"Gumption" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... where we had room for all the gifts that came to us, for Clara's part of the house was well filled, and Aunt Hildy's belongings took nearly all the upstairs room we could spare; but by moving and shifting, and using a little gumption, as Aunt Hildy expressed it, they were all ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... Hillocks, "Andra has mair gumption than ye wud think, and yon advocat didna mak muckle o' him. Na, na, Andra wesna brocht up in the Glen for naethin'. Maister MacOmish may hae taen his gless atween the Hebrew and the Greek, and it's no verra suitable ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... 'em while you 'ad the chance?" demanded Bainton testily; "It's too late now to bother your mind with what ye might ha' done if ye'd had a bit of gumption. And it's too late for me to be goin' and speakin' to Passon Walden. There's nothin' to be done now ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... "This satrap of the Duke Is sore in need of gumption; With my good bow I will rebuke Such arrow-gant presumption." "Stand back!" the soldier says, says he; "This roughness is unseemly!" The people cried, "We will be FREE!" And ...
— William Tell Told Again • P. G. Wodehouse
... gumption," he went on, undismayed. "And from what I can gather of her looks I calculate you favour her—she was dark and not so very tall—not so tall as you, I guess. So you're goin'" (he pronounced it very slowly) "you're goin' to be ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... came in smart and handsome, I'll aver, Yet, with all his brains and beauty, he's not good enough for her: Now, though I'm somewhat homely and in gumption quite a dolt, The quality of goodness is my best and strongest holt, And as goodness is the only human thing that doesn't wane, I wonder she preferred to wed with ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... Doctor, Great bill And pill Concoctor, Most worthy follower in the steps Of Dr. Epps, And eke that cannie man Old Dr. Hanneman— Two individuals of consummate gumption, Who declare, That whensoe'er The patient's labouring under a consumption, To save him from a trip across the Styx, To ancient Nick's In Charon's shallop, If the consumption be upon the canter, It should be put upon the gallop Instanter; For, "similia ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... told him you and Alice were just set on his coming—wouldn't take no for an answer. Of course he couldn't come—I knew well enough he had promised old Pierce—but we got in our invitation anyway, and it won't do you any harm. Now, that's what I call having some gumption—wisdom of the serpent, ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... come to pass, before many years are over, as are little dreamt of now, and all through your wanting to swallow that dose of cyanide at No. 36 Rue des Ursulines Blanches, and my having the gumption ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... are two of the expressive words of which Sir Ian Hamilton made use of in his Suvla Bay report. It was the Royal Artillery that did 'thundering good shooting.' 'Nous,' meaning gumption, is a word ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... step up-stairs with this gentleman and come to some composition on the matter. Mr. Montagu saved my life last night, but I give you the word of Donald Roy Macdonald that if I am not satisfied in the end I will plant six inches of steel in his wame for him to digest, and there's gumption for you at ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... week, Mr. Punch, you impress With your cool-headed wit and ability, So I wonder you've not had the gumption to guess There's method in our imbecility; Read on, and your premature chiding deplore, For our merciful mission, in brief, Is to brighten the tragical drama of war By providing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various
... a day off six months ago an' ain't showed up yet," retorted Jimmie, "I guess I'd ought to had sense to leave inves'ments like the bank alone. Only I ain't got the gumption. An' I'm always figgerin' it's about time for my luck to git over her vacation an' come back to work. How much ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... warn't satisfied wid rentin', so I buyed a piece ob lan', an' I'se glad now I'se got it. Lindy's got a lot ob gumption; knows most as much as a man. She ain't got dat long head fer nuffin. She's got lots ob sense, but I don't like to tell ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... had gumption to speak as you did, Polly, if it hadn't been for my training you. This is what I have done to you—you are growing to be more independent ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... aboard, by the way she was worked. I seed her miss stays twice myself: so when Jonathan turns up wi' this tale, I says to myself, 'tis the very same. Though 'tis terrible queer he never heard nowt; but he ain't got a ha'porth o' gumption, let alone that by time he's been cloppin' round his seven mile o' beat half a dozen ships might ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... dipping to its final fall were Mary V, Tomaso, and Tomaso's brother. Mary V had gone off to ride the country which Tex had said was too difficult for her—"and it was not too difficult for a person who had any brains or any gumption and who did not lose all the sense a person had," etc. She had gone some distance toward the southeast boundary, and Jake was behaving like a perfect dear. She had seen a few horses, and they had all run every ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... was talking to Falk low-like and didn't know I was anywhere about—and Falk says, 'No, that's too much.' Then he says, wild-like, 'Shoot—go on and shoot.' Then Kipping laughs and says, 'So you've got a little gumption, have you?' and he shot Captain Whidden and killed him. Don't point that pistol at me, sir! I didn't ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... work—never. The noose tightened well out on the tongue, an' when the strain came the wagon turned in toward the sidewalk, runnin' in a big circle on the outside wheels. The jerk had lifted ol' Uncle Brewer, who didn't have gumption enough to squat, plumb out in the middle o' the street, an' just as the wagon climbed the curb an' dove into the basement office of a Jew doctor the rope tightened up with me an' the brewer square behind. It didn't last long; the' ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... a number of errands to look after for the boys on the ranch and ourselves, and, like countrymen, reached the depot fully an hour before the train was due. Not possessed of enough gumption to inquire if the westbound was on time, we loitered around until some other passengers informed us that it was late. Just as we were on the point of starting back to town, Lovell drove up in a hack, and the three of us paced the platform ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... get our gumption together and inoculate a plan for defeating the enemy. Suppose while I'm exchanging airy bandage with the gray capper you gents come along, by accident, you know, and holler: "Hello, Murk!" and shake hands with symptoms of surprise and familiarity. Then ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... sometimes was inclined to hang his hat on the floor and talk back. He was rather untidy in his dress. But certain compensating qualities of the highest value were appearing in Tim. He had gathered to himself a plentiful supply of gumption—genius is all right, but if it comes to a slow-down gumption is better. His hatred of "swank" reached the point of unreasoning prejudice. He made many mistakes; but depend upon this: the man who has never made a mistake has never ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... it's we who ought to be ashamed of ourselves for not having had the gumption to enlighten you. How on earth were you to know without asking? Now, look here, I must run. I expect you'll be wanting to get home, or I'd suggest your staying until I get back, but I must lie low after tea and think out my sermon. Look here, come over ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... Meg," cried the old knight; "I didna think ye had as muckle spirit and gumption in ye as to say what ye hae said. But your request is useless; for he has already, point blank, refused to hae ye; an' there is naething left for him, but, before sunset, to strike his heels against the bark o' the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... past redemption, Gane in a gallopin' consumption: Not a' her quacks, wi' a' their gumption, Can ever mend her; Her feeble pulse gies strong ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... I'd a right good, hard-headed Yorkshireman to talk to!" he said. "A chap with some gumption about him! These Cockneys and Americans are all very well ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... doing things. If all those who plough in State and Church had known how to hold the handles, and turn a straight furrow, and stop the team at the end of the tiled, the world would long ago have been ploughed into an Eden. What many people want is gumption—a word as yet undefined; but if you do not know what it means, it is very certain you do not possess the quality it describes. We all need to study Christian tact. The boys in the Baskinridge school-house laughed at William L. Dayton's impediment of speech, but that did not hinder him from ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... you fall down on the job. I give you plain instructions what to do at Kamatlah and you let Elliot make a monkey of you. You see him on the boat with a woman coming to make trouble for me, and the best you can do is to help her on the way. Man, man, use your gumption." ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... parts of the city. In the centre of this square stands the grand monument to Victory, it is high and lofty as a monument to Victory ort to be, solid and massive at the base (for in order to be successful you have got to have a good underpinnin' of principle and gumption) and crowned with a noble-lookin' figger, standin' amidst a flock ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... might pit me For height Against Kean; But in a grand tragic scene I'm nothing:— It would create a kind of loathing To see me act Hamlet; There'd be many a damn let Fly At my presumption If I should try, Being a fellow of no gumption. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... Morgan could have had the gumption to marry in his own country; but he must go running after a Scotchwoman! A Yankee would have brought up his child to be worth something. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... in the dead letter office. Be the better of a shave. Grey sprouting beard. That's the first sign when the hairs come out grey. And temper getting cross. Silver threads among the grey. Fancy being his wife. Wonder he had the gumption to propose to any girl. Come out and live in the graveyard. Dangle that before her. It might thrill her first. Courting death... Shades of night hovering here with all the dead stretched about. The shadows of the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... fossil remain, or relapsing into primitive barbarism, or degenerating into a dormouse, I rouse my energies and determine to put my own shoulder to the wheel and see if something cannot be accomplished. I rise early in the morning and walk to Dan, to hire a painter who is possessed of "gumption," "faculty." Arrived in Dan, I am told that he is in Beersheba. Nothing daunted, I take a short cut across the fields to Beersheba, bearding manifold dangers from rickety stone-walls, strong enough to keep women in, but not strong enough to keep bears, bulls, and other wild beasts ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in your district Whose sheer cussedness is such He has neither pride nor manners— No, nor gumption, overmuch. 'Twould be great to up and tell him Where to go. But be resolved— He's no foeman to be fought with, Just a problem ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... he'll ask you some day, and if he takes to you and likes you, he gives you all sorts of things, for he's tremendously rich, and always getting more. He wants to find gold and emeralds and rubies if he can, to make him richer, but none of his people have the gumption to ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... shall our portals be cloged, And thy lips thou shalt place to the bottle On our chimley, when so thou'rt dispoged; We have pickled 'intensely' our salmon; To thy moods are great cowcumbers dressed, O Daughter of Gumption and ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... they could not move, nature would make bony matter ooze from the broken ends and gradually harden, forming a knob, perhaps, at the joining, but making the place grow up stronger than ever; and it took no great amount of gumption to grasp the fact that what was good for a cut finger was equally good for arm, head, leg, or thigh; that is to say, to wash the bleeding wound clean, lay the cut edges together, and sew and bandage them so that they kept in place. With a healthy person, nature did all the rest, and ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... Legumptionorum Doctor, one learned in laws, gifted with legal gumption. Some suspicion is cast upon this derivation by the fact that the title was formerly LL.d., and conferred only upon gentlemen distinguished for their wealth. At the date of this writing Columbia University is considering the expediency of making another ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... the man, I sort o' wished she wouldn't. I seen right off that Henry wouldn't do. It takes a man with a lot of gumption to keep a woman feeling good and not sorry fur doing it when he's married to her. But it takes a man with twicet as much to make her feel right when they ain't married. This feller wears one of them little, brown, pointed beards ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... escaped. That letter was from a queer kind of sour, unsuccessful woman called Iona Allen, who boarded once at the same house with me on Springfield Street,—the languishing kind of critter that I never could stand, who hadn't the gumption of a half-drowned chicken, who'd never stuck to anything or put any elbow-grease into the work on hand, and whined all the time, and was looking out for some one to support her. I guessed she'd heard of my money and was writing me a sweet letter of congratulations, along with a hard-luck ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... a-going to try till to-morrow mornin' if I don't do it afore. Now then, all on yer, I'm going to begin shoving off her bows again, and this time don't wait, my lads, for any orders from me. Use your own gumption, and all on it at once. It'll take all my wind to keep me going. You, Mr Murray, you get hold of the water first charnsh and pull, and you t'others back-water; on'y just remember this: a broken oar means done ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... you. There isn't any use in staying. We'll get the Air Scout fixed up and travel back home. But this was something queer," mused Tom. "I hope it doesn't turn out later that a crime has been committed, and we didn't show enough gumption ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... Lowrie, a brother of Sandy's, came out to go to the diggings, and maybe with an eye to make up to myself; but the news he brought me made me change all my plans and return to Scotland. He told me that the grandmother was dead, and that the old man, who never had half the gumption of his wife, was not able to control the five youngsters; so that they were getting out their heads at no allowance. Tam, in particular, he said, was a most camsteery callant; but the old man, he said, was fairly off all ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... that'll help, an—My suz! if that boy ain't half 'crost the pastur' an' me not done talkin' to him. The sassy thing! If I'd had my way makin' this world there wouldn't have been nobody in it 'cept girls, an' them grown up and come to their gumption. But that hen—I'll try catch her or she'll never ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... to hoe groun' dat ain' got no richness," she was saying, shaking her huge head until the dipper hanging on the lintel of the door rattled, "en'tain' no use preachin' ter a nigger dat ain' got no gumption. Es de tree fall, so hit' gwine ter lay, en es a fool's done been born, so he gwine ter die. 'Tain' no use a-tryin' fer to do over a job dat de Lawd done slighted. You may ding about hit en you may dung about hit, but ef'n ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... the eddication's stayed by me. I ruther guess 'twas the gumption that got knocked ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... and that man say they're pretty, when a blind cat could see that they are ugly, and the men must be just stringing them to try and take them down. So when they say it to me I always make up my mind I'd have more gumption than to take notice, for I can't see any beauty in myself. I'm too fat and strong-looking; all the beauties are thin and delicate-looking in the face—not a bit like me. I know I'm not cross-eyed or got one ear off, ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... I couldn't go out of Bessie's family—of course it must be either Gertrude, or Linda, or Katie. Now Linda and Katie are very well, but they haven't half the gumption that Gertrude has.' ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... ye had had any gumption," Mr Snaggs was saying fearlessly to the parsons, "ye'd ha' gone straight to th' Chief Bailiff and ye'd ha'—Houch!" He made the peculiar exclamatory noise roughly indicated by the last word, and spat in disgust; ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... Old Dutcher, and you've earned enough in a very slow-going place to put you through your business-college term, so I am sure you are the man I'm looking for. I believe in helping those who have 'gumption' enough to help themselves, so we'll ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... already exchanged opinions on the subject. Simplicity must go, and the townsman meet his equal in the countryman. As for beauty, I would sacrifice that to circulate gumption. A bushelful of nonsense is talked pro and con: it always is at an innovation. What we are now doing, is to take a longer and a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... me. It's a plain question as to whether the church my ancestors built and worshipped in is to be sold. There's nothing so inevitable in that, let me tell you. Laws of nature—fiddlesticks! How about the law of gravity? Don't I break that every time I get up gumption enough to raise ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... gumption, I must allow," said Susan. "She is the kind of woman, Mrs. Dr. dear, who would put a hot-water bottle in your bed on a dog-night and then have her feelings hurt because you were not grateful. And her mother was a very poor housekeeper. Did you ever hear the story ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... me of having too much gumption. Somehow I don't think this is half so pleasant a party on the lake as you represented ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... you had gumption enough to appreciate being up where you could watch the mountains all the while, and see them by day and by night and get really acquainted with them, so that they would tell you things they remember about the world a thousand years ago. I wondered if you had it in you to appreciate them, ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... reaction—that the boy was accepting something? He was modestly benevolent, the boy—that was at least what he had been capable of the superiority of making out his chance to be; and one had one's self literally not had the gumption to get in ahead of him. If we should go into all that occupied our friend in the watches of the night we should have to mend our pen; but an instance or two may mark for us the vividness with which he could remember. He remembered the two absurdities that, if his presence ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... his men coming round from the Head. And that poor lippity-lop, Abram Sclanders' eldest.—Pity he wasn't put away quiet-like at birth!—Terrible drag he is on Abram and always will be. Anybody with an ounce of gumption might have seen he'd be a short-wit from the first.—I took him over; but that 'ud the opposite way about, as he wanted to go shrimping back of the Bar ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... a man's common sense means his good judgment, his freedom from excentricity, his GUMPTION, to use the vernacular word. In philosophy it means something entirely different, it means his use of certain intellectual forms or categories of thought. Were we lobsters, or bees, it might be that ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... might freely express my opinion of such pestiferous pole-cats. I dearly love the ladies, but they are awfully in the way when only full-grown adjectives will do a subject justice. If the Tee-Tee editor had half the gumption of a Kansas Gopher he would know that neither Mrs. Davis nor any other American woman made such "demand." Perhaps he did not know it,—if it be possible for the editor of such a quintessential extract of utter idiocy to know anything—but couldn't ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... into the top bunk! The seas filled him full and he had to climb for it. He's all awash and wet now, and you oughta seen me praying for more." He paused and sighed. "I'm getting old, I guess. I oughta wring his neck, but somehow I ain't got the gumption. Just the same, he'll be overside before ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... good, too, if he but knew. If he but looked behind him, he would have yielded a whit, this Khalid. The deep chasm between him and the Deputy, however, justifies the conduct of each on his side: the lack of gumption in the one and the lack of depth in the other render impossible any sort of understanding between them. While we recommend, therefore, the prudence of the oleaginous Ahmed, we can not with justice condemn the perversity of our ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... vulgar!" He had hold of the tail of something; he would pull hard, pull it right out. He pumped me dry on Vereker's strange confidence and, pronouncing me the luckiest of mortals, mentioned half a dozen questions he wished to goodness I had had the gumption to put. Yet on the other hand he didn't want to be told too much— it would spoil the fun of seeing what would come. The failure of MY fun was at the moment of our meeting not complete, but I saw it ahead, ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... valleys. Here, one feels the absence of any plain, well-travelled road, the dim and ill-defined trail being at times very difficult to distinguish from the branch trails leading to some isolated village. The few people one meets already betray a simplicity and a lack of "gumption" that distinguish them at once from the people frequenting ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... shirt bosom. The Missourian whom I had noticed at table said that this was done so that the wearer of the vest could reach his dirk handily. But Mobley was the last man I should have suspected of carrying a dirk, or if he did packing the gumption to use it. ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... he; "bad win to yees, don't you hear me wantin' to sing! Whist wid yees. Hem—och—'Eise up'—Why, thin, Phil Callaghan, you might thrate me wid more dacency, if you had gumption in you; I'm sure no one has a betther right to sing first in this company nor myself; an' what's more, I will sing first. ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... see! You never will learn any gumption! Why don't you look what you're about? Now, go around Christmas with your ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... glaring at Nixon) Shank Nixon, you take yo' lousy coat down off these sacred walls. Ain't you Methdis' niggers got no gumption in de house ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... that he could n't shift; an' at long an' at last we had to chop him out, like a bees' nest. Turned out after, that the little (stray) had foun' himself out of his latitude when night come on; an' he'd got gumption enough to set down where he was, an' wait for mornin'. He'd always bin told to do that, if he got lost. But by-'n'-by he heard 'Hen-ree! Hen-ree!' boomin' an' bellerin' back an' forrid across the bend in the dark; an' he thought the boody-man, an' the bunyip, an' the banshee, an' ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... he did oughter; but he ain't on gumption, Gray ain't; never had neither, as have known him man and boy these ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... I see," Webb's blue eyes flashed. "Thar may be something in that, but it does seem like a man would have more gumption 'an to worry hisse'f to death about something that won't be of use to 'im after he dies. That's ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... of gumption, too," observed the judge, and considered his housekeeper grimly. "When all's said," he added, "I micht have done waur—I micht have been marriet upon a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "I can feel de foot and de toes just as much as ebber, only de leg is a sort o' kind o' shorter. Now, Missa Gladding, you is a man ob gumption, can you ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... the outlaw with increased intensity. "Did you really have the gumption to suspect me just because I brought you up to this bare part of ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... "She's got considerable gumption," was the opinion Luther volunteered, of his own previous knowledge—for Mrs. Battis was an old schoolmate and neighbor—"but ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... without show." "Yankee never shows himself, he keeps in the thickest wood, fires and runs off."—"These five thousand in the open field might be attacked, but behind works it would be throwing away lives." He calls it "an inglorious warfare,"—says one of the leaders is "a little deficient in gumption,—but—still my opinion is, that if we tuck up our sleeves and lay our ears back we might thrash them; that is, if we caught them out of their trees, so as to slap at them with the bayonet."—Life, etc. vol. i. p. 218 ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... gumption, I was in the bed of clover and seventh heaven, and more so when, on inquiry from a bystander, I understood that the performance was taken from Mr TERRISS'S Adelphi Theatre, which I had heard was conspicuous for excellence ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... right enough. I don't object to their marrying, so long as it isn't one of my girls. I sent Isabel off on a visit to a school friend when young Bailey began to grow particular. A mother can manage these things, if she's any gumption, without letting the young people suspect that there is any interference. They like their own way, young people do, and Isabel is obstinate, like her father. Mr Macalister can be led, but he'll never be driven. Ye have to ca' canny to get the ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... sparkling eyes seemed to say: "Sylvia Pankhurst can be arrested if she likes, and so can Mrs. Despard and Annie Kenney and Jane Foley, or any of them. But the policeman that is clever enough to catch Miss Ingate of Moze does not exist. And the gumption of Miss Ingate of Moze surpasses the united gumption of all ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... something that nobody wants. So Jooly goes about the world lecturing on women's employment, and pointing out to the public and the administration many ways in which women may be profitably employed and paid. She leaves it to the gumption of the government to discover for themselves that there is many a nice berth for which Jooly P. Mangles is eminently suited, but governments ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... of the wagon. By the merest accident I hit a dog, who raised a cry, and the last I saw of him he was spinning like a top and howling like a wolf. I quieted the team as soon as possible, and as I looked back, there was a man and woman pursuing me, the latter in the lead. I had gumption enough to know that they were the owners of the dog, and whipped up the horses in the hope of getting away from them. But the grade and the load were against me, and the next thing I knew, a big, bony woman, with fire in her eye, was reaching for me. The wagon wheel ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... moments. 'There are some things I can tell you that may be useful to you. I know your record. You are a smart man, and I like dealing with smart men. I don't know if I have that detective sized up right, but he strikes me as a mutt. I would answer any questions he had the gumption to ask me—I have done so, in fact—but I don't feel encouraged to give him any notions of ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... might possibly find myself transformed into a human balloon and float away into space. But I don't eat apples that way—not now. Some who read these pages may think it very strange, yet it is quite true that there really are persons suffering with "nerves" who have not gumption enough to follow this simple rule of chewing all food to a cream. I despair of ever helping those people. They still continue to dispose of a big meal in fifteen minutes, and then insist they have chewed all their food carefully. I have had that thing happen right before my own eyes. Then think ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... for Harry to do, and as he showed zeal, alacrity, and intelligence, he soon became a favourite. "Send the young 'un" was often the decision come to when a matter requiring promptitude and gumption, and which the seniors could not well leave work in hand to attend to, had to be done. The great ambition of a subaltern in any capacity, civil or military, should be that his superior may learn to trust him; and ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... little tot," said Levine at last, "you were full of gumption and did your own thinking. And I've been glad to see you keep the habit. Always make your own decisions, dear. Don't let me or any one else decide matters of conscience for you. 'To thine own self be true and it must follow as the night the day, thou ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... it is, Jack," said the latter, impressively; "I don't pretend to have more gumption (qu. discernment?) than my messmates; but I can see through a millstone as clear as any man as ever heaved a lead in these here lakes; and may I never pipe boatswain's whistle again, if you 'ar'n't, some how or other, in the wrong box. That 'ere Ingian's one ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... the rurvy-scurvy, and the rumble-gumption of a man who has been seven years dead or more, and can make an old woman of sixty look like ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... knew her ground. "Happy! she's sure to be happy! Mr. Brandon will give her all her own way, and she does not want for sense.—That's a kind message to me; but she might have been married here if Mr. Brandon had had more gumption, and asked her before he went away.—And Mrs. Phillips is more reasonable. I'd like to see her show any airs to her now, when Mr. Brandon is by; he'll let her know her place.—And they like Australia—both of them. Who, in all the world, ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... second two hundred and fifty to renew his option on it. I've always felt that if Ida had kept after Hy Wolff he would have produced it. He had faith in it, but somehow just didn't seem to get to it. You see, Ida hasn't any gumption—not the kind of aggressiveness the game demands. That is why in fifteen years you scarcely know she is in your office. That is why I plunged in and tried to rewrite 'The Web' with her. It's a big story, sweated out of her own agony. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... I wasn't a government man, and I was only there because I had trained most of the teams. I'm willing enough to be the whole thing, but after all I've got some gumption, and I wasn't going to take hold of something that needed an experienced man's handling. There was one old operator there, on one of the judging committees. He'd been watching me closely. 'Mr. Barnett,' I said hurriedly, 'will you ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... you see clear enough, though Tom here has not got the gumption," the man of Grimsby answered, with a lofty smile. "Everybody knows pretty well what William Brown is. When there is anything that needs a bit of pluck, it is sure to be put upon old Bill Brown. And never you come across the man, Captain Lyth, as could say that Bill Brown was not ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... the stockholders did, by putting all your property in your wife's name. So, since you made one investment twenty-five years ago that has not seemed to depreciate in value very much,—an investment in a raw young boy who did not have enough gumption to fasten a barn door,—here is the interest on what the investment was worth to the boy, at least a little of it; for I can never begin to pay it all. Good-by, both of you, and may God bless you! ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... gingham gumption!" he thought. "But he's honest in his talk about being interested in crime. The man loves crime!—Good thing he's got plenty ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... to the citizen soldiers who campaigned with us under conditions that were, truth to say, usually better but sometimes much worse than the trench situation pictured by the cartoon below. With grit and gumption and good humor those citizen soldiers "endured hardness as ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... William, "you can find out all there is to find out at home, if you have enough gumption in you to find out anything at all. Have ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... that of the Times remains to be mentioned. Lord Balfour of Burleigh, a dour Scot with a lot of gumption in his head, was chairman of one on Imperial versus local taxation. My easy task was to show the excess of the latter in Kerry, which is the highest taxed county ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... by him, which Alexander Fraser, R.S.A., gave in The Portfolio. "His palette was a simple one; his colours were vermilion, raw sienna (but sometimes yellow ochre instead), Prussian blue, burnt sienna, ivory black, crimson lake, white, of course, and the medium he used was 'gumption,' a composition of sugar of lead, mastic varnish, and linseed oil. The colours were ground by a servant in his own house and put into small pots ready for use." When one adds that his studio had a very high ...
— Raeburn • James L. Caw
... said Josh; "and I'm biling young Will in the hot water o' adversitee along with the cutch o' worldly knowledge, and the gambier o' fisherman's gumption, till he be tanned of a good moral, manly, sensible brown. ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... I would clean house, I will clean house," she mused, "in spite of all the ingratitude and not listenin'. 'T won't take long, and it'll do my heart good to see the place clean again. Evelina's got no gumption about a house—never did have. I s'pose she thinks it's clean just because she's swept it and brushed down the cobwebs, but it needs more 'n a broom to take ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... billin' and cooin'—but the gal's rayther young, and may expect it—and I s'pose it's the way. But I'd sooner you'd step up to the Doctor, bein' as I can only take him when he comes here to me loaded and primed. He's mighty cute and sharp, but if you've got any gumption, we'll be even ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... "You're a deep 'un, Mr. Ryfe!" he answered. "I won't deceive you. I put this here in your way because there's two things as I must have to work the job as I ain't got. One's money, and t'other's gumption. I ain't rich enough, and I ain't hartful enough. I owe my lady a turn, too, never you mind what for, and strike me dead but I'll pay it up! I ain't a-going to say as I wouldn't ha' worked this here off, clear, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... the head into position; this will be easy enough should it be cut off from the body, otherwise the head must be propped up on the table, whilst the greater part of the body rests on boxes, or trestles, somewhat lower than the table. A very little "gumption" will enable the learner to cope with these small difficulties, always remembering, however, that both body and head must be immovably fixed during the ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... I swear you're the only woman here who's got two ounces of gumption. If they'd only listened to you five years ago, we might all have been ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... better late than forever, as the feller says. I just bet my cousin here that the first thing I tried my hand at in New York I'd make good. I'm goin' out to-morrow and show him how easy it is for a feller to get to the top in this here prize rube burg, provided he has now gumption and his methods is new. I'll see you to-morrow night and let you know how I made out; I know you won't have no peace till you hear about it!" He digs into his pockets feverishly and grabs out a handful of letters. "Here's ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... said, "a right-down sin, and a throwin' away of men's lives, ever to have put them under Bradock's command," whom he accused of having "no more military gumption than a goose."—"Why," he said, "two companies of British grenadiers would have eat every crapaud on the ground, if they'd bin let to go round and in at one end o' the ditch, instead of walking right straight up hill agin' the loaded muzzles of guns they couldn't ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... of geese. He was no nincompoop. On the contrary, he was one of those men who, bringing common-sense and presence of mind to every action of their lives, do nothing badly, and always escape the ridiculous. He marshalled his geese with notable gumption, adopted towards them exactly the correct stress of persuasion, and presently he smiled to see them preceding him in the direction of Hillport. He looked neither to right nor left, but simply at his geese, and thus the quidnuncs of the market-place and the ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... friends,' as you call them, keep themselves self-respecting girls without getting themselves talked about, and that's more than I can say of my sister. If ma had the right kind of gumption with you, she'd put a ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... way, yes. But really, I'm his apprentice, and I'm learning his trade. I study his methods, and I add some gumption of my own, and if I can help him, I'm glad and ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... him, and his disgust was amusing to see. "Going to Oxford may be all right for the classics," he growled, "but it's destructive to gumption." ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... long enough to sum you up as a sulky puppy," he said. "If you had any sort of gumption you would realize that you occupy a singularly precarious position. Were it not for the lucky accident that my colleague and I were on the spot this morning it is more than likely that the county police would have arrested you at sight. ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... Gaen in a gallopin' consumption, Not a' the quacks, wi' a' their gumption, Will ever mend her. Her feeble pulse gies strong presumption Death ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... you have thought it if you had the least gumption about people. However, I was wrong; and I'm glad of it. However, I was right about Marmaduke. I told you so, over and over and ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... been able to help yourselves for two million years," asked Crownwall, "how does the sight of me give you so much gumption ...
— Upstarts • L. J. Stecher
... have said, 'Don't slobber me; I won't have it; you and I are bad friends.' Oughtn't you to have said, 'Eve could never give herself the pain of crossing me' (no, there isn't a man in the world with gumption enough to say that—that is a woman's thought); but at least you might have said, 'She sees rocks ahead that I can't.' (Balaam couldn't see the drawn sword ahead, but there it was.) it was for you to say, 'My sister Eve would not change from gay to grave all at once, and from ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... for a fact; that's a nifty way you have of doin' your hair and you walk as if you had some gumption. ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... deal o' chaffin' among 'em, and some fightin', too, now and then; for I needn't tell you that a Rooshan and a Tartar are jist about as fond of each other as a Rooshan and a Turk. Now-a-days, the masters have had the gumption to change the hours of work, and keep 'em out of each other's way; but in my time there was a scrimmage nearly every week, though nothin' like ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... do; they are every one p'int-blank alike. They want what they can't get, and what other men have, a sight more than what is in easy reach. If you've got any gumption, you'll make him think you are having a mighty good time with Bascom Bates to-day. If Bascom keeps coming to see you it will make him think all the more of you, too. Bates belongs to mighty nigh as good stock as he does anyway, and folks say he ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... yes, dump it right into the barrel. Condemmit! Ain't you got no gumption?... So Sim Smith, he held the watch. Sim was a mighty good hand t' work with; he was about the only man I ever sawed with who didn't ride the saw. He could jerk a crosscut saw.... Now let him in again, now, he-ho, once again! Rool him over now; ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... chucked 'em aboard with another cuss. I hadn't no money to pay no salvage. All we wanted was them needles and a little elbow-grease and gumption. So we started in, and 'fore night, she still a-thrashin', I'd fixed up the sails, patched the eyelets with a pair o' boot-legs, ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and it has its meals at the table along with the family, eating off a china plate. I'd be afraid of a judgment if I was her. Thomas says Donnell himself is a sensible, hard-working man, but he hadn't much gumption when he picked out ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... plain, well-baked clay. Help those who are helpless and protect those who are weak as much as you please, but don't vex the strong and capable with idle interference. Leave the middle classes to supply their wants in their own way—they know them best, and have gumption enough—and stick we to the ancient custom of providing ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... table,—never troubled herself about the sides,—and gave it one whisk across the legs, and then she had done. I'd rather do my work myself, every bit of it, than have such a pack of idle folks about me—ay, ten times over, I would! They don't seem to have a bit of gumption. They say lawyers go to Heaven an inch every Good Friday; but if those lazy creatures get there or anywhere else in double the time, I wonder! And just look at the way they dress! A good linsey petticoat and a quilted linen bed-gown was good enough ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... whaever lies neist ye i' need o' yer help. Gien ye read the tale o' the guid Sameritan wi' ony sort o' gumption, that's what ye'll read intil 't and noucht else. The man or wuman ye can help, ye ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... The sound of horses' hoofs roused him; it was the rustic messenger returning. 'Where's the doctor?' demanded Samson. 'Gone to Heydon Hey. What am I to dew?' 'Follow him an' fetch him back. Hast not gumption enough to know that?' asked Samson wearily. The man started again, and Samson began once more his purposeless wanderings about the yard. He had no sense of time or place, only a leaden weight on heart and limb, which ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... thought nobody wa'n't quite good enough fer Billy P., an' all along kind o' reckoned that he'd marry some money an' git a new start. But when he got married—on the quiet, you know, cause he knowed the old man would kick—wa'al, that killed the trick, an' the old man into the bargain. It took the gumption all out of him, an' he didn't live a year. Wa'al, sir, it was curious, but, 's I was told, putty much the hull village sided with the old man. The Culloms was kind o' kings in them days, an' folks wa'n't ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... said Ned. "Now I wouldn't have thought that a dog would have so much gumption. But I don't ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... on't. I tell you, it is jest makin' a life out o' pieces that come to hand. Here's the girl, an' there's the woods an' rocks; there's all there was to do with, or likely to be; but she found the gumption an' the ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... thinking that other chap is the better fellow. At any rate he seems to have more gumption ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... game; but which I afterward discovered were only sober truths. When too far gone in the miseries of abject cold I remembered his former calling, and glancing sideways at his bronzed, soldierly face, wished I had gumption enough left to start him going on some of his Indian campaigns. It was too late; I had not the gumption; ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... that the more one sees, the more suspicious one grows. One does not have gumption till one has been properly cheated—one must be made a fool very often in order not to be fooled ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... Towns!... And here young Lawton has the impudence to begin to preach to me on Knype platform, and to tell me I'm wise in going! He's the President of the local Law Society, you know! No end of a President! And hasn't even got gumption enough to keep his father's practice together! Stupid ass! Well, I let him have it, and straight! He's no worse than the rest. They've got no brains in this district. And they're so narrow—narrow isn't the word! Thick-headed's ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... situation had altered. With the opening of the west, opportunities for women of gumption and spirit increased. The industrial depression of 1848-49 lowered wages, and little by little the former type of operative left the mill, her place being filled largely by ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... any more than you did. If you hadn't had the gumption to run and get your father, Gladys ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... branches. There was a muddy pool of water before the bars that Mr. Harry was letting down, and he got his feet wet in it. "Confound that Englishman," he said, backing out of the water, and wiping his boots on the grass. "He hasn't even gumption enough to throw down a load of stone there. Drive in, Laura, and I'll put up the bars." Fleetfoot took us through the opening, and then Mr. Harry jumped into the buggy and took up ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... time, and was getting on, as I thought, fairly well; but the old hands told me that I should never be any real good at it, and advised me to give it up. They said that I was an extremely neat thrower, and that I seemed to have plenty of gumption for the thing, and quite enough constitutional laziness. But they were sure I should never make anything of a fisherman. I had not ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... right, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "Go ahead and joke if you want to. Maybe I couldn't play the fiddle with my knees and maybe I don't know nothing about spieling pianners neither, y'understand; but I got a little gumption, too, Mawruss, and don't you ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... have been expected, the Grouch began to Roast him. He told him that he didn't have as much Business Gumption as a Belgian Hare and a Chump who would walk into Debt with his Eyes open deserved to get it right ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... convenient at the moment, but hardly so good for Jeremy's equilibrium. He is one of those handsome, perpetually youthful fellows, whose heads have been a wee mite turned by the sunshine of the world's warm smile. I don't mean by that that he isn't a tophole man, or a thorough-going friend with guts and gumption, who would chance his neck for anyone he likes without a second's hesitation, for he's every bit of that. He has horse sense, too, and isn't fooled by the sort of flattery that women lavish on men who have laughing eyes and ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... who controlled Mantles was one of the smartest men in any department, somewhat of a martinet, but inclined to be reasonable with those who had any "gumption." Miss Child had gumption, and though it was nearly time for the public to rush in (there was a bargain sale that day) he gave ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... when they sold their food-stuffs in competition with each other. But they very soon found that their sales fell off after they stopped advertising, and they kept on falling off until the advertising was resumed. This teaches us that the American people have not enough gumption to buy even the staple products they need except through the stimulus of hypnotic suggestion—which is nothing but another name for advertising. Even such a benevolent institution as a great life insurance company could not get much new business on its own merits. If all the ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... Chunk, "who'd tink dat ar gyurl got so much gumption! See yere, Miss Lou, dat de way ef you got de spunk ter do it. Ole Perkins tink you Mad Whately comin' ter play de debil trick en let you tek Marse Scoville way quietly, en de gyard won' 'fere ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... to have put the ship together, died. At last they reached Stanley Pool. Grenfell with eight negroes started to try to build the ship. It was a tremendous task. Grenfell said the Peace was "prayed together." It was prayer and hard work and gumption. At last the ship was launched, steam was up, the Peace began to move. "She lives, master, she lives!" ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... gumption, and tackled the job as you would any other rapids, depending on your quick eye, a firm wrist with the paddle, and general good sense, wasn't that it, Francois?" ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... that way, senora," said Sancho; "and if you think the letter doesn't run as it ought to do, it's only to tear it up and make another; and maybe it will be a worse one if it is left to my gumption." ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... is transcendently quarrelsome. It enjoys a personal altercation above all things. Perhaps the most redoubtable case of this kind we have ever had - though we have had so many that it is difficult to decide - was that on which the last extreme solemnities passed between Mr. Tiddypot (of Gumption House) and Captain Banger (of ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... Jim, because there's mighty few got his ability, but every young man can go in and do his share. This town is God's own country, and there's opportunity for anybody with a pound of energy and an ounce o' gumption. I tell you these young business men I watch just do my heart good! THEY don't set around on the back fence—no, sir! They take enough exercise to keep their health; and they go to a baseball game once or twice a week in summer, maybe, and they're raisin' nice families, with sons to take ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... considering that after she got back among the multitude it might be quite a while before the lamb would have another chance. He had better keep her till he had made sure that the lamb could not hold any more. The lamb grew visibly in gumption; and finally, after another swig at the bar of life, he was a made lamb. He actually started to walk. His steps, to be sure, were rather theoretical and absent-minded, and as he had not yet discovered just where earth ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart |
