"Dirt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... noise or circumstance; yet once I was thoroughly done up, as you would say. I was reciting, at a particular house, the "Remorse;" and was in the midst of Alhadra's description of the death of her husband, [1] when a scrubby boy, with a shining face set in dirt, burst open the door and cried out,—"Please, ma'am, master says, Will you ha'; or will ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... influence a man of such depth as Louis Napoleon, and to imagine that a Hughes will be able to do it! I am ashamed of Mr. Seward; he proves by this would-be-crotchety policy how little he knows of events and of men, and how he undervalues Louis Napoleon. Such humbug missions are good to throw dirt in the eyes of a Lincoln, a Chase, etc., but in Europe such things are sent to Coventry. And Hughes to ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... by this time. As he approached the auto, containing the three disconcerted cronies, something bounded out of Tom's pocket. It was the bottle of stove blacking he had purchased for Mrs. Baggert. The bottle fell in the soft dirt in front of his forward wheel, and a curious thing happened. Perhaps you have seen a bicycle or auto tire strike a stone at an angle, and throw it into the air with great force. That was what happened to the bottle. ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... paradise or baked in hell. You could offer them no earthly happiness of decency. Forsooth, beggars as well as kings were of divine right. But I shattered the royal prerogatives and overturned the thrones of the one and lifted the other somewhat out of the dirt. ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... was low; the tops of two tall, round tents across the way came between it and his eyes when he sat down. That was the luck of some people, thought he, to arrive too late. The pay-dirt was all worked out; the pasturage was cropped; the dry sage was ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... the draughts. Very slowly the snow in the cooker melted, we threw in a plentiful supply of pemmican, and the smell of it was better than anything on earth. In time we got both tea and pemmican, which was full of hairs from our bags, penguin feathers, dirt and debris, but delicious. The blubber left in the cooker got burnt and gave the tea a burnt taste. None of us ever forgot that meal: I enjoyed it as much as such a meal could be enjoyed, and that burnt taste will always bring ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... down the old road passes the pageant of the year, never two days the same, especially at this season. In the middle of the road is a dirt wagon-track, on either side of which is a broad belt of grass, flowers, shrubs and small trees till you come to the fence. Beyond one fence the thick woods has a heavy undergrowth; over the other is a well-wooded pasture. On the south side, ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... town by back streets and byways; each with his hat pulled down over his brows; each ten thousand times more humiliated, ten thousand times more debased in his cleanliness, in his good clothes, and with money in his pocket, than he had been in his dirt, his tatters, ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... gone, Its gracile frame was sorely hurt, Its silken pinions drooped forlorn, Disfigured by the dust and dirt; ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... first place, it is a "moral" view, and as morality is admittedly the truest and most real end of man, it would seem that a moral cure must be more radical and efficient than any merely industrial cure. Again, these "vices" of the poor, drink, dirt, gambling, prostitution, &c., are very definite and concrete maladies attaching to large numbers of individual cases, and visibly responsible for the misery and degradation of the vicious and their families. Last, not least, this aspect of poverty, by representing ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... how hard she had worked herself until the good God had seen fit to take her brother from his packing plant. "If you're the janitor's niece you can come in and clean up the mess the plumber made on my floor. It isn't the place of the girl I pay wages to, to clean up the dirt ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... start I seen he was in a ugly mood. YOU know how he gets, dearie! Chewing his upper lip and looking at you as if you were so much dirt beneath his feet! How was I to know he'd lost fifteen dollars fifty-five playing poker, and anyway, I don't see where he gets a licence to work off his grouches on me. And I told him so. I said to him, 'Gus,' I said, 'if you ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... terribly of having taken you up! I should certainly have done better to have left you to rot in your poverty and the dirt in which you were born. Oh, you'll never be fit for anything but to herd animals with horns! You have no aptitude for science! You hardly know how to stick on a label! And there you are, dwelling with me snug as a parson, living ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... upon the table, close to which was placed mamma Zamenoy's chair, was an article of papa Zamenoy's dress, on which mamma Zamenoy was about to employ her talents in the art of tailoring. All this, however, was nothing to Nina, nor was the dirt on the floor much to her, though she had often thought that if she were to go and live with aunt Sophie, she would contrive to make some improvement as to the cleanliness of ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... companies were formed immediately; more than one of them consisted of women belonging to the lowest class. It may be imagined what a band they formed when we consider the horrid race of women belonging to this class at Naples, in which corrupt blood struggles for preeminence with dirt ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... of scraping and grooming having removed the dust and dirt with which his shaggy coat was filled, he is clipped and his tail shortened. The transformation is almost startling. You now have quite a smart-looking mount as China ponies go, and while riding him daily ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... there's timber going to waste that you could get to the coast merely for the cost of drawing it—Caucasian walnut, too, to burn," the other continued, getting on to safer ground, "and labor's dirt cheap. There's every sort of mineral too God ever made. You could build light railways and run the show by electricity. And water-power for the asking. You'd have to get a Concession from Russia first though," he added, spitting down upon a huge floating log ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... minister comes to call I get him out for a game of ball, And you'd never know if you'd see him bat, Without any coat or vest or hat, That he is a minister, no, siree! He looks like a regular man to me. An' he knows just how to go down to the dirt For the grounders hot without gettin' hurt— An' when they call us, both him an' me Have to git washed up again ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... of affection as the spiritual mother of Totty, Eppie and of Lillo." Nor have the poets surpassed her in truthfulness to child-life and intuitive insight into child-nature. The child Maggie is unsurpassed, not as an ideal being, but as a living child that plays in the dirt, tears her frocks, and clips her hair in an hour ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... particularly in his 'Frederick the Great,' to the charge one usually associates with the great and terrible name of Dean Swift; but it is the Dean with a difference, and the difference is all in Carlyle's favour. The former deliberately pelts you with dirt, as did in old days gentlemen electors their parliamentary candidates; the latter only occasionally splashes you, as does a public vehicle pursuing on a wet ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... liked to scrape the top of the dirt off him. And he've got on the knickers with the patch ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... tightened over the revolver, but it was only Mr. Berry who entered. The little missionary, a shy, society-shunning man, noted for doing more harm than good among the natives by his zealous bigotry and ignorance of their prejudices, stood revealed in a new light. His face was grimed with dirt and powder, his clothes disordered, his weak eyes bright with ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... be more exact, at three in the afternoon, Madame von Rosen issued on the world. She swept downstairs and out across the garden, a black mantilla thrown over her head, and the long train of her black velvet dress ruthlessly sweeping in the dirt. ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dirt mean, but I'll tell you what I will do, I'll come back and play marbles with yer if the ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... open space surrounded by little buildings: a blacksmith's shop where the anvil was ringing, little bakeries, markets where vegetables and bologna were vended. Ragged Italian children, gay and soiled with healthy dirt, were playing in the dust, turning somersaults, chasing each other, laughing. Beyond us was the Campagna, the Alban hills. We climbed a rickety stairway to a platform or roof of stone. An eager and obliging waiter brought ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... interview took place had a sordid and miserable look. Rotten, and covered with a thick coat of dirt, the boards of the floor presented a very insecure footing; the bare walls were scored all over with grotesque designs, the chief of which represented the punishment of Nebuchadnezzar. The rest were hieroglyphic characters, executed in red chalk and ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... by him; but I have dragged one poor innocent woman's name through the dust and dirt of public discussion, and, before God, Mother, I would rather die than do the same wrong to another. You know the Admiral's temper; once roused to action, he would spare no one, not even his own daughter. It was then my duty to ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... the children covered with the red blotches of small-pox and the women gaunt with yellow fever. He should see hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of machinery standing idle, covered with rust and dirt, or lying twisted and broken under fallen walls. He will learn that while one hundred and fifty-six vessels came into the port of Matanzas in 1894, only eighty-eight came in 1895, and that but sixteen touched there in 1896, and that while ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... and but scans and spells, Each Word-catcher, that lives on syllables, Ev'n such small Critics some regard may claim, 165 Preserv'd in Milton's or in Shakespeare's name. Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... in most places was covered with bison-skins, so that in moderately cold weather they were comfortable and pleasant to sit and recline upon. The skins composing the sides of the wigwam were soiled with smoke, grease and dirt for alas! nearly all the romance and charm enveloping the American Indian is dissipated at first sight by his frightful lack ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... face in the mirror, it is then that he perceiveth the difference between himself and others. He that is really handsome never taunts anybody. And he that always talketh evil becometh a reviler. And as the swine always look for dirt and filth even when in the midst of a flower-garden, so the wicked always choose the evil out of both evil and good that others speak. Those, however, that are wise, on hearing the speeches of others that are intermixed with both good and evil, accept only what is good, like geese that always extract ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... fifties, was a place of birds and trees and flowers; of rude stone benches, sagging arbors smothered in vines, and cool dirt-paths bordered by sweet-smelling box. Giant magnolias filled the air with their fragrance, and climbing roses played hide and seek among the railings of the rotting fence. Along the shaded walks laughing boys and girls romped all day, with hoop and ball, attended by old black mammies ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... syrup; let them boil together, and, when a cap of scum rises to the top, take off the pot, and skim it perfectly clear. Then put it on again with some more of the beaten egg, and skim it again as before. Do the same with the remainder of the egg until it is quite free from dirt; let it stand to be cool. Strain it to the juice of the oranges and lemons; put it into a cask with the spirit; add a quart of new milk, made lukewarm; stir the whole well together, and bung up the cask. Let it stand till very fine, which will be in about a month ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... Richmond'll hev to go to a funeral, and it's spiled or lost, for he's no time to eat it; and I never cleaned up that hall and steps yet, but an army of boots and shoes came tramping over it out of the dirt; when if it wants cleaning, it'll get leave to be without a foot crossing it all the afternoon. And if it's bakin' day, I have visitors, and have to run between them and the oven, till I don't know which end is the parlour; and that's the way, Tilly; and I don't know no better way but to conclude ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... it," he said. "The shirt will do well enough, but there must be a patch or two of grease upon the jacket, and some smears of dirt, ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... around them, but they are of use only to distinguish light from darkness. Miner hasn't the least idea what any of you look like. You see, he spends his life under ground and of course has no use for eyes there. They would be a nuisance, for the dirt would be continually getting in them if they were any larger than they are or were not protected as they are. If you should feel of Miner's nose you would find it hard. That is because he uses it to bore with in the earth. Just notice those ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... britches of the same couler, all new to see to"; his stockings were very white, but whether linen or jersey, deponent knoweth not; his beard and head were white, and he had a white stick in his hand. The day was rainy from morning to night, "but he had not one spot of dirt upon his cloathes." ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... stones and her smells! Whiffs of Cologne—aromatic mementos; Visiting cards, so to speak, of hotels; Como's, Granada's, Zermatt's and Sorrento's Ah! how ye cling to my boxes and bags, Glued with a pigment that baffles removal; Dogged adherents in dirt and in rags; Labels, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... through with that. See here, Dan, I'm wantin' to stake a couple of claims, but every darn piece of dirt seems pegged out." ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... almost fifteen years old when my uncle presented me with a flint-lock gun. The possession of the "mysterious iron," and the explosive dirt, or "pulverized coal," as it is called, filled me with new thoughts. All the war-songs that I had ever heard from childhood came back to me with their heroes. It seemed as if I were an entirely new being—the boy ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... seen a number of men fallen in a heap over a dead horse. You would see some of the victors leaving the fight and issuing from the crowd, rubbing their eyes and cheeks with both hands to clean them of the dirt made by their watering eyes smarting from the dust and smoke. The reserves may be seen standing, hopeful but cautious; with watchful eyes, shading them with their hands and gazing through the dense and murky confusion, attentive to the commands ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... Jeanne drew back, as though exasperated and annoyed by such a display of bad breeding. He did not know how to play; he would certainly cover her with dirt. Her mouth curled, as though she were a duchess compromising herself by such companionship. Thereupon Madame Deberle, irritated by Lucien's continued wailing, requested her sister to pick him up and coax him into silence. Nothing loth, Pauline ran, cast herself ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... and which remains swelled to the size of two fingers), I reached the narrow vale, and the single house nestled in ash and sycamores. I entered to claim the universal hospitality of this country; but instead of the life and comfort usual in these lonely houses, I saw dirt, and every appearance of misery—a pale woman sitting by a peat fire. I asked her for bread and milk, and she sent a small child to fetch it, but did not rise herself. I ate very heartily of the black, sour bread, and drank a bowl of milk, and asked her to permit ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... that the bags were all rotten and notes; so that I could not tell what in the world to say to it, not knowing how to judge what was wanting, or what had been lost by Gibson in his journey down, which, all put together, did make me mad. And at last I was obliged to take up the pieces, dirt and all, by candle-light, and carry them into my brother's chamber, and there lock them up, whilst I eat a little supper; and then, all people going to bed, William Hewer and I did, all alone, with pails of water and besoms, wash the dirt off the ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... miss!" he said, touching his cap with the unashamed servility at which the American girl never ceased to wonder. "I'll look after her meself, and if the dirt is washed out of the sores at once, she'll come to no harm. Likely as not there'll be nothing for the vet to do by the time he arrives. At the worst it'll be only a few stitches. She'll soon get ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... was gone, Bertram found himself reduced to the alternative of pacing his little apartment for exercise, or gazing out upon the sea in such proportions as could be seen from the narrow panes of his window, obscured by dirt and by close iron-bars, or reading over the records of brutal wit and black-guardism which despair had scrawled upon the half-whitened walls. The sounds were as uncomfortable as the objects of sight; the sullen dash of the tide, which was now retreating, and the occasional ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... victim I am going to jump onto is your valet, Your Lordship, and I think I'm going to strike pay dirt this time," were his first words. "Where is ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... and the light on the table was just the right one for the place, a saucer of grease, with a rag in it lighted and burning at the edge of the saucer. It at least served to made the darkness apparent and to prevent the dirt being visible. We had potatoes, beans and tea, and probably dirt too, if we could have seen it. When the meal was nearly done Bridget brought in and deposited on each plate a good thick pancake ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... contributed his share to the multiplying mystery. He had a muddy complexion, hair the color of dirt, a long nose, a hatchet face, mean little eyes, and was evidently not a gentleman. He wore a brown velveteen shooting-coat, with a magenta tie that gave Zoe a pain in the eye. She had already felt sorry to see her Severne was acquainted with ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... though it was—while beyond lay the exquisite blue stretching to the horizon. Little recked the poor prisoners of the scene so fair; they only saw the remnant of the wreck below, the sea that parted them from hope, the savage rocks behind, the barbarous people around, the squalor and dirt of the adowara, as the ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... revers'd with the Mouth into a narrow shallow Cistern; but at the same time they should not want the conveniency of a Pan of Water, if there can be no better had, to wash themselves in, for they are of themselves a Bird subject to contract Dirt and Fleas. This is what I shall say of the breeding of tame Pigeons ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... watch them grow. What do they do when you touch them? What does the hard backed beetle do when it is touched? Collect some of the large grubs with tightly stuffed bodies and put them in a jar with dirt or sand and see where they go. After a week dig them out and ...
— An Elementary Study of Insects • Leonard Haseman
... any quantity of linen, no matter how dirty. Here they unharnessed the mules and turned them out to feed on the sweet juicy herbage that grew by the water side. They took the clothes out of the waggon, put them in the water, and vied with one another in treading them in the pits to get the dirt out. After they had washed them and got them quite clean, they laid them out by the sea side, where the waves had raised a high beach of shingle, and set about washing themselves and anointing themselves ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... when, within, if there were not enough hands for the work, then the work itself, like an unanswered letter, slipped into that dead place of unremembered things where nothing matters any more? Last week's cleaning left undone adds nothing appreciable to this week's dirt that next week's exertions may not remedy as easily together as singly—or so argued the slovenly housewife, while for the industrious no hands save their own could have scrubbed and polished to ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... sweat and dirt. I tear it away. Now, as the shells strike, clouds of dirt fly into my eyes. I close them. At my left, a ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... was very wise indeed. She knew that in dry weather, such as there was then, a ploughed field takes no scent at all. She knew that when Spot reached that loose dirt Spot could not smell her footsteps. And so she just sat there on her haunches, ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... was bound hand and foot to a pony's back; that the sun was hot, and the sands were hotter, and the glare on the waters blinding; that every splash of the pony's hoofs sent up glittering sparkles that stabbed my aching eyes like white-hot dagger-points; that the black and clotted dirt on the pony's shoulder was not mud, but blood; that before and behind were other splashing feet, all hiding the trail in the thin current of the wide old Arkansas; that the quick turns to follow the water and the need for speed gave no consideration to the helpless rider. The image ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... forthwith. There was verily a demand for such; . . . and in spite of the ten thousand ink-fountains which were daily pouring out similar Stygian liquors, the public thirst remained unslaked. 'Well,' thought Lancelot, 'the negro race is not the only one which is afflicted with manias for eating dirt. . . . By the bye, ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... saddle, besides other things—campstools, umbrellas, beer, etc., etc. This year I'll bolt the doors when I see a steamer coming. I hear the big people are so angry with the Indian saint because he treated them like dirt everywhere. One great man went with a Moudir to see him, and asked him to sell him a memlook (a young slave boy). The Indian, who had not spoken or saluted, burst forth, 'Be silent, thou wicked one! dost thou dare to ask me to sell thee a soul to take it with thee to ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... tied up at a dock, and into this they tumbled. The line was cut, and off they steamed, amid a perfect shower of stones, lumps of dirt, old bottles, and anything that came handy to the ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... light upon the invalid whose appetite I had the honour to represent. I thought bath-time would never come; I could not keep my eyes off the dial: where was the shadow now? could I go yet? At last it really was time: I scraped the dirt off, and made myself smart, turning my cloak inside out, so that the clean side might be uppermost. Among the numerous guests assembled at the door, whom should I see but the very man whose understudy I was to be, the invalid, in a litter! He was evidently ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... their very misery, that there is no peace to them. I want them to enter into my peace, and they will not. I am at peace with them, saith the Lord. I owe them no grudge, poor wretches. But they will not be at peace with themselves. They are like the troubled sea, which casts up mire and dirt, and fouls itself. I cast up no mire nor dirt. I foul nothing. I tempt no man. I, the good God, create no evil. If the troubled sea fouls itself, so do the wicked make themselves miserable, and punish themselves by their own lusts, ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... to death, with his discovery, but he didn't say a word to any one about it. Every day he rubbed pitch on his hands and then climbed about in the bushes and low trees, ridding them of bugs and worms. Of course, it wasn't very pleasant to have that pitch on his hands, because dirt and all sorts of things which he happened to touch stuck to them, but he made the best of a bad matter and washed them carefully when he was ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... make the strips for their chief products, baskets—cows, baggage and all the other accompaniments of a comparatively permanent camp. They go into the woods and make log huts for winter, but such miserable quarters as these prove to be on closer inspection, with stoves, dirt and chip floor, bedding and food in close proximity to the six or eight inhabitants of each hut, suffice them during warm weather. We found that they elect a chief, who holds the office for life. The present incumbent lives ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... wrong. Drawing a long pin out of his coat collar he felt along the cut, and then squeezed it hard. I see it now, he remarked, and fetching from his pouch a pair of pincers he pulled from the cut a sliver of glass. Wrapping the cloth round it he tied it with a bit of black tape, and told me if I kept dirt out it would heal in a day or two. Asking me where I was going, we had some talk. He told me the parish of Dundonald was a long way off and he did not know anybody in it by the name of Askew. I was on the right road and could find out when I got there. He lit his pipe and left me. ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... about four feet long, and weighing 100 or 200 pounds. A long solid rod, some thirty feet long, three inches in diameter, and called the "stem," is screwed on the drill. This stem weighs almost a ton, and its weight is the hammer relied on for driving the drill through dirt and rock. Next come the "jars," two long loose links of hardened iron playing along each other ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... many other improvements were projected and carried out by him, and I was very much worried. He made a flower-garden for Euphemia on the extreme forward-deck, and having borrowed a wheelbarrow, he wheeled dozens of loads of arable dirt up our gang-plank and dumped them out on the deck. When he had covered the garden with a suitable depth of earth, he smoothed it off and then planted flower-seeds. It was rather late in the season, but most of them came up. I was pleased with the garden, but ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... heart, that the office of a mother did not awaken the tenderness of a woman; nor were the feminine caresses which seem a part of the rearing of a child, ever bestowed on me. The chicken has a wing to shelter under; but I had no bosom to nestle in, no kindred warmth to foster me. Left in dirt, to cry with cold and hunger till I was weary, and sleep without ever being prepared by exercise, or lulled by kindness to rest; could I be expected to become any thing but a weak and rickety babe? Still, in spite ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... been a long stretch of dry weather, and we were cleaning out the waterhole. Dad was down the hole shovelling up the dirt; Joe squatted on the brink catching flies and letting them go again without their wings—a favourite amusement of his; while Dan and Dave cut a drain to turn the water that ran off the ridge into the hole—when it rained. ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... exclaims, with an air of mock compassion, Pobre padre! "Poor father!" The exercise being concluded, he takes a small feather, and cleans out therewith the throat of either chicken, which proves to be full of the sand of the arena, and which he calls porquera, "dirt." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... safe: in the most magnificent and luxuriously-decorated cafes they had perfect right of way, the contrast between the rich gilding, glass, fountains, etc., of the one, and the rags, dirt, and dramatically got-up horrors of the other being picturesque, but certainly not pleasant; and yet, as Jones remarked, they say this country ...
— The Foreign Tour of Messrs. Brown, Jones and Robinson • Richard Doyle
... was admirably managed, and was attended by a large number of patients, half of whom were women. The disease moat prevalent in Kabul was ophthalmia, caused by dust, dirt, and exposure, while cataract and other affections of the eye were very common. Dr. Owen, amongst his other many qualifications, excelled as an oculist, and his marvellous cures attracted sufferers from all ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... operation in your head. The whole thing is run by the Isthmian Canal Commission—six men, most of whom are at war with one another. There are really two railroad systems—the I. C. C., built to haul dirt and rock and to handle materials in and out of the workings, and the Panama Railroad, which was built years ago during the California gold rush and bought by our government at the time of that terrible revolution I told you about. The latter is a regular system, hauls passengers and freight, but ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... They are doing it in order to develop a quick supply of scion wood. But the procedure is bad. It is much better to graft close to the ground, and mound it up with dirt. The blight gets in below the graft if the graft is high on the trunk. They have had success grafting below the ground level and find they may get a shoot six feet high ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... planed and hammered, and got a large contract on a building estate near a great town, busy as busy, where it was necessary to have a tramway and a locomotive, or 'dirt-engine,' to drag the trucks with the earth from the excavations. This engine was a source of never-failing amusement to the steady, quiet farmers whose domains were being invaded; very observant people, but not pushing. One day a part of the engine was ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... much cursing, a great deal of bustle and confusion, as the men of the Surete closed the doors of the defunct demagogue's lodgings. Some two score men, a dozen or so women, were locked in, inside the few rooms which reeked of dirt and of disease. They jostled and pushed, screamed and protested. For two or three minutes the din was quite deafening. Simonne Evrard pushed her way up to ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... attempted to cross straight over from the mill of Clairvaux to the Hermitage: her carriage stuck in a quagmire in the bottom of the valley, and she got out and walked the rest of the road. Her delicate shoes were soon worn through; she sunk into the dirt, her servants had the greatest difficulty in extricating her, and she at length arrived at the Hermitage in boots, making the place resound with her laughter, in which I most heartily joined. She had to change everything. Theresa provided ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... "I find it necessary to negotiate quite contrariwise to what I had expected and what had been promised me; I have no liberty to speak to the king or my Lady Marguerite, only to the queen-mother, who treats me as if I were dirt. . . . Seeing, then, that no advance is made, and that the desire is to make me hurry matters, and not conduct them orderly, I have thrice spoken thereof to the queen, who does nothing but make a fool of me, and tell everybody the opposite of what ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... "Well, boys, I won't detain you if you are going out to exercise the dog on woodchucks or gophers. But let me tell you this," and he puffed quite a little while on the pipe, and seemed to be harking away back to the bark of the dog friend of his boyhood, and the boys could almost see the dirt flying out of an old-time woodchuck hole as the dog of Uncle Ike's memory was digging and biting at roots, and snarling at a woodchuck that was safe enough away down below the ground. "Let me tell you something. You want to play fair with the dog. A dog has got more sense than some men. He ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... the remains of deceased persons of high rank previously to their interment. The Protector, Oliver Cromwell, was laid in state here; and Ludlow states, that the folly and profusion of this display so provoked the people, that they "threw dirt, in the night, on his escutcheon, that was placed over the great gate of Somerset House." After the restoration of Charles II. Somerset House reverted to the queen dowager, who returned to England in 1660; went back to France, but returning in 1662, she took up her residence ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... how I got to know her. I s'pose she cottoned to me for takin' her part that-a-way. She didn't know the sort of place it was her brother had took her. Pore kid! She's had a hard time, an' every man she ever knew, but me, done her dirt. Even her husband." ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... shall! Don't keep a boy out of his share of free movement and free air, and don't keep a girl out. Poor little child! she will be dieted soon enough on "stewed prunes." Children need air and water,—milk and water won't do. They are longing for our common mother earth, in the dear, familiar form of dirt; and it is no matter how much dirt they get on them, if they only have water enough to wash it off. The more they are allowed to eat literal dirt now, the less metaphorical dirt will they eat a few ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... face and hands. To protect themselves from the biting cold they smear their faces with rancid butter, which, catching the smoke and dust, adds to the effectiveness as well as the strength of the odor. Their homes and places of worship reek with dirt and filth; small-pox, ailments of the eyes, and other contagious diseases are prevalent. Harelip, in a great measure due to lack of proper nutrition, is a ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... view of the best room in it. Photography gives you a fair idea of the broken flooring and patched windows, but you must imagine the dirt and the odor of the place. Some of the stains are weather stains, others came from smoke and filth. The landlord of the house holds it from a peer and lets it out in tenements. Three families occupied that room when I photographed ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... he had had an automobile at his disposal—a supposition for which there was no foundation—his alibi would still have been good, in view of the rain and the fact that one of the four miles in question was "dirt road." ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... decided that the city was in a state of insurrection, and called out the military. About three o'clock, the force marched up the street, and passed quietly through the crowd, which opened as they advanced. As they moved past, a shower of dirt and stones followed them, accompanied with taunts, and jeers, and mocking laughter. The whole military movement was evidently intended only for intimidation—to show the rioters what could be done if they resorted to violence; for the soldiers, instead of taking up their quarters, as they ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... permitted, without deigning once to look around him, or to ask his landlord a single question. At last the orders he expected with great impatience were brought him, in the beginning of the evening, by a servant, who, attending him as a guide, after having led him for about half an hour in the dirt, through a park of vast extent, brought him at last into a garden, into which a little door opened: he was posted exactly opposite to this door, by which, in a short time, he was to be introduced to a more agreeable situation; and here his conductor left him. The ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... scoundrel go upon his knees beside her, fairly groveling in the dirt, pleading with her. Only part of what he said came to me, for though he was evidently laboring under the stress of passion and excitement, it was equally apparent that he did not dare raise his voice for fear ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of occasionally discovering good pictures in the streets, an event that actually once occurred to the writer. Shortly after the revolution of 1830, in passing through the Carrousel, he bought a female portrait, that was covered with dirt, but not materially injured. Finding it beautifully painted, curiosity led him to question the man who had sold it. This person affirmed that it was a portrait of the wife of David Teniers painted by himself. He was not believed, of course, and the thing was forgotten, until two ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the festa was to take place. It was sleeping peacefully, brooded over by a delicious, sweet smell of dirt and stale incense. Not a soul was to be seen. But as the party marched indignantly up and down the aisles, another smell comes to join the incense—garlic. A merry, good-humoured little priest appears; it is the friend of the ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... coat had fallen off in the spring, and their new one had not as yet appeared. Sometimes an old bull would step forward, and gaze at me with a grim and stupid countenance; then he would turn and butt his next neighbor; then he would lie down and roll over in the dirt, kicking his hoofs in the air. When satisfied with this amusement he would jerk his head and shoulders upward, and resting on his forelegs stare at me in this position, half blinded by his mane, and his face covered with ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... had grown serious. "Thanks for your honesty. I guess I know the weaknesses you mean—the greatest of them is whiskey. I've had scores of brilliant men it has driven out from Europe to shovel dirt for me. It's not good news, Thurston. How long have you made ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... parlour, instead of cheering, made her still more melancholy, for sunshine appeared to her a totally different thing in a town and in the country. Here, its power was only a glare: a stifling, sickly glare, serving but to bring forward stains and dirt that might otherwise have slept. There was neither health nor gaiety in sunshine in a town. She sat in a blaze of oppressive heat, in a cloud of moving dust, and her eyes could only wander from the walls, marked by her father's head, to the table cut and notched by her brothers, where stood ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... diminutive race, the women, although very well formed, not being more than four feet high. Their countenances were pleasing, that is the young ones; and one or two of them would have been pretty, had they not been so disfigured with grease and dirt. Indeed the effluvia from them was so unpleasant, that our travellers were glad that they should keep at a distance; and Alexander said to Swinton, "Is it true that the lion and other animals prefer a black man to a white, as being of higher flavour, Swinton, ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... into the field of waving corn. The corn was sweet; and the dirt was loose—just the finest sort to root in that a body could possibly want. He had the place all to himself until at last a black gentleman came flying up in a great hurry and ordered him in a hoarse voice to "get out of the ...
— The Tale of Grunty Pig - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... absolutely ingrained with the accumulated dirt of ages; but he affirmed them to be clean. He was going to visit a lady that was nice about those things, and that's the reason he wore nankeen that day. And then he danced, and capered, and fidgeted, and pulled ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... point of land into an island. The bayou was grown up with timber, which the enemy had felled into the ditch. At this time there was a foot or two of water in it. The rebels had constructed a parapet along the inner bank of this bayou by using cotton bales from the plantation close by and throwing dirt over them. The whole was thoroughly commanded from the height west of the river. At the upper end of the bayou there was a strip of uncleared land which afforded a cover for a portion of our men. Carr's division was deployed on our ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Mud and dirt! Dirty faces, dirty hands, dirty clothes, dirty food, dirty beds; dirty interiors, from which there was never time to wash the mud; dirty linen hanging up to dry, beneath which dirty children played, while dirty women scolded. Filth and desolation all around. Shattered ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... her rose garden superintending the stable boy as he loosened the dirt around the roots of some of the bushes. She had returned to the Circle C for a day or two to give some directions in the absence of her father. Buck and the other riders came to her for orders and took them without contempt. She knew the ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... about; then, picking up a heavy clod of dirt from the ploughed edge of the garden, and crouching again at the brink of the bank, ready for instant flight, she threw the clod into the water near the boat. The still form in the boat made no movement following the splash. Selecting a smaller clod, the girl ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... face wore an expression of amused tolerance. "Tell me all about it," he said. "Crying can't do any good, and talking may. You hid in the closet to listen. It's not the first time. I found one of your combs, and saw where you'd brushed away the dirt so's not to spoil your dress. Now I'd like to know how much you know, and whom you've ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... his most innocent creations. Surely here was a confirmation of my theory, for who else had ever practically taught me the duty of the injured one toward his offender? I kissed Toddie and petted him, and at length succeeded in quieting him; his little face, in spite of much dirt and many tear-stains, was upturned with more of beauty in it than it ever held when its owner was full of joy; he looked earnestly, confidingly, into my eyes, and I congratulated myself upon the perfection of my forgiving spirit, when Toddie suddenly re-exhibited to me my old unregenerate ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... to shake the dirt off the roots," said John, "and be sure to put one plant in each place. Put them as far apart here as the length of this little stick, and when you put them in the ground press the ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope
... mathematics with me at that time, though not found in Euclid, that wherever I could enter my head, my whole body might follow. As a practical illustration of this proposition, I applied my head to the arched hole of the hen-house door, and by scraping away a little dirt, contrived to gain admittance, and very speedily transferred all the eggs to my own chest. When the new purveyor arrived, he found nothing but "a beggarly account of empty boxes;" and his perambulations in the ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... experienced in May by the troops of the English army, and the extravagance, dirt, and confusion of the transport service caused a heavier sick list than would ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... made a specialty of undertaking dirty jobs all through the countryside. Whenever there was a ditch or a cesspool to be cleaned out, a dunghill removed, a sewer cleansed, or any dirt hole whatever, he way always employed to ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... with that science. He had evidently read and studied deeply, but alone; his own intellect had never been brushed by the intellects and superior information of truly scientific men, and it appeared to me that a vast deal of dirt, real dirt, had accumulated in his mind. My visit disappointed and pained me, but he seemed gratified, and I therefore promised to call again, which I did, but he was not at home. I think this visit was soon after ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... attempt to make excuses. (Steps back, looks at Undine.) And just look at that pinafore, that was put on you clean this morning, and now it is all over dirt! You have ...
— The Black Cat - A Play in Three Acts • John Todhunter
... of the man. Much interested the other day. As I rode past a house, I saw where a Samoan had written a word on a board, and there was an A, perfectly formed, but upside down. You never saw such a thing in Europe; but it is as common as dirt in Polynesia. Men's names are tattooed on the forearm; it is common to find a subverted letter tattooed there. Here is a tempting ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... declared that it was just the place in which they would have expected a "bonanza." Then they all added that without water to wash the sand and gravel with, there would be little use in doing anything more than to hunt for "pockets." There might be "pay dirt" in all directions, but a man might scratch and sift until he starved and not get more than enough to buy him a new hat. They had been through all that sort of experience, and their heads were not to be turned by it. Still, it was decided ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... the poor fool suckers who don't know better than to get within his reach. Gee, it was tough! I'd a holt on him I wouldn't get in a thousand years, and I'd nearly got the life out of him. I'd stood for all his dirt weeks on end. He made his set at me because I'm green and college-bred. But he called me a 'son-of-a-bitch!' Think of it! Oh, I can't rest with that hitting my brain. It's no use. I'll have to break him. God, I'll break ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... aimin' to hit, nohow. Had the reins round my neck, not expectin' visitors, when them hornets come at me and the hoss without even ringin' the bell. That team drug me quite a spell afore I got loose. When I got enough dirt out of my mouth so as I could holler, I set to and said what ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... would take the place, modest as her aspirations were. She had been used to better than that. Her mere experience and the free out-of-door life of the country caused her nature to revolt at such confinement. Dirt had never been her share. Her sister's flat was clean. This place was grimy and low, the girls were careless and hardened. They must be bad-minded and hearted, she imagined. Still, a place had been offered her. Surely ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... quitting the vehicle, I stepped into running water up to my ankles. Before me was a long low cabin, with a row of four or five windows and no upper storey; a miserable hut of rubble and plaster, stained with ancient dirt and, at this moment, looking soaked with moisture. Above the doorway I read "Osteria Centrale"; on the bare end of the house was the prouder inscription, "Albergo Nazionale"—the National Hotel. I am sorry to say that at the time this touch ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... wearer sits down his bare knee is exposed. This is not as disagreeable to the wearer, even in that climate, as one would naturally suppose, but is really more unpleasant for the spectator, for he not only sees the bare knee but the film of dirt that incases it. The coats are very loose also, and expose the bare skin of the stomach when the wearer reaches his hands above ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... oil for the slab with a clean flannel cloth; keep the cloth in a saucer, if it lies about it falls on the floor and picks up dirt and carries it to the pouring plate. When it gets hard or gritty burn it at once and get a new one, or it may be used by mistake and make a mess. We have seen the beauty of a boil spoilt scores of times by ...
— The Candy Maker's Guide - A Collection of Choice Recipes for Sugar Boiling • Fletcher Manufacturing Company
... myself—of adventures. Nearness to death in the trenches is an every-second-day adventure enough—no one talks of it. Tom was ill-advised to report of me at home. I used to dream of the romance of war when I was a boy. There is very little romance in it, and much dirt, awful horrors of the dead and wounded, of battles lost or won, and waste beyond conception. After a big fight or wearying march one could collect material for a rummage-sale such as would rout Aunt Ann's ideal of an ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... Which one of you? Tell me, who spoke? Scabs! Vultures! Curs, away! Be off! If one Of you but speaks again I'll trample you Beneath my feet and grind you in the dirt. What wish ye here? Here's gold! ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... enough and antiquated enough to furnish materials for a hundred ghost stories.... It was in the yard of one of these inns—of no less celebrated a one than the White Hart—that a man was busily employed in brushing the dirt off a pair of boots, early on the morning succeeding the events narrated in the last chapter. He was habited in a coarse-striped waistcoat, with black calico sleeves, and blue glass buttons; drab breeches and leggings. A bright red ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... difference between fasting and starvation. Someone starving is usually eating, but eating poorly and inadequately, eating scraps of whatever is available such as sugar, white flour, rancid grease, shoe leather, or even dirt. Frequently a starving person is forced to exercise a great deal as they struggle to survive and additionally is highly apprehensive. Or someone starving to death is confined to a small space, may become severely dehydrated ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... agricultural labourer, who lives in poverty, and dirt, and misery—starving annually on a tenth portion of the wages that the skilled mechanic gets—he is no working-man; oh no! Nor the wretched London clerk; he, also, is no working-man; nor the Government hack; nor the striving, ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... your hands and eyes, but this your nee'le to keep? What devil had you else to do? ye keep, ich wot, no sheep. Cham[50] fain abroad to dig and delve, in water, mire and clay, Sossing and possing in the dirt still from day to day. A hundred things that be abroad cham set to see them well: And four of you sit idle at home and cannot keep ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... again, Fritz would throw a shell over at us, but it would do no more harm than fling up dirt over us and we were so used to this that we did ...
— Over the top with the 25th - Chronicle of events at Vimy Ridge and Courcellette • R. Lewis
... the long, straggling street, gay and bright on this sunny, windy April morning, full of all implements of dirt and mire, men, women, children, cows, horses, wagons, carts, pigs, dogs, geese, and chickens—busy, merry, stirring little world, farewell! Farewell to the winding, up-hill road, with its clouds of dust, as horsemen and carriages ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... that we might have been absolutely slaughtered by the leaden hail which was poured in upon us; and the only explanation of our marvellous immunity probably lies in the fact that the enemy were surprisingly bad shots. Bullets whistled by our heads, or kicked up the dirt at our feet; but, though the pop of rifles made up a continuous sound like the opening of a hundred thousand beer-bottles, not a vestige of smoke rose in the clear air, not a patch of hostile uniform was ...
— From Yauco to Las Marias • Karl Stephen Herrman
... art, he had turned out some fairly presentable work; and that nymph was as abominably conceived and as abominably executed as if it had been the work of a raw beginner. Then there was another suspicious circumstance. Modelling clay is not exactly as cheap as dirt, Mr. Narkom. Why, then, should this man, who was confessedly as poor as the proverbial church mouse, plunge into the wild extravagance of buying half a ton of it—and at such a time? Those are the things that brought the suspicion into my mind; the certainty, however, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the world, as he was of perceiving the kind of thing his mother cared about—and that not from moral lack alone, but from dullness and want of imagination as well. He was like the child so sure he can run alone that he snatches his hand from his mother's and sets off through dirt and puddles, so to act the part of the great personage he would ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... washed such clothes as we could do without long enough to dry, and washed our faces and hands over and over again to remove the dirt which had been burned and sweated in so completely as not to come off readily. We sat on the bank of the brook with our feet dangling in the water, a most refreshing bath, and they too began to look clean again. We ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... ribs at the outset as instructed; but you will now find them anything but fit to attach to the back; so trim and make them free from any blemish or stain of dirt, and then do your best to fit one side accurately, so that, when glued afterwards, there may be no ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... loss of wealth is loss of dirt, As sages in all times assert; The happy man's without a shirt. Be ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... was possessed by a much stubborner spirit than this interesting mischief-devil. Upon one point he was positively demented—the only four-footed maniac I ever knew. He had gone crazy on the subject of dirt, mad to wash things, especially ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... almost every embrasure empty except those towards the sea. Many years' collection of the dirt of the town thrown in such a situation as completely covered the approach to the gate from the only guns that could flank it and from the sea ... none of their batteries have casemates, traverses, or splinter-proofs: they have many ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... taking place over miles of intervening hill and dale. This time, I believe, I filled the part of the English ambassador. The outward appearance of our quarters, when we arrived, was not prepossessing; but the state of dirt of the best room could hardly have been anticipated. Its equal—I speak advisedly—could not be found out of the country we were in. The floors mouldy and rat-eaten—old shelves hanging about, containing every kind of rubbish—crusts of bread, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... of the former, and gleaming feebly from the gloomy goggles of the latter. Gleam on, poor ghosts! Goggle while you may, and gibber. PUNCHINELLO watches you with interest, (25 per cent.,) as you are weighed down to the very dirt of The Street by the night-fog of Despair, flapping your wings on a very small "margin," as if attempting vainly to "operate for a rise." Go down, poor ghosts; repair to your incandescent place below, for there is no hope for you. As we sit here upon our spire, we ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various
... and made a rush at him.[7] Cuchulain knocked all of Larine's weapons out of his hand as one might knock toys out of the hand of an infant. Cuchulain ground and bruised him between his arms, he lashed him and clasped him, he squeezed him and shook him, so that he spilled all the dirt out of him, [8]so that the ford was defiled with his dung[8] [9]and the air was fouled with his dust[9] and an [10]unclean, filthy[10] wrack of cloud arose in the four airts wherein he was. Then from the middle of the ford Cuchulain hurled Larine far from him across ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... served as a footman, as a forester, as a kennelman, as a sexton, had married a cook who was a widow and rather a loose character, and had so hopelessly sunk into a menial position, and had grown so used to filth and dirt, that he even spoke of his privileged origin with a certain scepticism, as of some myth. At the time I am describing, he was hanging about without a job, calling himself a carrier and a huntsman, and his wife had disappeared ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... angle at the farther end. Round this corner were three doors in a line, the first and third of which were open. They each led into an empty room, dusty and cheerless, with two windows in the one and one in the other, so thick with dirt that the evening light glimmered dimly through them. The centre door was closed, and across the outside of it had been fastened one of the broad bars of an iron bed, padlocked at one end to a ring in the ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... saint. She is one of the women born with THE LOOK in her eyes. I own I should not like to be in the place of any primeval poor brute who really went mad over her—and counted her millions as so much dirt." ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... one night by means of a ladder, and with a hammer and chisel, knocked off the heads and limbs of the figures. Next morning he made no scruple to publish the transaction, observing, with a great deal of exultation, to every person whom he met, that he had 'fairly stumpet thae vile paipist dirt nou!' The people sometimes catch up a remarkable word when uttered on a remarkable occasion by one of their number, and turn the utterer into ridicule, by attaching it to him as a nickname; and it is some consolation to think that this monster was therefore ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... of the White House proved that whatever may have been Mrs. Lincoln's other good qualities, she hadn't earned the compliment which the Yankee farmer paid to his wife when he said: "Ef my wife haint got an ear fer music, she's got an eye fer dirt." When we reached the room of the President's Private Secretary, my old friend, the Rev. Mr. Neill, of St. Paul's, told me that it was military court day, when the President had to decide upon cases of army discipline that ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... a true saying. Only a few days after that, I found one of their little wooden images, painted and feathered like a Delight-Maker, in my cave. It was an invitation. It smelled of Kokomo and I scratched dirt on it. Then came Tse-tse, and as he turned the little Koshare over in his hand, I saw that there were many things had come into his head which would never come into mine. Presently I heard him laugh as he did when he had hit upon ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... removed for the purpose, a number of bales and packets, whose contents could easily be guessed at. The earth from beneath the stones had been hollowed out so as to receive these packets in a number of deep cavities; and when the flags were carefully replaced, and a little dirt and dust carefully sifted over the floor, it would require a practised eye to discern the hiding place. And hitherto it had ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... evening. But Betsy, Mrs. Pybus's maid, shrank back with a Lor bless us, as Alcide ogled her over the laurel-bush; the Miss Bakers, and their mamma, stared with wonder; and presently a crowd began to follow the interesting foreigner, of ragged urchins and children, who left their dirt-pies in the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... plant the streets and turn them into boulevards for shade, than which nothing could be more foolish. It is the dryness of the place that gives it its character. After a storm, after heavy rain for days, in an hour the pavements are not only dry but clean; no dirt, sticky and greasy, remains. The only dirt in Brighton, for three-fourths of the year, is that made by the water-carts. Too much water is used, and a good clean road covered with mud an inch thick in August; but this is not the fault ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... inside, and on several occasions during the voyage his bowels needed attention. I, in my utter ignorance of dog-lore, begin to marvel that the animal holds together at all under the stress of these deficiencies. Perhaps the dirt which he collects by rolling about on deck affords a protective covering. Once a week, however, his lord and master divests him of even this shadowy defence, and he emerges from a bucket, clean, soapy, and coughing violently. In all probability he ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... very much—and then when Julie has a great success, when people begin to come to Bruton Street, for her sake as well as Lady Henry's, then Lady Henry turns against her, complains of her to everybody, talks about treachery and disloyalty and Heaven knows what, and begins to treat her like the dirt under her feet! How can Julie help being clever and agreeable—she is clever and agreeable! As Mr. Montresor said to me yesterday, 'As soon as that woman comes into a room, my spirits go up!' And why? Because she never thinks of herself, she always makes other people show ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... collided with the ground, and in another instant, I found quantities of dirt spilled down my back, and two or three people lying beneath me. The world slid away, and the clouds opened to receive me. Lowe was opening a bottle of Heidsick, and three or four gentlemen with heads sick were unclosing the petals of their lips to ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... autumn the tops were set on fire, and the lighter limbs usually burned out, leaving the great charred tree-trunks. Then came what was known as a piling-bee, a perfect riot of hard work, cinders, and dirt. Usually the half-burned tree-trunks were "niggered off" in Indian fashion, by burning across with a smaller stick of wood till the long log was in lengths which could be dragged by the farmers with ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... pitiful black face, the rags and the dirt, he could hardly recognize the little king. Madou, as he passed, said good morning in so mournful a tone that Jack's eyes filled with tears. The children saw nothing more of the black boy that day. Recitations went on in their usual routine, and ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... forgets, that instead of being the Host, he himself was the smiling and obsequious Guest of the man he pretends to have despised. With all this miserable forgetfulness of dignity and self-respect, he mounts the high horse, from which he instantly is tumbled into the dirt; and in his angry ravings collects together all the foul trash of literary gossip to fling at his adversary, but which is blown stifling back upon himself with odium and infamy. But let him call to mind his own conduct, and talk not of Mr. Jeffrey. Many witnesses are yet living of ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson |
