... prancing back, and ran his head into the beggar's stomach, and that doubled him up, and so we all got away. But," concluded the speaker, turning towards his wounded comrade, "I never thought old Mug had so much grit in him before; he stuck to it ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... fellow-citizens, the word has been passed on to me from 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 ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... facts. The scientific approach to life is not enough. It does not cover all the ground. Men want to know what life spiritually means and they want to know that it "means intensely, and means good." Facts alone are like pieces of irritating grit that get into the oyster shell; the pearl of life is created by the ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... resorted to a sensible alternative—he read and re-read the old page. He tried to understand it line by line. He was humbled; filled with shame at his meaningless attitude of the past, and acknowledged that the grit in him, that he had hoped was sand, was, after all, the dirt that could easily defile. He must begin anew and rebuild. He must take nothing for granted in himself. Having arrived at ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... Chautauqua and other places where he is greatly in request for lectures. He has written a pamphlet giving a full history of his case. It can be obtained from Eaton & Mains, 150 Fifth Avenue, New York, for fifty cents, and should be read by all consumptives who have any "grit" in their composition. ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... young "palefaces," whom his master, the Ookemou, Mr Ross, had brought across the great sea. At first their active, demonstrative ways, so different from the quiet and taciturn manners of young Indians, tried him considerably. Yet he soon became accustomed to them. Then their grit and courage and perseverance under difficulties soon won his admiration. They had their mishaps, and, of course, in their endless sports and adventures they had to take their share of knocks, but under them all they were so good-natured ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... (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 incapable. The man of ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... words strong enough to condemn the campaign of robbery and murder conducted by the Black Prince against the peaceful inhabitants of Southern France in 1356, but it would be still more difficult to do justice to the magnificent pluck and grit which enabled 8,000 Englishmen at Poitiers to put to flight no less than 60,000 of the chosen chivalry of France. The wire-pullers of state-craft have often worked with ignoble aims, but those who suffer in the working out of political schemes often sanctify the service ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... in Los Angeles she had certainly looked forward with a particular pleasure to two or three weeks' delicious wallowing in flesh-pots for which she had not to pay. She was also, however, a lady of grit; and she possessed, as she said her friends often told her, a redoubtable psyche, a genuine American free and fearless psyche; so that when, talking ceaselessly, her thoughts eagerly jostling each other as they streamed through her brain to get first to the exit of her ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... Joe's brow darkens. "Hardin, I want you to hear me out; you can take it then, in any shape you want to. Fight or trade." Woods' old Missouri grit is aroused. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... wore a sack over his shoulders, and a black sou'wester hat with a hind-flap that fell low over his neck. But she liked the look in his eyes, though the rims of them were red and the brows caked with grit. She liked his voice, too. It ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... known all over the world for their stamina, for the grit and tenacity with which they can play a losing game; nay, it is even reported that they have frequently turned a losing game into a victory by this very capacity for stubborn ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... is followed by the overwhelming heat of summer. From the few observations I personally made, the interior of Spain forms a vast plain, elevated three hundred toises (five hundred and eighty-four metres) above the level of the ocean, is covered with secondary formations, grit-stone, gypsum, sal-gem, and the calcareous stone of Jura. The climate of the Castiles is much colder than that of Toulon and Genoa; its mean temperature scarcely rises to 15 degrees of the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... to any weakness, here," Fred whispered. "Remember that the eyes of a thousand people are upon us. Let them see that we possess the true Yankee grit." ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... But each was so sincerely anxious to present an unblemished soul to 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, and bearing that discovery ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... 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 ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... Country" in England through which one rushes on one's way to the north. Just here and there, sweetly almost as the pink blossoms of the wild oleander, which I have seen from Sicilian seas lifting their heads from the crevices of sea rocks, the amber and rosy sands of Nubia smiled down over grit, stone, and granite. ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... older than himself; and for Dick he had a genuine 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 him. Certainly he was ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... perpendicularly from the water. The face of "Sky Top" is heaped around with enormous boulders some thirty feet in diameter. In among them extend rocky labyrinths which can be explored with torches. On every hand are immense masses of Shawangunk grit hurled together over the cliff as if with the convulsions of an earthquake. Upon these acres of rock around the lake grow the most luxuriant lichens and the forests in June are efflorescent with laurels and azalias. The finest point of vantage is ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... with 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 could be made in a year. The many women, willingly risking their lives in these ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... same kind of grit in some hundreds of shellfish, and making the things work up a lot of ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... sleeping room, and laid him upon the bed there. He had been all grit, up till now; but he quit and let down and lay there with eyes ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... washed to remove all grit and sand. All greens must be washed through several waters to cleanse ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... being so much a Roman, he insists on moving ever onward with unwavering march, that Lucretius is often wearisome and rough. He is too disdainful to care to mould the whole stuff of his poem to one quality. He is too truth-loving to condescend to rhetoric. The scoriae, the grit, the dross, the quartz, the gold, the jewels of his thought are hurried onward in one mighty lava-flood, that has the force to bear them all with equal ease—not altogether unlike that hurling torrent ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... necessary to stimulate your nerve to come, and—speak to me? Charlie, Charlie," Kate went on more gently, her fine eyes softening, "when is this all to cease? Why must you drink? It seems so hopeless. Oh, man, where is your backbone, your grit. You tell me you long to be free of your curse, yet you plunge headlong the moment ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... 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 ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... two real powers? Yet, in triumphing with such ease, De Marsay was bound to grow weary of his triumphs; thus, for about two years he had grown very weary indeed. And diving deep into the sea of pleasures he brought back more grit than pearls. Thus had he come, like potentates, to implore of Chance some obstacle to surmount, some enterprise which should ask the employment of his dormant moral and physical strength. Although Paquita Valdes presented him with a marvelous concentration of perfections ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... my hat to you," said P. Sybarite in unfeigned admiration; "for pure grit, you're a ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... "leaked," begot another rush, and men by the hundreds swarmed again upon the hills, in all that neighborhood, panning the gravel for their lives. Wild-catting started with an impetus that shook the State itself. And Van could only grit his teeth and continue, ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... I call spunk, Elnora! Downright grit," said Wesley Sinton. "Don't you let them laugh you out. You've helped Margaret and me for years at harvest and busy times, what you've earned must amount to quite a sum. You can get yourself a good many ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... "I like his grit," said the General, emphatically, "These young bloods are the backbone of this rebellion, Brice. They were made for war. They never did anything except horse-racing and cock-fighting. They ride like the devil, fight like the devil, but don't care a picayune for anything. Walker ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... The Great Interrogation Which Make Men Remember Siwash The Man with the Gash Jan, the Unrepentant Grit of Women Where the Trail Forks A Daughter of the Aurora At the Rainbow's End The ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... and the Hassler boys always maintained that we could embark at Sandtown in flood-time, follow our noses, and eventually arrive at New Orleans. Now they took up their old argument. "If us boys had grit enough to try it, it wouldn't take no time to get to Kansas City and ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... dose o' rye. Say, that feller means marryin' that gal. I've heard tell he's got it all fixed with her. I've heard tell she's dead sweet on him. Wal, I ain't sure but wot it's natural. He's a good looker; so is she. An' he's a bright boy. Guess he's got the grit to look after a gal good. He's a pretty ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... grit. It was the unyielding Southern spirit—the spirit that led the soldiers of the South to make one of the ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... it. But ev'ry man makes mistakes. I made mine then. It would be God-awful to have it come down on me when I couldn't prove nothin' except that I give him the best funeral I could. There ain't much of anything except grit in the gizzard of a United States court. They seem to think the Govumment wants every one hung. I remember ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... coming man of New Lindsey," he said. "He thinks the world will get better sooner than it will, you may say. Well, perhaps I share that illusion. Anyhow he has enthusiasm and grit, and I love ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... "That's not bad, Stoliker; and I really believe there's some grit in you, if you are a man-catcher. Still, you were not in very much danger, as perhaps you knew. Now, if you should want this pistol again, just watch where it alights." And Yates, taking the weapon by the muzzle, tossed it as far as he ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... nothing when you get used to it," I said, "providing one ever really gets used to a hard grind. But there are people to whom strong physical effort is a punishment while others simply accept it, grit their teeth, and carry the ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick |
