"Grit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... athletic events depends on will power and physical endurance. This is particularly apparent in football. Frequently it is not the team with the greater muscular development or speed of foot that wins the victory, but the one with the more grit and perseverance. At the conclusion of a game players are often unable to walk from the field and need to be carried. Occasionally the winning team has actually worked the harder and received the more serious ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... to me," said Ralph Stackpole, "them's got the grit that'll go down old Salt on horseback! But it's all for the good of anngelliferous madam: and so, if thar's any hard rubbing, or drowning, or anything-of that synommous natur', to happen, it ar'n't a thing to be holped no how. But hand in the guns and speechifiers, and make ready for a go; for, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... sings with crest erect, and attitudes of warning and defiance. The hooper is a great bully; so is the greenfinch. The wood-grouse—now extinct, I believe—has been known to attack people in the woods. And behold the grit and hardihood of that little emigrant or exile to our shores, the English sparrow! Our birds have their tilts and spats also; but the only really quarrelsome members in our family are confined to the flycatchers, as the kingbird and the great crested flycatcher. ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... much a Roman, he insists on moving ever onward with unwavering march, that Lucretius is often wearisome and rough. He is too disdainful to care to mould the whole stuff of his poem to one quality. He is too truth-loving to condescend to rhetoric. The scoriae, the grit, the dross, the quartz, the gold, the jewels of his thought are hurried onward in one mighty lava-flood, that has the force to bear them all with equal ease—not altogether unlike that hurling torrent of the world painted by Tintoretto in his picture of the Last Day, which ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... winnowing it by tossing it aloft with wooden, flat-pronged forks; the wind blows the lighter chaff aside, while the grain falls back into the heap. When the soil is sandy, the grain is washed in a neighboring stream to take out most of the grit, and then spread out on sheets, in the sun to dry before being finally stored away in the granaries. The threshing is done chiefly by the boys and women, who ride on the same kind of broad sleigh-runner-shaped boards described ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... new nationhood of Canada born of the war. You, or any other leader, even as Tory or as clear Grit, would not foist upon this free nation any issue which does not do justice to the sense of nationhood begotten by the ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... "That kind of grit will take you a long ways, Toby, believe me, "said Jack encouragingly. "All of us fall far short of perfection; but Joe is persistent and I've no doubt he already knows just who the members of the team will be, barring accidents, also the ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... should stay in the city when the country was so much better. It had one draw-back, the country-road was not as smooth as the pavement. There was a cut in my left foot from stepping on a bit of glass, and the dust and grit of the road got into it and gave me some pain. I must have walked for three hours when I came to a burn that crossed the road. I sat on a stone and bathed my foot, and with it dangling in the water I ate a speldrin and a scone. On starting to walk, I found my foot worse, and had to go slow and take ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... would take measures to prevent the entrance of any other person. There was no difficulty about that and when five minutes later he strolled down the road toward the inn it was with the comforting reflection that the keyhole of the padlock was entirely filled up with clay and grit in such a manner that no key could ever ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... Annersley smiled as he choked back a word of appreciation for Pete's stubborn loyalty and grit. When he spoke again Pete at once ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... meant. If a man is clean of character, and has grit and snap in him, I don't know that one could reasonably look for anything further. I can't see how the fact that his grandfather was this or that is going to affect him. The man we're talking of has grit. I offered him promotion, ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... fixedly. "Rennell, we may be fools," he said, "but we realize what we're up against. It's a big thing, and we're going to need all our fighting grit to overcome it. You're one of the four men we're depending on. We're counting on you because of your record, and because of your degree in science at Heidelberg. The President wishes you to take charge of the whole Eastern Intelligence ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... Flanders. Lo, I am become, as it were, an Englishman! The British now see the full peril and are taking almost any kind of men, and I'm going along. I suppose it is because I am so keyed up that I feel so well. I'm surprised at myself. I guess I must have, after all, a little good Anglo-Saxon grit ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... Grit, I presume, Miss Verne," said the host. "I see that your favorite journal advocates ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... knowledge, to raise us up a Bonnycastle." Some of his stories were a little romantic, and no less authentic. He had an anecdote of a Scotchman, who boasted of being descended from the Admirable Crichton; in proof of which, the Scotchman said he had "a grit quantity of table-leenen in his possassion, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... heared Tom say this I sot still an' began to consider. Bein' second mate, Tom was, by rights, in command of this craft. But it was easy enough to see that if he commanded there'd never be nothin' fur Andy an' me to do. All the grit he had in him he'd used up in holdin' on durin' that typhoon. What he wanted to do now was to make himself comfortable till the time come for him to go to Davy Jones's locker—an' thinkin', most likely, that Davy couldn't make it any hotter ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... had been found by the natives of a Pacific island, comes into the story, being the person who found one of the ship's company who had been lost overboard in heavy weather. The latter had made his way ashore by sheer grit and determination (being a Sandwich Islander). They realise Harry is originally an English boy, and take him on board, and away from his savage masters who had been using him as ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... distance out, but this time she had the presence of mind to turn over on her back and rest, and went on again when she had her breath back. Nyoda noted this manoeuver approvingly. It indicated good sense. Gladys covered the last twenty-five yards by sheer grit. Every breath was a gasp, the shore line wavered dizzily before her, and it seemed that she was pushing against an immovable wall. Nyoda watched her closely, and saw her rear up her head and set her teeth and battle on against wind and ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... Donne could have given credit to this absurd legend! It was, I am aware, not an age of critical 'acumen'; grit, bran, and flour, were swallowed in the unsifted mass of their erudition. Still that a man like Donne should have imposed on himself such a set of idle tales, as he has collected in the next paragraph for facts of history, is scarcely ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... good father to ye. It ain't every day that a gal kin afford to swap a father like that, as she DOES KNOW, fur the husband that she DON'T! He's a proud old fool, miss; but to ye, to ye, he's clar grit ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... and sank into the east, they raced across the wide levels. The red dawns burned behind them, the sunsets flamed ahead, and still there was only dust and grass, chequered here and there with bands of stubble, while driving grit and ugliness were the salient features of the little stations ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... it," continued Jenkins, in his loud voice. "Without grit there's nothing done. That's what ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... primarily to shoot," he says. "The best gun is the simplest gun. When you begin loading a gun up with a lot of fancy contraptions and 'safety devices,' you are only inviting trouble. You complicate the mechanism and make that many more places for dirt and grit ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... that the Yankee suddenly loosed his wrist and gripped him tight about the body in an underhold, so that Dan could not whirl him round; but he could twist that wrist and twist it he did, with both hands and all his strength. Once the Yankee gave a smothered groan of pain and Dan heard him grit his teeth to keep it back. The smoke had lifted now, and, when they fell, it was in the light of the fire. The Yankee had thrown him with a knee-trick that Harry used to try on him when they were boys, but something about the Yankee ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... 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. His dreamy gaze and soft voice ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... the night schools of the Maryland Institute. This sounds much easier than it really was. To devote the evenings to study, after ten and often twelve hours of the hardest of all manual labor, required grit and moral courage ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... injured, and further impressed me with the conviction that we might have held on. Indeed, the battle of Chickamauga was somewhat like that of Stone River, victory resting with the side that had the grit to defer longest its relinquishment of ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the most unlikely men rise to the top. The fact is that the more attractive qualities of good manners, education, and even special training and skill, which are more apparent on the surface, count for less in an executive position than the grit, determination and bulldog endurance and tenacity that knows no defeat and comes up smiling to be knocked down over and over again. The two qualities which count most for success in this kind of executive work are grit and what may ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... the matter, if grit and perseverance can accomplish the business, you'll see it done in great style sooner or later!" cried Giraffe, who could be quite ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... I could not forget Colonel Mudge, who had kindly taught me its use; I therefore named that summit Mount Mudge. In the gravel at the base of the hill, were water-worn pebbles of trap and basalt. The rock of which the range itself consisted, seemed to be a calcareous grit, with vegetable impressions, apparently of GLOSSOPTERIS BROWNII. On descending to the camp, I was informed that the cattle-watering party came suddenly upon two natives, one of whom was a placid old man, the other middle-aged. Corporal Graham did all he could to allay their fears, and convince ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... Edna Bucher substitute," cried Renee coming up. "I am glad Hester has grit enough to keep to it. This evening we must ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... opening through which he had crawled into the roof. When he had crawled in he had not noticed the springiness of the poles, but now his imagination tormented him with the sensation of sagging and swaying. When his feet pushed through the opening he had to grit his teeth to hold himself steady. It seemed as if someone were reaching up in the dark to catch him by the legs and pull him out. Nothing happened, however, and after a little he inched backward until ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... them down into its bed. Here they were rolled over and over, and grated against each other, and were ground away till they became rounded pebbles, such as lie in the foreground of the picture (Fig. 25); while the grit which was rubbed off them was carried farther down by the stream. And so in time this became a little valley, and as the stream cut it deeper and deeper, there was room to clamber along the sides of it, and ferns ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... to the north. Just here and there, sweetly almost as the pink blossoms of the wild oleander, which I have seen from Sicilian seas lifting their heads from the crevices of sea rocks, the amber and rosy sands of Nubia smiled down over grit, stone, and granite. ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... years, but when they break faith with me and mine that ends it! Look to your sights and make every shot count!" he cautioned, as he made the rounds of the little shelters thrown up during the past two days. "We can stand off a hundred of 'em if you only keep your grit." ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... deil has turned as hard-hearted now as the Lord Keeper and the grit folk, that hae breasts like whinstane. They prick us and they pine us, and they pit us on the pinnywinkles for witches; and, if I say my prayers backwards ten times ower, Satan will never ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... and he found it unendurable—yes, utterly unendurable. The grit and substance of the man within were not sufficient to bear the load which fate had put upon them. As does a deal-table in similar case, they were crushed down, collapsed, and fell in. The stuff there was not good mahogany, or sufficient hard ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... "She is a rich woman in spite of all her poverty and cares. When one has youth and love and health and a good conscience, every day is a feast and a delight. One day Marcus will drive in his carriage and pair. He is a clever fellow and there is real grit in him, and people will find it out, they always do. And Olive will wear silk dresses, and get stout with prosperity and good living; but I doubt if she will be quite as happy as she is to-day—cutting out Dot's pelisse, and ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... thought this was rather sharp practice, as they floundered about in the water. They had not given Frank Sedley credit for half so much determination. They had never seen anything in him that indicated "grit" before. He was a peaceable boy, always avoiding a quarrel; but when the very life of his friend was in peril, he was found to be as bold and courageous as the ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... you're always at him, kissing and 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 up with ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the East Coast, discovered by Captain King, about sixty miles south of Cape Capricorn.* Reddish sandstone, of moderately-fine grain, resembling that which in England occurs in the coal formation, and beneath it (mill-stone grit). A sienitic compound, consisting of a large proportion of reddish felspar, with specks of a green substance, probably mica; resembling a rock from ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... That proves my idea correct, and that they had been sent out from the post, to find what had become of the youngster. He knows they are coming after us just as well as I do, but he's too proud to give them a single look. I like his grit, and between you and me, he's going to show us something before long. I'm in a fever to set eyes on that same old Tartar, Alex Gregory. Already I seem to dislike him immensely, and possibly I'll end by hating him good and hard. He's more than a little to blame for ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... do it. He's the pluckiest Injun ever I see, and I've trailed, fust and last, most of the kinds there is. Ef he warn't, I wouldn't be fussin' over him now, for his tribe is mostly pizen. But true grit's true grit, whether you find it in white or red, and a man what values hisself as a man, is bound to appreciate it ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... spoiling canvas with paints, and making a smell in the house; or in keeping tadpoles in a glass box full of dirty water, and turning everybody's stomach in the house; or in chipping off bits of stone here, there, and everywhere, and dropping grit into all the victuals in the house; or in staining your fingers in the pursuit of photography, and doing justice without mercy on everybody's face in the house. It often falls heavy enough, no doubt, on people who are really obliged to get ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... enlightened—in alluding to domestic matters. Without a shade of discourtesy, they simply keep one outside. Poor Aruna was terrified at having told me. Broke down utterly. But no idea of giving in. It's astonishing the grit one comes upon under their surface gentleness. She said she would starve or drown rather. I said she should do nothing of the kind; that I would speak to Sir Lakshman myself—oh, very diplomatically, of course! Afterwards, all ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... aboriginal people does not of necessity denote a great age for the individual. Grit from ashes and fine sand from mortars and pestles will cut away the enamel to a much greater extent than would result from ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... Rockies fairly roar'd; An sudden' es winkin' came the bang An rattle of thunder. Tew see the grit Of thet peart little chunk of a tough mustang! Not a buck nor a shy!—he gev a snort Thet shook the foam on his steamin' hide, An' leap'd along—Wal, pard, ye bet I'd a healthy show fur a ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... Charles Buonaparte had been an ardent adherent of Paoli, his sudden change of front has exposed him to keen censure. He certainly had not the grit of which heroes are made. His seems to have been an ill-balanced nature, soon buoyed up by enthusiasms, and as speedily depressed by their evaporation; endowed with enough of learning and culture to be a Voltairean ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... leaped 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 clung to it. It was securely locked and fastened with a padlock, and it took a good many blows with the blade of the spade to burst the bolt. Parson Jones himself lifted the lid. Tom Chist leaned forward and gazed down ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... Morton and me this morning, when we were going to school, and told him it was a shame for him to 'set araound, a-livin' on his sister, and he ought to get a berth in one of the fishing-smacks, and would if he had any grit to him.' It made Mort as blue as anything, and he's gone down to Uncle Jabez Wanamead's now, to see ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... grandfather's but his great-grandfather's property, to concentrate upon the first of the series of stories ordered by the New York magazine. He had already decided upon the general scheme for the series. A boy, ragamuffin son of immigrant parents, rising, after a wrong start, by sheer grit and natural shrewdness and ability, step by step to competence and success, winning a place in and the respect of a community. There was nothing new in the idea itself. Some things his soldier chum Mike Kelley had ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... hard, decided to make a speech. His face was badly swollen and he could only see through a slit in one eye, so severe had been the beating administered by Wampus earlier in the day; but the fellow had grit, in spite of his other unmanly qualities, and his imperturbable good humor had scarcely been disturbed by the punishment the Canadian had inflicted ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... school, maintain their Association, add four members to it as converts to the Christian life, and present seven of their number to the First Congregational Church for baptism. We felt that a mission with such "grit and grace" deserved to ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 50, No. 05, May, 1896 • Various
... as chirpy as a cricket." He went in to see him, and found him slumbering like an infant. The pulse under Max's fingers was absolutely normal, and an odd smile that had in it an element of respect touched Max's grim lips. Certainly the boy had grit. ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... and her limbs staggered under her. But she would be all right if she could sit down for one moment. There was a hawthorn stump a little way off, and to this she made her way, but as she sunk down on it a clod of earth struck her in the shoulder. She spun round, and another broke on her face. Grit filled her mouth, which was open with amazement. She had been deaf with physical distress, so she had not heard that the boys had gathered together on the wood's edge and were now marching after her in a shouting crowd. Something in her attitude when she turned on them ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... 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
... the most flourishing house in the neighbourhood, and as I was wandering rather aimlessly about I saw an uncommonly tempting gap in a hedgerow, and resolved to explore the meadow beyond. Soft grass is very grateful to the feet after the infernal grit strewn on suburban sidewalks, and after walking about for some time, I thought I should like to sit down on a bank and have a smoke. While I was getting out my pouch, I looked up in the direction of the houses, and as ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... be expected. The obviously correct procedure for the gunners was of course to have bombarded many sections of front so that no certain clew would be given as to the point of the coming attack. But this was in the days when shells were very, very precious things, and gunners had to grit their teeth helplessly, doling out round by round, while the German gun- and rifle-fire did its worst. The Germans, then, could see now where the attack was concentrated, and promptly proceeded to break it up before it was launched. Shells began to sweep the trench where ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... there was a title in the family in Scotland, and although Eliphalet's father was the younger son of a younger son, yet he always remembered, and always bade his only son to remember, that this ancestry was noble. His mother left him her full share of Yankee grit and a little old house in Salem which had belonged to her family for more than two hundred years. She was a Hitchcock, and the Hitchcocks had been settled in Salem since the year 1. It was a great-great-grandfather of Mr. Eliphalet Hitchcock who was foremost in the time of the Salem witchcraft ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... slowly. "I admire your grit, lady. You broke away from everything and made a fresh start. You asserted your own individuality in a fashion that rather surprised me. Maybe the incentive wasn't what it might have been, but the result is, or ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... gave up thinking about her at all. There was a certain kind of contempt in that indifference, beyond a doubt: there is no use denying it. Besides, it is proved to me now by the new respect I feel for her because she has had the courage and grit to try going away with Douglas. But my love for her is over: nothing short of her being born over again—a thing that sometimes happens—will ever bring her into contact with me after this. To put it philosophically, she made the mistake ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... lived together as contented as two oysters. Tom didn't grit his teeth when a carriage rolled by with a rich man in it, or when another man passed him in a finer suit of broadcloth than his own. Not he. He stepped off to his shop, on the strength of Betsey's nice coffee and biscuit, as grand as the President. Why not? He ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... trip he went into the lineup and gave us an example of how the game could be played by a master. When the practice was over, Ma Newell came up to me and said: 'I guess I was a little rough, my boy, but I just wanted to test your grit. You had better come over to the Varsity field to-morrow with two or three of the other fellows that I am going to speak to. I'll watch you and help you after you get there.' And he did. He was loved because ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... pain is just as infernal, eh? Only you've the grit to stand against it. Remember the last time I overhauled you? You fainted twice. That's how I knew you would never face it. But I've hurt you worse to-day, and I'm damned if I know how you ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... glanced at her, and nodded to himself. "She'll do!" he said in his beard. "Montfort grit's good grit, and she's got it. This would be nuts to ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... years later, into Epworth; and how, his father's pulpit having been denied to him, he stood outside upon his father's tomb and preached evening after evening in the warm June weather the gospel of Justification by Faith to the listening crowd. Visitors are shown the grit slab, now recut and resting on a handsome structure of stone, but then upon plainest brickwork; and are bidden to notice, in the blank space below the words "Their works do follow them," two rough pieces of ironstone which mark ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... should be added when taking it off the fire, and a bit of butter rubbed on at the moment of serving. If accompanied with oyster sauce, strain off the liquor from the oysters, and throw them into cold water to take off the grit, while you simmer the liquor with a bit of mace and lemon peel. Then put in the oysters, stew them a few minutes, add a little cream, and some butter rubbed in a bit of flour. Let them boil up once, and throw the sauce over the steaks at ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... the more, That she had just a statue's sleepy grace Which broods o'er its own beauty. Nay, her fault (Don't laugh!) was just perfection: for suppose Only the little flaw, and I had peeped Inside it, learned what soul inside was like. At Rome some tourist raised the grit beneath A Venus' forehead with his whittling-knife— I wish,—now,—I had played that brute, brought blood To surface from the depths I fancied chalk! As it was, her mere face surprised so much That I stopped short there, struck on ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... they lay half buried in the sand; and then, rising quickly out of their irritating beds, and scattering the loose fine dry grit back, they hurried into the outer cave, seized the rope and grapnel, and Mike was swinging it to throw up into the opening, when his arm dropped to his side, and he stood as if paralysed, looking ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... 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
... the midst of mouthfuls. "I had to. I missed the French Hill Benches, the Big Skookum, and Monte Cristo, and then it was Surprise Lake or bust. And here I am. My wife knew I'd strike it. I've got faith enough, but hers knocks mine galleywest. She's a corker, a crackerjack—dead game, grit to her finger-ends, never-say-die, a fighter from the drop of the hat, the one woman for me, true blue and all the rest. Take ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... I can piece together at leisure into a sort of mnemonic mosaic. Well, so I stroll through Swansea, trying to forget the only two facts which I know concerning it—that Beau Nash was born here and Savage died here. They are like bits of grit in the oyster of my content. I will turn aside and ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... gals been jiltin' you?' 'No, no,' says he; 'I beant such a fool as that, neither.' 'Well,' says I, 'have you made a bad speculation?' 'No,' says he, shakin' his head, 'I hope I have too much clear grit in me to take on so bad for that.' 'What under the sun is it, then?' said I. 'Why,' says he, 'I made a bet the fore part of the summer with Leftenant Oby Knowles that I could shoulder the best bower of the Constitution frigate. I won my bet, but the anchor was so etarnal heavy that it ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... though his spare form and smooth-shaven cheek and chin made him look ten years younger—"I think it is that Graham has been tried in all manner of ways and has proved equal to every occasion. They say he's sheer grit." ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... courtyard was grassless, a flooring of grit and loose stone, on which no impression could well be made by human foot. But Copplestone, carefully prospecting around and going a little way up the bank which lay between the tower and the moorland road, suddenly saw something in the black, peat-like earth which attracted his attention ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... of the line, and some queer tales were told about the boat that had once shown her heels to the crackerjacks in the Solent. But I couldn't afford to be particular at that moment. Levuka isn't the spot where a man can pick and choose, so I wiped the shell grit from my drill suit and told myself that I had better accept the berth instead of waiting in expectation of something better turning up. Pierre the Rat, who ran "The Rathole," where penniless seamen and ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... a sturdy little Western pony, with nerve and grit and a gentle common sense for humans, was to remain with her in Ashland, a gift from the men of the bunk-house. During the week that followed Archie Forsythe came riding over with a beautiful shining saddle-horse for her use during ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... we can," she answered coolly. This reply seemed to please him. He had before considered Nancy "a nice lookin' girl;" and now, as he put down "grit" in his mental catalogue of her fascinations, he smiled to himself, and thought of a neat little home on the Salem shore where his mother now presided, and where it was not impossible that some day Nancy might be persuaded to reign. But the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... The Campfires of the Wolf Patrol 2 Woodcraft; or, How a Patrol Leader Made Good 3 Pathfinder; or, the Missing Tenderfoot 4 Great Hike; or, The Pride of Khaki Troop 5 Endurance Test; or, How Clear Grit Won the Day 6 Under Canvas; or, the Search for the Carteret Ghost 7 Storm-bound; or, a Vacation among the Snow Drifts 8 Afloat; or, Adventures on Watery Trails 9 Tenderfoot Squad; or, Camping at Raccoon Bluff 10 Boy Scouts in an Airship 11 Boy Scout Electricians; or, the Hidden Dynamo ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... Helen's,—and Imogen Young looked eagerly from the window for a first sight of the place. Their journey had been exhaustingly hot during its last stages, the alkaline dust most trying, and they had had a brief experience of a sand-storm on the plains, which gave her a new idea as to what wind and grit can accomplish in the way of discomfort. She was very tired, and quite disposed to be critical and unenthusiastic; still she had been compelled to admit that the run down from Denver ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... 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
... all kind friends that travel about, Come take a trip on the Wallis stage route. With a plenty of grit, they never get weak,— Those two little mules on the road to Cook's Peak. On the road to Cook's Peak,— On the road to Cook's Peak,— Those two little mules on the ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... don't like ha'nted houses, Tom. Why, they're a dern sight worse'n dead people. Dead people might talk, maybe, but they don't come sliding around in a shroud, when you ain't noticing, and peep over your shoulder all of a sudden and grit their teeth, the way a ghost does. I couldn't stand such a thing as that, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... have done the same thing. As nearly as I can remember, he got the horn of his saddle in one hand and the cantle in the other, then swung his weight well into the inside and hung like a leech. Of course, it took sheer grit to do it, because in thus holding himself tight to the saddle with his hands, he had to take full punishment, which can be avoided only when one has acquired the knack of balancing and ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... think so—I hope so!" But she could not meet his eyes, and hearing him grit his boot on the floor knew he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... communal in its social order, whereas the Occident is individualistic. In the West each man makes his own fortune; his position in society rests on his own individual energy. He is free to exert it at will. Society praises him in proportion as he manifests energy, grit, independence, and persistence. The social order selects such men and advances them in political, in business, in social, and in academic life. The energetic, active characteristics of the West are due, then, to the high ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... the Old Senior Surgeon, cocking his head thoughtfully, "there was the business-like little party on a broomstick, carrying grit—plain grit." ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... grit though; she came of mountain stock, and taught us children to steal by the time we could think! Whatever we stole, she hid, and dared my father to touch us. I remember the first thing of account was when I ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... had wronged me and wrecked my life, I couldn't help admiring his grit; for the boy was no match for me, and he knew it ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... there a squalid mud hamlet, reveal the existence of life. The line of advance lay along the river; but no road relieved the labour of the march. Sometimes trailing across a broad stretch of white sand, in which the soldiers sank to their ankles, and which filled their boots with a rasping grit; sometimes winding over a pass or through a gorge of sharp-cut rocks, which, even in the moonlight, felt hot with the heat of the previous day—always in a long, jerky, and interrupted procession of men ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... by express a few trinkets. You knew that Mr. Goodnow would be at your place in a short time, and you might easily have waited until seeing him before returning the goods, but you evidently thought you were punishing us and showing your grit by rushing them back by express. I assure you it does not add to your reputation as a business man. I thought I would mention these points to you because they are important in our relations, and unless the men you buy from feel pleasantly towards you there is every reason to suppose that ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... too," said Cecily eagerly. "It says nobody knows when the Judgment Day is to come—not even the angels in heaven. Now, if the angels in heaven don't know it, do you suppose the editor of the Enterprise can know it—and him a Grit, too?" ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... bad," said Lucinda. "I've got spunk enough and grit enough to bear any load that I 'ain't heaped on my own shoulders, and the Lord knows I 'ain't heaped this. Don't you worry about me, ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Float dulcet serenades upon the ear, Bends every atom from its ruddy sphere, Twinkles each eye, and, peeping from its veil, Marks in the adverse crowd its destined male. The oblong beauties clap their hands of grit, And brick-dust titterings on the breezes flit; Then down they rush in amatory race, Their dusty bridegrooms eager to embrace. Some choose old lovers, some decide for new, But each, when fix'd, is to her station true. Thus various bricks are made, ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... man that ever walked into this camp. There ain't an inch of him that ain't clear grit through and through. Get into a tight place, and he's your one best ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... and the other side polished in the same way. The sections must not be too thick, nor too thin; they are usually made from a hundredth to a thousandth of an inch thick. Lathes employed in polishing minerals require to be provided with conical spindles, so that the wear, due to grit and emery dust getting on them, may be readily taken up. The grinding wheel may be either horizontal or vertical; the former has the advantage that the mineral can be held in either hand; with the latter only the right hand can be employed, and that in an awkward and tiresome ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... tell ye what I 'm a-goin' ter do, Stutter. I 'm a-goin' ter draw out every blamed cent we 've got in the bank down at San Juan. 'T ain't much of a pile, but I reckon it's got ter do the business. Then I 'll strike out an' hunt till I find a minin' engineer thet 's got a soul of his own, an' grit 'nough behind it ter root out the facts. I 've been a-prospecttn' through these here mountings fer thirty years, an' now thet I 've hit somethin' worth havin', I 'm hanged if I 'm a-goin' ter lie down meek ez Moses an' see it stole out plumb from under me by a parcel o' ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... that feller," declared Bill, with wholesome appreciation. "He was good grit. A bit of a ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... girl into the bargain. You tell me you are a gentleman. Sir! I had as lief you said you were a blacksmith. In this grand country of ours, where progress is the watchword, effete standards and dogging traditions must go by the board. Grit is of more use to us than gentility. Each single bricklayer who unships serves the colony better than a ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... 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
... temperament, easily disheartened, with little self-reliant courage or grit. But he seems to have felt a little ashamed of his plaint, for at midnight of the same day he wrote a second letter, half apologetic and much more hopeful, just because one or two people had been a little kind and he had been taken out to ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... were a little shaky on the ladders. The violet moonlight had deepened to mauve, and gusty winds spun tendrils of grit across my face. The Spaceforce men shepherded me, one on either side, ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... 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 it ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... 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 ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... 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
... quite sure," replied the senior surgeon. "None of the bones of the spine are broken. There has, of course, been a severe wrenching there. Whether your injury is going to continue into a serious or permanent injury we cannot yet say. A good deal will depend upon the grit with which ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... both is not a possible task for the weak. To do both in an inland city, where the competition of metropolitan journals must be met and discounted, without any of their advantages, requires a man of grip, grit and genius. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... at the top soil and rub some of it between your fingers. We found that our sample was wet and therefore contained water; it was very sticky like clay and therefore contained clay; there were a few stones and some grit present and also some tiny pieces of dead plants—roots, stems or leaves, but some so decayed that we could not quite tell what they were. A few pieces of a soft white stone were found that marked on the blackboard like chalk. Lastly, there were a few fragments of coal and cinders, but as these ...
— Lessons on Soil • E. J. Russell
... better than sand for keeping this vast machinery in good running condition. Do not shovel grit or gravel stones upon the bearings. A tiny copper shaving in a wheel box, or a scratch on a journal, may set a railway train on fire. The running of the business world is ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... saw she was in earnest, and replied, "What's got your back up so high, Sunshine? I never knew you had so much grit. What's the reason you don't want Dr. Lacey to ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... a story of a boy's life in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. Ben Burton, the hero, had a hard road to travel, but by grit and energy he advanced step by step until he found himself called upon to fill the position of chief engineer of the Kohinoor Coal Company. This is a book of extreme interest ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... foremost the prince cleft High fences of the sea; The ropes of the King's ship Are strained to the utmost; The wind is unfriendly Against the anchor-iron out-hollowed, Grit and wind-squalls ugly ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... the backbone, and clear grit through and through; Boasted and bragged like a trooper; but the big words wouldn't do;— The boy was dying, sir, dying as plain as plain could be, Worn out by his ride with ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... of an education in our national charity schools—no one who has read of his court-martialings, the degradations and the petty insults inflicted upon him can help feeling that he returns home to-day, in spite of the Phoenix's sneers, a young hero who has 'passed' in grit, pluck, perseverance, and all the better qualities which go to make up true manhood, and only has been 'found' because rebel sympathizers at West Point, the fledglings of caste, and the Secretary of War, do not intend to allow, if they can prevent it, a negro to graduate at West Point or Annapolis, ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... in grit, I reckon," said the engineer. Then his wonderful locomotive glided away, leaving Ike staring after it in silent ecstasy, and his ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... own interests unselfishly and come here to devote her life to the care of a relative whom she had never seen before. I've an idea that the girl who would do that is the kind of a girl who's got grit ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... about it, boys," observed Max, "is that I admire the grit of the boy. They told us he was something of a dude, didn't they, and that his rich uncle was afraid he'd never amount to much anyhow; so what did he do but make a most extraordinary will; at least, ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... the night made our stay not the most agreeable. The next morning we pursued our line of march to Sudley Church, near Bull Run, where we encountered a strong force of Stuart's cavalry. After a sharp conflict, in which Yankee ingenuity and grit were fairly tested, the chivalry retired southwestwardly, acknowledging themselves ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... paper was placed on the hearth under the grate and corn dough put upon it to bake. Hot ashes were raked over it and it was left to cook and brown. When it had remained a long enough time, the ashes were shaken off, the cake brushed clean with a cloth and no grit was encountered ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... such things were sold. The noise was deafening; the wind stirred the sand curiously so that it blew up and about in little wreaths and spirals. Everything and everybody seemed to be covered with the grit of this fine small sand; it was in Maggie's eyes, nose, and mouth ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... the same even tone of indifference. "I suppose I hadn't the grit. I think if somebody had believed in me it might have helped me. But nobody did, and at last I lost belief in myself. And when a man loses that, he's like a balloon with the ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... exceed six hundred toises. I believe this splendour, commonly reddish but sometimes silvery, to be a reflection produced by large plates of talc, or by gneiss passing into mica-slate. The whole of this country contains granitic rocks, on which here and there, in little plains, an argillaceous grit-stone immediately reposes, containing fragments of quartz and ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... ruts that they've run in for centuries. I want change and excitement, and the newest there is. Your quiet English life would get on my nerves. Poppar and I have had lots of ups and downs, and I've never lost grit. I ken bear a good big blow, but to stodge along every day the same dull round would drive me crazed! We live quickly over with us, and you're so slow. I don't say that the advantage is all on our side. I used to laugh at English ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... 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 you need loads ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... Cecily put the knife-box back without saying what it had been used for, and the knives were put into it, so that at dinner everything tasted of earth, and the grit got between people's teeth, so that they could not eat their mutton or potatoes or cabbage, or even ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... the brazen blue sky. And all afternoon the heat strikes up at you overpowering, like the breath of a wild animal. Then the wind rises, and the sand shifts in eddies. Veils and goggles are useless. They can't keep out that spinning curtain of grit. The horses rattle the hard, dry bits in their mouths, trying to ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie
... 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, with a clicking ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... and has wised up sudden to the fact that this ain't going t' be any Noah's flood brand uh summer, and that his cattle look like the tailings of a wash-board factory. He's got busy—and we're sure going to. We're due t' hit the grit out uh here in the first beams uh rosy morn, and do a record ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... no other man in or out o' Last Chance will have ther grit to drive ther old death-trap, for thet hearse you is sittin' ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... the way through to the finish, a victory over difficulties; and if the young aspirant lacks the grit to face and down the difficulty that happens to confront him at the start, there is little reason to expect that his valor will show to any better advantage in his encounter with enemies that get in his ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... natural grit came to his rescue, and it was well it did, for the presence had assumed shape, and now sat on the window-ledge in the form of a hag, glaring at him from out of the depths of her unfathomable eyes, in which, despite their deadly greenness, there lurked a tinge of ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... would vote for an M.P. whose sense with humour chimes, Will read the Member for Wrottenborough, all in the Sunday Times— A paper our sires paid Sevenpence for, along of its grit and go, Seventy years ago, my Public, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... 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 on ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... report, Lieutenant. That youngster there," pointing to Ned, "is real grit. I seed the arrer strike him, and he a-pullin' of it out, runnin' towards 'em all the time. Jest as sure's yer live, yer can call Tom Pope a liar, if Jerry Vance didn't save that gal's life; 'cause, if ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... their rulers. It would be difficult to find words strong enough to condemn the campaign of robbery and murder conducted by the Black Prince against the peaceful inhabitants of Southern France in 1356, but it would be still more difficult to do justice to the magnificent pluck and grit which enabled 8,000 Englishmen at Poitiers to put to flight no less than 60,000 of the chosen chivalry of France. The wire-pullers of state-craft have often worked with ignoble aims, but those who suffer in the working out of political schemes often sanctify the service by their ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... both knelt and drank deeply from their cupped hands, splashing more of the liquid over their heads, washing the dust from their skins. Then they began to climb the rough assent up which the wolverines had already vanished. The murk above them was less solid, but again the fine grit streaked their faces, embedding ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... is fly, and the youngster has grit," Gleeson said, adding in a louder tone to the others, "We'll walk all the way till we camp. You needn't ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... try out anything, Morgan. They're here today and gone tomorrow, cursing Kansas as they go, slandering it, branding it as the Tophet of the earth. We've never had the right kind of people here, they didn't have the courage, the faith, and the vision. If a man hasn't got the grit and ability to stick through his losses at any game in this life, Morgan, he'll never win. And he'll never be anything but a little loser, put him down ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... sorrel 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
... orders, dropping, indeed, the retrograde movement he was ordered to make before this outbreak was known, the regimental commander had turned his columns and shot "cross country" on a night march to head them off. A soldier who doubted the "grit" of his officers and men, who was himself indisposed to dare so strong and savage a foe, could easily have taken refuge in these orders and, marching as directed, avoid the Cheyennes entirely. They were known ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... 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 me ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley |
