"Grit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man works for you," she explained, "he wants his money every Saturday night. He's earned it and he should have it. He may leave the minute it's in his fingers and hit the grit again. But he's worked a week at least and that's something. If he thinks you're holding out on him to get him to stick, he ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... unwavering march, that Lucretius is often wearisome and rough. He is too disdainful to care to mould the whole stuff of his poem to one quality. He is too truth-loving to condescend to rhetoric. The scoriae, the grit, the dross, the quartz, the gold, the jewels of his thought are hurried onward in one mighty lava-flood, that has the force to bear them all with equal ease—not altogether unlike that hurling torrent of the world painted by ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... place for you. It's nothin' but a measly little old cow-town gone to seed—and I'm gone to seed with it. I know it. But what is a feller to do? I'm stuck here, and I've got to make a living or quit. I can't quit. I ain't got the grit to eat a dose, ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... reached the trapper's cabin, and came under the cheerful influence of that crackling fire, even Toby's spirits rose again. He had by this time recovered some of his usual grit, and could afford to laugh with the rest at his ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... agin the grit church, marm —— But it's a long story. My poor good man had not a long been dead,—as good a man as hever lived, marm," and Becky dropped a courtesy; "he fell off a scaffold, and pitched right on his 'ead, or I should not have come on the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of both. The boy is in a bad hole, Tony. But he will keep out of the worst of the bog. He has grit and chivalry enough to pull through somehow. And maybe before many weeks the mystery will be cleared for better or worse. We can only hope for the best and hold on tight to Larry, and Ruth too, till they are out of ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... father retorted. "It was the thought of the boy's having gone to the bad that weighed me down until I had no strength or courage left in me. Now that I know he still lives and has turned out well, you'll see that Holger Nilsson has some grit left." ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... the other requisites for an ascent of the Mountain are a competent guide and grit. It offers few problems like those confronting the climber of the older and more crag-like Alps. There are no perpendicular cliffs to scale, no abysses to swing across on a rope. If you can stand the punishment of a long up-hill pull, over loose volcanic talus and the rough ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... petting him! I wouldn't sweeten my husband's sleep if he had behaved so scandalously to his wife and family; he could go to bed and get up again hungry, and dry too, for all I cared; then he'd learn manners at last. But there's no grit in you—that's the trouble; you put ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... that in this enterprise which may mark it out as "forlorn." For ages the race has broken one of nature's laws with blind persistency, and the result is a certain lack of moral fibre, grit, "tone." No separate individual is responsible for this, harsh judgments are entirely out of place; but the fact remains that it is so, and it must be taken into account in dealing with the Brahmans and several of the upper Castes of India. Side by side with this ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... you blamed coyote," said Blunt, "and be quick. You've got about as much grit as a chipmunk, and if you don't talk we'll show you a trick or two that will make you wish ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... as a staple recreation, as a daily practice, the mass of the people dislike and despise walking. Thoreau said he was a good horse, but a poor roadster. I chant the virtues of the roadster as well. I sing of the sweetness of gravel, good sharp quartz-grit. It is the proper condiment for the sterner seasons, and many a human gizzard would be cured of half its ills by a suitable daily allowance of it. I think Thoreau himself would have profited immensely by it. His diet was too exclusively vegetable. A man cannot ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... living, she did not care to undergo a second disciplining at the widow's hands. Nevertheless, she contrasted her situation with that of the widow with a new and singular satisfaction. It might have been Red Pete who had escaped. But he had not the grit of the nameless one. She had already settled ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... foundations of a true civilization in two wild and lonely, though beautiful, islands. This has been a work calling for solid rather than brilliant qualities—for a people morally and physically sound and wholesome, and gifted with "grit" and concentration. There is such a thing as collective ability. The men who will carve statues, paint pictures, and write books will come, no doubt, in good time. The business of the pioneer generations ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... let out a yell once in a while, and fire off our guns. I don't think there was one among the five that had the first grain of hope. Kenton was leading and I was at his heels; all I could see was his tall figure, covered from head to foot with snow, as he plodded along with the grit he always showed. ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... tell, Wilmshurst was not particularly keen on his brother's chum. Why, he could hardly explain. It might have had something to do with MacGregor's conduct when the lioness charged. But since then the Rhodesian had shown considerable pluck and grit, and his voluntary offer to plunge into the bush on a pitch dark night was a great factor in his ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... the only two real powers? Yet, in triumphing with such ease, De Marsay was bound to grow weary of his triumphs; thus, for about two years he had grown very weary indeed. And diving deep into the sea of pleasures he brought back more grit than pearls. Thus had he come, like potentates, to implore of Chance some obstacle to surmount, some enterprise which should ask the employment of his dormant moral and physical strength. Although Paquita Valdes presented him with a marvelous concentration of perfections which he had only yet ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... inconsiderable. But it is always the case that, when large profits are made by lawless, reckless people, these proceeds are as quickly dissipated in extravagance of living. It is sad to think that these seafaring men, who possessed so much grit and pluck, had such only been applied in a right direction, actually died paupers. As one reads through the pitiful petitions, written on odd scraps of paper in the most illiterate of hands begging for clemency on behalf of a convicted smuggler, one can see all too clearly that on ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... early morning sharpened the land about them. Boyd would have enjoyed this game of tweaking a wildcat's tail. Drew chewed his lower lip, tasting the salt of sweat, the grit of road dust. Just now was no time to think of Boyd; he must concentrate on ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... d—d careful how you say it," was the reply, with a sneer that would have stung an abject slave into a longing for revenge, and that grated on Mr. Billings's nerves in a way that made him clinch his fists and involuntarily grit his teeth. Could it be that O'Grady detected it? One quick, wistful, half-appealing glance flashed from the Irishman's eyes towards the subaltern, and then, with evident effort at composure, but with a voice that trembled ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... on, the nice young fellow with her swept forward with one stride to her three on the wide soles and low heels of nature-last boots, and kept himself from out-walking her by a devotion that made him grit his teeth. Probably she was wiser and better and brighter than he, but she didn't look it; and I, who voted to give her the vote the other day, had my misgivings. I think I shall satisfy myself for the next five years by catching cold in taking my hat off to her in ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... artist to open or close a bill? If ye're to open ye have to start before anyone's in the theatre; if ye close, ye sing to the backs of people crowdin' one another to get out. It's discouraging to have to do so, I'm tellin' ye, but it's what makes you grit your teeth, too, and determine to gon, if ye've any of ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... brought him hither to search him if he carries gold concealed. If not, and he proves to have spoken sooth, he may go his way or join with us, whichever likes him best. We could do with a few more bold lads, since death has been something busy of late; and he seems to have the grit in him one looks for in those who join with us. Moreover, he has the dark eyes, and would soon have the swarth skin, that ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... answer from the public which showed that the appeal for a union of all Canadians who were concerned with "getting on with the war" made a deep appeal to popular feeling. The most determined resistance came from the Conservatives. The ministerial press could see nothing in it but a Grit scheme to break up the Borden government, which they lauded as being in itself a "national government" of incomparable merit. But that movement was equally disconcerting to the Liberal strategists since it threatened to interfere with their plans for a battle, to end, ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... best horse in Baalbek; and to be able to ride to the camp of the Arabs and be mistaken for one of them, was his first great ambition. Which he realises sooner than he thought he would. For thrift, grit and perseverance, are a few of the rough grains in his character. But no sooner he is possessed of his ideal than he begins to loosen his hold upon it. He sold his mare to the tourist, and was glad he did not attain the same success in his first love. For he loved his mare, and he could ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... syrup and allowed to stand, it sometimes deposits a considerable amount of sand; indeed, this is probably always present in some degree, and justifies, perhaps, the occasional complaint of the grittiness of maple-sugar. But it is a native grit, and not chargeable upon the sugar-makers. It is nothing less than flint, which the roots of the maple absorbed, while it was dissolved in water in the soil. The sap, still holding the flint in solution, flows out, clear as water, when the tree is tapped; but when it is concentrated by boiling, the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... jumble. Nothing is more discouraging than to go out to what should be a tidy little spot to do a bit of mending or minor job of carpentry and find earth encrusted garden trowels, weeders, and such gear scattered all over the work bench. The grit so adhering is fatal to sharp-edged tools, while sprays, dusting powders, and fertilizers give off fumes ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... so great that he felt that he must leave at all hazards, forsaking wife and child, master and chains. He was a young man, of about twenty-five years of age, of a dark shade, ordinary build, and full of grit. His wife was named Amelia; whether she ever afterwards heard from her husband is ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... should find out! You don't suppose they could hold me for—anything, do you? I'd give a farm to know how much Mrs. Albright has heard, but I'm afraid to quiz her. She's the one that rooms across the hall and tried to get in when they were having the time—she's got more grit than the others. I don't think Miss Twining would dare tell, and I don't see how she could—she is locked in all the time, ostensibly to keep her from visitors! I thought if Mrs. Albright did find out she'd go right to the Board; but there hasn't been a word yet. That woman needs a doctor ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... that's why I want him to get it; he won't ask anything better. And he's got the weight and the speed. The fellow that undertakes it has got to be mighty quick, and he's got to have weight and plenty of grit. ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Wash half a peck of large mushrooms while quite fresh, and free them from grit and dirt with flannel. Scrape out the black part clean, and do not use any that are worm-eaten. Put them into a stewpan over the fire without any water, with two large onions, some cloves, a quarter of an ounce of mace, and two spoonfuls of white pepper, all in powder. Simmer ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... racking ordeal known to the civilian public as "nothing to report"—the type of warfare recognised by all who have any experience of modern active service life as calling for all that is highest in regimental efficiency and discipline, and individual initiative and grit. The weather, taking it all over, was wet and stormy, causing endless work in repairing the line and pumping the trenches clear of water. But the bright star in this bloody, muddy firmament was the commencement of leave, which opened about the 14th ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... a lot of self possession and grit for Zattiany (Corinne Griffith) and Clavering (Conway Tearle) to hide their feelings when she alighted to go to the ship which was to return her to Europe. (Screen version of "The ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... open," advised Patricia. "You've gone too far to take any chances; that is, any more than you have to take. She was going to run, then she held herself steady by sheer grit. I don't like her, I don't like any of them, but I know real courage when I see it and she showed ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... Gin I hae been to thee As closely twined wi' earliest thochts As ye hae been to me? O, tell me gin their music fills Thine ear as it does mine! O, say gin e'er your heart grows grit ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... child, has to bear it. She can, too. That's a remarkable thing about us New England people—our grit in the face of disgrace. I fancy there are many of our women who'd be as plucky as she—and I know one man. I don't ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... buck!" shouted the soldiers; I felt the fisherman step in, as a matter of fact he stepped in on to my toes; a dozen hands were on the gunwales: six soldier yells resounded, it seemed, in my very ears: there was the grit and rush of pebbles under the keel: a sudden lurch up of the bows, which brought the fairy lady's honey-scented lips to mine, and then the gentle lapping of deep blue waters ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... well have one of these apiece," he said. "You've proved you have the grit to use one; and maybe the dirty rats will think twice about rushing us if we each have a load ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... know the young inventor, but those who do not may be interested it hearing that he is a young American lad, full of grit and ginger, who lives with his aged father in the town of Shopton, in New York State. Our hero was first introduced to the public in the book, ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... was going down for the third time, when somebody grabbed me by the scruff o' my neck and under the arm—so!—and swam me to the bank! When I scrambled up I sez: 'I can't see your face,' sez I, 'I don't know who you are,' sez I, 'but I reckon you're a white man and clear grit,' sez I, 'and there's my hand on it!' And he grabs it and sez, 'We're quits,' and scooted out o' my sight. And," continued the old man staring at their faces and raising his voice almost to a scream, "who do you think it was? ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... clip cliff grit slip grin frog grip slat trot trill stiff slop spot blot prig sled still sniff drip slap slab scan scud twit step spin brag span crab stag glen drag slum stab crag trim skill skim slim glad crop drop snuff skin skip scab snob skull snip bled stun twin dress grab drill skiff from swell ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... unsuitable person to receive one. I beheld him not in his armor, but in his peacefulest robes. Nevertheless, drawing my conclusion merely from what I saw, it would have occurred to me that his main deficiency was a lack of grit. Though anything but a timid man, the combative and defensive elements were not prominently developed in his character, and could have been made available only when he put an unnatural force upon his instincts. It was on this account, and also because of the fineness of ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... adventures to their credit than fall to many a man in a whole lifetime. In that brave land adventures are to be found at every turn. They bob up unexpectedly, and the man or boy who meets them successfully must know the ways of the wilderness and must be self-reliant and resourceful, must have grit a-plenty ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... freedom, his moral judgments have been passed in some accordance with his nature. His sins were always sins in his own sight; he could then only sin when he did some act against his clear conviction; the light that he walked by was obscure, but it was single. Now, when two people of any grit and spirit put their fortunes into one, there succeeds to this comparative certainty a huge welter of competing jurisdictions. It no longer matters so much how life appears to one; one must consult another: one, who may be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... He had, by what grit he could summon, gone along for five months. But ahead were five years, ten years, thirty years, perhaps, and what of them? Each day was a struggle; the living of each day a triumph. Through thousands of days should ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... borne in upon him gradually that he was not a shouting success in business so far. The rosy dreams that had floated near all through his days of hard study had one by one left him, until his path was now leading through a murky gray way with little hope ahead. Nothing but sheer grit kept him at it, and he began to wonder how long he could stick it out ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... inexplicable chemistry of ungovernable passions and wild whims and you may go through hell first but when the final test comes—you'll ring true. Mark that, old man, you'll ring true. I tell you I know! There's sanity and will and grit ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... a—wonder. There's times I want to laff when I think of it. There's times I'm most ready to cry. You see, you don't know that great feller. I'm just beginning to guess I do. He's a heart as big as a house, and the manner to scare a 'hold-up.' He's the grit of a reg'ment of soldiers and the mutton softness of a kid girl. He's the brain of a Solomon, and the illiteracy of a one day school kid. He's all those things, and he's the biggest proposition in men I've ever heard tell about. ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... down into the hole, and began scraping away the sand with his hands as though he had gone crazy. At last, with some difficulty, they tugged and hauled the chest up out of the sand to the surface, where it lay covered all over with the grit that ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... good and fast," remarked the engineer officer. "We can't drive off out of that sand for the reason that the propellers are buried in the grit. They'll hardly turn at all, and, when they do, they only churn the ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... sending a new preacher here, I hope they will send a strong healthy consecrated white man. A sickly man has no business here. Common sense and grit are needed more than learning. It will be no easy task for a white preacher to manage these black Presbyterians. I suspect it will require more tact and will power to manage this set, than one of our ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... couple. Clayton borrowed a thousand dollars—a more convenient number to remember, he said, than three hundred dollars—and induced a prominent artist "who happens to know something," to take him into his crowded classes for a year. He began with true grit to learn again what he had forgotten and some things that he had never known. At the end of the year he felt that he could go alone, and the artist agreed, adding, nonchalantly: "You may get there; God knows; but ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... demand was renewed with rising anger and with menaces; yet never could those Puritans of the Bay be scared into making a solitary move of any kind toward compliance with it. David with his sling daring Goliath in armor is an insufficient figure of that nerve, that transcendent grit, that superb gallantry. Where will you look for its parallel? I certainly ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... 4. Lucy-le-Bois. Cussy-les-Forges. Rouvray. Maison-neuve. Vitieaux. La Chaleure. Pont de Panis. Dijon. The hills are higher, and more abrupt. The soil a good red loam and sand, mixed with more or less grit, small stone, and sometimes rock. All in corn. Some forest wood here and there, broom, whins, and holly, and a few enclosures of quick-hedge. Now and then a ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... William Ashmore, Senior. He began his missionary work in Bangkok, Siam, but was transferred by our Missionary Union to Swatow, with the view of opening China to our missionary efforts. He had Irish blood in his veins. He was witty and eloquent, fervid and passionate. But he was also a man of grit, and a hero of the faith. He wanted a quiet base of supplies from which he could send out expeditions into the heart of China. He had no means of any account. But he saw the possibilities in these steep and barren hillsides opposite Swatow, and for ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... mews strangely. Then comes that little hissing sound I begin to know. Hiss—hiss! Oh, what a horrid feeling! I guess that the window is opening wider. You heard, as I did, Fandor, the revolting scales grit on the boards. But you didn't know what it was, whereas I did know it was the snake! I swear to you it needed all my pluck not to flinch, for I wanted at any cost to see it through to the end, and know whether, behind this reptile, Fantomas was not going to show ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... reply. He was a little ashamed of his temper. But during the past two days he had chafed under the rasp of Duff's tongue and his overbearing manner. He resented too his total disregard of Barry's weariness, for in spite of his sheer grit, the pace was ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... so, girlie. I was kinda afraid maybe trouble had hit you hard. A sensitive, big-hearted little person like you. But if you've put it all outa your mind, why, that's where you're dead right. Personally, I was glad to see you saw where you'd made a mistake, and backed up. That takes grit and brains. Of course, we all make mistakes—you wasn't to blame—innocent little ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... midst of mouthfuls. "I had to. I missed the French Hill Benches, the Big Skookum, and Monte Cristo, and then it was Surprise Lake or bust. And here I am. My wife knew I'd strike it. I've got faith enough, but hers knocks mine galleywest. She's a corker, a crackerjack—dead game, grit to her finger-ends, never-say-die, a fighter from the drop of the hat, the one woman for me, true blue and all the rest. Take a look ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... regarded myself as rather underestimated. "They don't really understand me," I would think to myself. "They know that I possess brains and grit and all that sort of thing, but they are too commonplace to appreciate the subtlety of my thoughts ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... "There's grit in Dick," said the Nilghai, an hour later, when the room was emptied of all save ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... prisoners of state, and in 1864 advocated the election of Lincoln. There was no dough about Pierrepont. He had shown himself an embodied influence, speaking with force, and usually with success. He possessed the grit and the breadth of his ancestors, one of whom was a chief founder of Yale College, and his presence in the State convention, although he had not been at Philadelphia, encouraged the hope that it would concentrate the conservative sentiment and strength of New York, and restore Democracy to ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... years been an ardent advocate of business amongst our people and to this end I have written contributions to the Commonwealth of Baltimore a paper once edited by John E. Bruce (Bruce Grit) the Colored American of Washington, and to other papers ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... to any fool'—the buying of a site for a new town in Nevada, where he meant to build up a little city of beautiful houses, and finding a silver mine. Of course, it wasn't an 'accident.' It was the spirit of prophecy in him which has always carried him on to success—that, and his grit and daring and enterprise and general cleverness. Oh, Basil, if you could have heard him telling me these things that last night on the Olympic—leaning back in his deck-chair, smoking cigarette after cigarette (I was smoking too. I hate it; but I think he likes a woman to smoke and be a ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... books up too high. Be careful not to rub the dust into instead of off the edges. If mildew or damp is discovered, carefully wipe it away, and let the book stand open for some days in a very dry spot—but not in front of a fire. Be careful that no grit is on the duster, or it will surely mark your books. Do not wedge books in too tightly. Common-sense must dictate what is right, but every volume should fit ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... spread it upon a shingle or piece of board. Later place it in little troughs or shallow dishes. Let the chicks eat a reasonable amount, what they will take in twenty to thirty minutes, then remove it. Supply a bit of fine, bright grit ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... than a position captured by assault, for it is a position that does not require to be assaulted. It is often impossible to predict the value of resistance at a particular point, and the fate of a nation may depend upon a platoon commander's grit in holding on at all costs. In the campaign of 1814, Brigadier-General Moreau was sent to the Fortress of Soissons, with instructions to hold the town. His garrison consisted of about 1,200 all arms, with 20 guns. At 10.30 a.m. on March 2, the fortress ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... is," T'an Ch'un proceeded smilingly, "that two places so spacious as the Heng Wu garden and the I Hung court bring no grit to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Shocks never caught that crab, or some of the other fellows would have jumped on him? Didn't you all see how silly they looked when Buck was accusing Clem? They knew, as well as he did, that it wasn't so, but not a single fellow had the grit to declare ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... the first-mate, behind him, enjoying the joke amazingly; "guess ye had 'em thaar, cap. Them coons 'll catch a weasel asleep, I reckon, when they try working a traverse on a man of the grit of yourn!" ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... battle with herself than she ever had been called upon to fight before. She did not now believe that they would be rescued, but that did not prevent her keeping up the battle as long as a single vestige of strength remained. It was sheer grit that kept Harriet Burrell afloat during that long, heart-breaking swim among the Atlantic rollers ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... fight with!" she repeated, as she untwisted the handkerchief from the hilt end. "Why did you say he had true grit— 'after all'? What do you mean ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... your nerve, Bruce, my boy, we'd have been minus film and motor truck. For pure grit, I think you scouts take the prize. I wish I could think of some way to repay you," cried Mr. Dickle, pumping Bruce ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... His estancia lay on the river-bank, and was independent of the old heart-breaking system of railway service in Argentine for the conveyance of his alfalfa and wheat. He had been successful where other men had failed. There must be an immense amount of grit somewhere in that delicate frame! Perhaps his chronic bad health and pathetically white appearance and the perpetual tear in his pale eyes had a good deal to do with giving the impression that he must necessarily be inefficient. ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... her mother say, in many a sick-room gossip. "He's got to be flattered up, an' have some grit ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... of the lot to the total number of perhaps ten or twelve. We had listened to bad singing, looked on bad dancing, sipped gingerly at bad drinks, and nibbled daintily at bad food; and the taste of it all was as grit and ashes in our mouths. We had learned for ourselves that the much-vaunted gay life of Paris was just as sad and sordid and sloppy and unsavory as the so-called gay life of any other city with a lesser reputation for gay life and gay livers. A scrap of the gristle end of the New York Tenderloin; ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... telling me, 'pretty women, clever ones; I miss them—the sound of their voices and the look of their white hands and their making tea, and the light, gay talk we'd be having!' Then he sat, limp, with the grit gone out of him. 'Not one of them would come near me, now,' he said. 'Holding their skirts away from me, passing by on the other side.' And then—may the devil fly away with my tongue, Jane Vail—I heard myself saying, ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... extracts seems needlessly obscure. This is due in part to following too closely the original word-order (see lines 4 and 5 of the extract), and in part to the free use of archaic language. Mr. Brooke does not hesitate to employ such forms as, 'house-carles,' 'grit-wall,' 'ness-slopes,' 'host-shafts,' 'war-wood,' 'gold-flakd shields,' 'grinning-masked helms,' which it would seem must be quite unintelligible to the majority ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... some hot tea and gave him a mouthful at a time. Just before daylight he rose on one elbow and lay there following us with his eyes, for he was too weak to talk. It seemed as if he was clean beat out and that his nerve was gone. What grit he had he had used up keeping away from ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... pony at the head of the team felt the rope grow taut on the saddle-horn, it lay down to its work. The grit and muscle of a dozen horses seemed concentrated in the little cayuse. It pulled until every vein and cord in its body appeared to stand out beneath its skin. It lay down on the rope until its chest almost touched the ground. ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... some grit, and disliked very much the idea of showing the white feather. At any rate, he would keep away the full hour, and then try to locate the camp. Phil could not then have the laugh on him; for even the best of hunters have ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... aroused, watched her for a moment, forgetting for the time his own anxieties. He liked a skilled hand, and he liked push and grit. This woman seemed to possess all three. He was amazed at the way in which she handled her men. He wished somebody as clearheaded and as capable were unloading his boat. He began to wonder who she might be. There was no mistaking her nationality. Slight as was her accent, her ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... escape from death and Joel's heroic rescue were nine-day wonders in the little world of the academy and village. In every room that night the incident was discussed from A to Z: Clausen's foolhardiness, March's grit and courage, West's coolness, Cloud's cowardice. And next morning at chapel when Joel, fearing to be late, hurried in and down the side aisle to his seat, his appearance was the signal for such an enthusiastic outburst of cheers and acclamations that he stopped, looked about in bewilderment, and ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... boy; you will make a soldier in time. You have the right grit in you. Farewell! one day we ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... lives on the Hudson, a short distance above the city, who may help him. But let me advise you to send him at once. I saw your son yesterday at the club, and he exactly fits your measure, except in one respect. He's got more grit in him than you give him credit for. I looked him over pretty carefully, and if he gets in a tight place you needn't worry about him. He'll pull out, or my name isn't Cobb. And now one thing more—" and he rose stiffly from the sofa and buttoned up his coat— "don't give him any pocket-money. ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... With the first crunching grit of gravel under his feet, something transcendently naked and unashamed that was neither Brazen Sorrow nor Brazen Pain thrilled across his startled consciousness. Over the rolling, marshy meadow, beyond the succulent willow-hedge that hid the winding ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... that three lives—his own, Lathrop's and that of the long missing explorer depended alone now on their skill and grit. ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... about a month ago. Tom and another fellow had a fight and he shot Tom through the heart and Tom was dead when he hit the floor. Tom was sure a good old boy, and I sure hated to hear of him going, and he had plenty of grit too. No man ever called on him for a fight that he ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... "After all, I was only a little quicker than the rest and really ran no risk. I was behind him and he couldn't get hold of me. In fact, I don't know that I'd have had grit enough to stick to him ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... half-suppressed "Oh!" from her deliverer, and felt him sway forward a little. Then, seeming to summon every atom of grit and strength he possessed, he whirled his horse, scuttled away around the rear of the box-car, out of danger, and set Donna ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... your legs right, hold in on your arm. The cage is cold. I've seen many a good wing go to the bad there. But your chance looks good. College baseball is different from any other kind. You might say it's played with the heart. I've seen youngsters go in through grit and spirit, love of playin' for their college, and beat out fellows who were their superiors physically. Well, good-night.... Say, there's one more thing. I forgot it. Are ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... real—visions of the web of life, of the fountain of change within the organism, of the struggle for existence and its winnowing, and of the spreading genealogical tree. Because, in the second place, he put so much grit into the verification of his visions, putting them to the proof in an argument which is of its kind—direct demonstration being out of the question—quite unequalled. Because, in the third place, ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... deil tamn ye, tat are within the bounds. If any o' ye be foond fishing in ma Lort Preadalpine's gruns, he'll be first headit, and syne hangit, and syne droom't; an' if ta loon's bauld enough to come bock again, his horse and cart will be ta'en frae him; and if ta teils' sae grit wi' him tat he shows his ill faurd face ta three times, far waur things wull be dune till him. An noo tat ye a' ken ta wull o' ta lairt, I'll e'en gang hame ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various
... I would have married you, willing or unwilling, but I did n't love you so well then; and now that there's another man in the case, it's different, and I'm strong enough to do the right thing. Follow your heart and be happy; in a year or two I shall be glad I had the grit to tell ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... fan in her hand and a big nosegay in her bodice. Her wrinkled little hands was stretched down by her sides, and such long nails, all cut into points, I never sid in my days. Could it even a bin the fashion for grit fowk to wear their ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... funny. Post it to me to-morrow, at the latest. Dan is in London, editing a new weekly. I'll have it copied out and sent to him. I shan't say who it is from. I shall merely ask him to read it and reply, at once. If you've a grain of grit left in you, you'll write something that he will be glad to have and to pay for. Pawn that ring on your finger and get yourself a good breakfast"—it was my mother's wedding-ring, the only piece of dispensable property I had not parted with—"she won't mind ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... perceptions, rendering the bathe in two temperatures that of a lifetime and a means also whereby the clarified senses were first stimulated and then soothed. With an occasional lounge on the soft sand, when the body became clad in a costume of mica spangles and finely comminuted shell grit, the bathe continued for two hours, with an after effect ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... the fault must have lain with Jeffrey; the qualifications that Lord Cockburn admired so much were not likely to be to the taste of a man of Mr. Carlyle's grit. That did not prevent the most original of Mr. Napier's contributors from being one of ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... it is usually called GRIT. If the grains are rounded, and large enough to be called pebbles, it becomes a CONGLOMERATE or PUDDING-STONE, which may consist of pieces of one or of many different kinds of rock. A conglomerate, therefore, is simply ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... your own game." Joe's brow darkens. "Hardin, I want you to hear me out; you can take it then, in any shape you want to. Fight or trade." Woods' old Missouri grit ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... gud and grit richess, Quhat fruct hes man but merriness? Thocht he this warld had eist and west, All wer povertie but glaidness: For to be blyth ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... sergeant was all there with the grit. He fired straight back at the leader, the bullet striking the rock before ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... not. I trust not. I fancy some dirt or grit has got into it, and no wonder; still ... will there be time to see to it before dinner? It really shouldn't ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... a sprinter had knocked him down the day before, a fellow out of second of grammar. He had been thrown by the fellow's machine lightly on the cinder path and his spectacles had been broken in three pieces and some of the grit of the cinders had gone ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... a skilled surgeon. Well, it happens that the fishermen's cracked hands have gaps across the inside bends of the fingers which reach the bone. The man goes to sleep with hands clenched; as soon as he can open them the skin and flesh part, and then you see bone and tendon laid bare for salt, or grit, or any other irritant to act upon. I have seen good fellows drawing their breath with sharp, whistling sounds of pain, as they worked at the net with those gaping sores on their gnarled paws. One such crack would send me demented, I know; but our men bear it all with rude philosophy. ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... nurse deals with those in whom the "urge" is weakened—the depressed and discouraged; with those whose spirits never flag in their steady shining—those brave souls we could almost worship; and those others who hold grimly on with quiet grit and courage, but with no cheer; and with the unstable ones of neuropathic or psychopathic tendency who become ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... more about it, though he might have been three or four days looking for his fleet, and not spoken to a soul since he left land. I remember one skipper used to have the lead brought down below, and he could tell by the grit between his teeth after a couple of soundings which way to steer. It sounds strange even now, but it was so universal, being just second-nature to the men, who from boyhood had lived on the sea, that ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... stillness that followed the noise that Bert Dodge made in shifting his feet on the floor sounded loud, indeed. Anstey was a trifle paler than usual, but he was working under an intense conviction, and the grit and dash of his Revolutionary forbears was quite sufficient to carry him on unswervingly to his goal of duty to ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... some two or three feet high, of the very finest mud, which leaves no feeling of grit on the fingers or tongue, and dries, of course, rapidly in the sun. On the top, or near the top, of each is a round hole, a finger's breadth, polished to exceeding smoothness, and running down through the cone as far as we could dig. From each oozes perpetually, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... are moderately high, woody land; they slope down nearly to the water on their west sides, but on the east, and more especially the south-east, they present steep cliffs; and the same conformation seemed to prevail in the other islands. The stone of the upper parts is grit or sandstone, of a close texture; but the lower part of the cliffs is argillaceous and stratified, splitting in layers of different thicknesses, from that of a shilling to two or three feet; and the strata dip to the westward, about 15 deg.. On breaking some pieces out of the cliffs, I ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... still dazed, I think, for we wandered like two troubled children, our one idea at first to get as far away as we could from the horror behind us. We were both bareheaded, grimy, pallid through the grit. Now and then we met little groups of country folk hurrying to the track: they stared at us curiously, and some wished to question us. But we hurried past them; we had put the wreck behind us. That ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the explanation of the hatred, of the intense animosity, shown by these people? Was that then the reason why these two Berlin constables, for one of them at least knew Jules and Henri to be French—why they too should grit their teeth, should scowl and mutter at the name of Britain? Yes, indeed, that was the reason why all the subjects of the Kaiser, deliriously happy but a few hours ago, were now snarling with anger, less contented with what was occurring, furiously indignant ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... with flour, rub well until they are separated and the flour, grit, and fine stems have loosened. Throw them into a strainer and wash thoroughly in cold water; change the water often; shake well in the strainer; then drain between towels, pick over carefully, and dry them in a warm place, but ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... hours. One morning my valet, whose turn as night-nurse it was, awoke me at 4 a.m. with the news that "Mr. William has come to again, and is screaming for beef-tea." I went into the cabin, where I found the S.B. quite conscious, and insistently demanding beef-tea. By sheer grit and force of will the lad had pulled himself out of the very Valley of the Shadow. We got him the best substitute for beef-tea to be obtained on a liner at 4.30 a.m., and two hours later he was clamouring for more. His progress to recovery ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... got grit," said Bat, in a low tone of admiration. "She hangs to him. The girl up-stairs is her patient, and she'll not have her frightened. It's part of the training ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... some grit. I thought he did not allow any one to walk over him. I thought he stood by his guns when he knew he was in the right. I thought he was a manly man, ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... gums by the mastication of food in which sand has been mingled in immoderate proportion. All his life has been spent on the verge of the sea. He has never known smooth food. Before he left his mother's breast grit was on his lips, for in her sleep she snoodled naked in the sand. Hers was the age of bark rugs or none, and was ever lord of the beach who shared with his lady so rare ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... being timed accurately, but so as to make it appear as if he were longer upon the road than he was. As he spoke, the blood darkened in his cheek, and his eye looked ominous and angry, as if he were enraged with the person to whom he was speaking; yet he had not real grit, for he had never said a word of his grievances to those concerned. "I mean to tell them of it by and by. I won't bear it more than three or four times more," ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
