"Grit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... and his enemy were involved in a common and appalling doom, the enmity was forgotten. "Got cl'ar grit, too!" he murmured to himself, as he took note of the quiet way the ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... shan't forget this, Master Dan.—Bother!" And he stepped on one side, seated himself at the foot of the wall, and occupied himself with untying the laces of one shoe and taking out the little bits of grit which refused ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... 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 told him concerning an uncle of his—Mike's—suggested it. The novelty he hoped ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... 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 be called "constructive imagination"—the faculty ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... grown smaller: that was because a sprinter had knocked him down the day before, a fellow out of second of grammar. He had been thrown by the fellow's machine lightly on the cinder path and his spectacles had been broken in three pieces and some of the grit of the cinders had gone ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... that day's winnowing of the national grain, which had been some four years threshing, plenty of chaff and grit were found. The opposition to the Administration was made up of three classes. The smallest, but by far the most active class, consisted of reckless politicians,—those Northern men with Southern principles (if they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... bed, but with the movement a sudden pain made him grit his teeth to keep from uttering a groan. For the first ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... the sitting-room, he found a torn envelope, and began picking up some specks of grit from the carpet, each of which went into a corner of the envelope, which he folded and stowed away. Then he bent over the fireplace and rummaged among the cinders. Three calcined lumps, not wholly consumed, appeared to interest ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... using this instrument, 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 ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... grit?" sez Cast Steel, "an' her only six. Kids oughtn't to act so grown up at six, had ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... 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
... woman, to keep up their 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 live. ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 50, No. 05, May, 1896 • Various
... learn one day that a cross-cut was to be started on the Last Chance, or that the concentrates of the True Grit would thereafter be shipped to the Careless Creek smelter. Next they would learn that a new herd of Galloways had done finely last season on the Bitter Root ranch; that a big lot of ore was sacked at the Irish Boy, that an eighteen-inch vein had been struck in the Old Crow; that a concentrator ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... muscles and wind, 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 ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... ef ye didn't. I wouldn't gin four cents fer a man thet didn't git into truble; hit trys 'em out an' ye ken tell what they're made uf. Look at all the men ye know who don't know enuf to make truble. What do they amount to? Why they ain't got enuf grit in 'em to ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... to go on as so far he had. He told himself that if it were possible to stamp on desire now it would continue to be possible; that if one were not put into the world to get what one wanted at least it should be possible to grit the teeth on the fact. It was childish enough to cry for the moon—it was pitiable to hanker after its reflection in a cesspool. Chastity to Ishmael, by the nature of his training and his circumstances, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... important of these being garnet, which is found in great quantities in the Adirondacks. Crude garnet from several mines, the ground and cleaned garnet, and grades of garnet paper were shown. A small millstone to represent the celebrated Esopus grit, emery ore from Peekskill, and quartz and sand from many localities were also exhibited in this case. Another case was filled with feldspar, mica and quartz, which usually occur associated with each other in ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... the queer smile gave me such a hug. The smile was all gone now, and when we left the ship I saw him shaking hands with the captain, with the most serious face I ever saw. I had overheard the old man telling some one the captain had shown he had the real grit in him, and if he had not had the misfortune to be born a gentleman he would have been as good a sailor as ever did something or other, I forget what; as if he had said he would have been as good a sailor as he had ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... should think one chain deflected, the so-called Rumby and Omon ranges. These are no relations of Mungo, being of very different structure and conformation; the geological specimens I have brought from them and from the Cameroons being identified by geologists as respectively schistose grit ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... aggravating about a race like that. In a rowing race you may break your back if you choose, trying to catch the boat in front; and even in a sailing race you may do something. But when it comes to steam you can only grit your teeth and walk up and down and watch and try not to let anybody see ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... 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
... fences!" He would grit his teeth at his helplessness, and then try to forget it all and think only ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... "Good grit, Hugh. I like you for that. In short, I like you for everything, and that's why I was sorry about that New York lady. You see, it may stand in the way of your getting a wife by and ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... Tobey, who had been drinking 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 ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... what you can do when you get that cast off," Quin had reassured her with the utmost confidence. "I've limbered up heaps of stiff legs for the fellows. It takes patience and grit. I got the patience and you got the grit, so there ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... almost super-anxious lest it be said that the fear of the mob drove him out of Boston, and that the fear of it kept him out. This super-anxiety in that regard his friends to a certain degree shared with him. It was a phase of Abolition grit. Danger attracted this new species of reformers as a magnet draws iron. Instead of running away from it, they were, with one accord, forever rushing into it. And the leader in Brooklyn was for rushing back to Boston, where, if one chanced to sow the wind in the morning, he might be ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... first time I had seen the true coal in America, and I was much struck with its surprising analogy in mineral and fossil characters to that of Europe; ... the whole series resting on a coarse grit and conglomerate, containing quartz pebbles, very like our millstone grit, and often called by the Americans, as well as the English miners, the 'Farewell Rock,' because, when they have reached it in their borings, they ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... sound in all the stagnant trench Where forty standing men Endure the sweat and grit and stench, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... secret weighed heavily on Jerry's conscience; with it, too, was an uncertain admiration for Isobel's grit. But Jerry wondered if she, even though she might be the Hermia that Isobel was and wear the rose satin—could want it enough to ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... yet a great admiration for all those lives which had been so freely given to uphold the honour of the flag and the dignity of the Empire, and how when failure after failure had dogged our steps, grit and perseverance had at last won the day, and success crowned our efforts. Kut was ours; it must have cheered those lonely prisoners in captivity in the fastnesses of Asia Minor when the news eventually leaked through that their defeat was avenged and that the flag ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... 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
... 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 ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... listened to their daughter, with adoration plainly expressed on their faces, and Tom had to grit his teeth to keep from swearing, because of what he considered their influence over Polly in this, her foolish infatuation for a business when she ought to be in ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... an' he hadn't but little; 'n' for all she was so much in love with him, she couldn't help a-throwin' it up to him, sort o', an' he couldn't stan' it. So he jest lit out; an' he'd never ha' gone back to her,—never under the shining sun. He'd got jest that grit in him. She'd been a-huntin' everywhere, they said,—all over Europe, 'n' Azhay, 'n' Africa, till she'd given up huntin'; an' he was right close tu hum all the time. He was a first-rate feller, 'n' we was all glad when his luck come ter him 't last. I wished ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... so guarded—even the most 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, ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... resources at command, the kingdom of the south could not build monuments to compete with those whose construction had taxed the united efforts of all Egypt, but it used a crude black brick, made without grit or straw, where the Egyptians of the north had preferred more costly stone. These inexpensive pyramids were built on a rectangular base not more than six and a half feet high; and the whole erection, which was simply faced ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... his jubilee as head of the house of STEWART-MURRAY last week. In these days to have remained a Duke for so long as fifty years shows no little grit. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... was one fellow there called Pavel—could do anything; he's taken him along too. They say he has a small factory of his own now, somewhere near Perm, run on cooperative lines. He's all right! he'll stick to anything he undertakes. Got some grit in him! His strength lies in the fact that he doesn't attempt to cure all the social ills with one blow. What a rum set we are to be sure, we Russians! We sit down quietly and wait for something or someone to come along and cure us all at once; heal all our wounds, pull out all our diseases, ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... told you of the night Andrew Sevier's father killed himself; yes, that he had sat the night through at the poker table with Peters Brown? Brown offered some restoration compromise to the widow but she refused—you know the struggle that she made and that it killed her. We both know the grit it took for Andrew to chisel himself into what he is. The first afternoon he met the girl in here, right by this table, for an instant I was frightened—only she didn't know, thank God! The Almighty gardens His women-things well and fends off influences that shrivel; ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... I'd bin down twice, and 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? Why, THAT SNEAKIN' ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... it 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 the mill." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... thought he saw a reason for Scotch grit. He contrasted such a history with the get-rich-quick methods ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... narrow 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 ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... I went out on the platform to wish them good-morning, arriving just in time to see Lord Ralles help Miss Cullen out of her saddle; and the way he did it, and the way he continued to hold her hand after she was down, while he said something to her, made me grit my teeth and look the other way. None of the riders had seen me, so I slipped into my car and went back to work. Fred came in presently to see if I was up yet, and to ask me to lunch, but I felt so miserable and ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... sense perhaps," chuckled Mr. Bentley. "But you certainly can't help admiring him. He was right there when it came to grit." ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... for a Healand padyane; Syne ran a feynd to feche Makfadyane[28] Far northwart in a nuke.[29] Be he the correnoch had done schout Erschemen so gadderit him about In Hell grit rowme they tuke. Thae tarmegantis with tag and tatter Full lowde in Ersche begowth to clatter, And rowp lyk revin and ruke. The Devill sa devit was with thair yell That in the depest pot of Hell He smorit ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... was very catching, and after the departure of this first band there was a regular epidemic of departure at the Tocsin. Carter and Simpkins turned up at the office one afternoon very much in earnest about it all and persuaded that a little British grit was what was needed in Cuba, "to keep things humming." Simpkins recalled his old army days and the valour he had several times displayed when under the influence of liquor. He waved an old belt appertaining to those times, and would, I ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... up together this time, then!" muttered little Nuthin; but with the grit that seemed a part of his nature, once he started in to do anything, he also seized the canvas covering at the bottom, and ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... the flesh down to the bone, then with the ragged jack-knife he began to saw. I could not bear to look. It made me deathly sick. I heard the grit, grit of the jagged blade. I will remember the sound to my dying day. How long it seemed to take! No man could stand such torture. A groan burst from Locasto's lips. He fell back on the bed. His jaws no longer worked, and a thin stream of brown saliva trickled down his chin. ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... own way, and you saw the thing through; but there's always a reaction, and you'll pay for it. It wasn't fit work for a girl of your age; but I'm proud of your nerve, and I'm glad you showed the Young Doctor what you can do. You've got your father's brains and my grit," she added with a sigh of satisfaction. "Come along—bed now, Kitty. If you get too tired you'll ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... said of his sire's calling, was at least of a good old Newcastle border stock of fine "grit" and sturdily independent. He was proud of his stock, and he has often lamented, not merely in print, but to myself, how people would confound him with mere Fosters. "Now we," he would say vehemently, "are Forsters ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... but I can't believe it. The Sioux is a scamp mean enough to do anything; but he has grit, and I don't believe that two young tenderfeet ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... 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 we'd ever ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... true friends to me, I loathe destroyers, and all the raw, racking, ricochetting life that goes with them—the smell of the wet "lammies" and damp wardroom cushions; the galley-chimney smoking out the bridge; the obstacle-strewn deck; and the pervading beastliness of oil, grit, and greasy iron. Even at moorings they shiver and sidle like half-backed horses. At sea they will neither rise up and fly clear like the hydroplanes, nor dive and be done with it like the submarines, but imitate the vices of both. A scientist ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... said to Bud in a low voice, after passing to Dick and Nort the guns. "Lots to learn, but they've got the grit, and they ain't too ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... door, and went up to her chamber to compose herself a little. But this she could not do, for her nerves were too shaken. Noticing that the key of the little room was stained with blood, she wiped it two or three times. But the blood did not go. She washed it well, and even rubbed it with sand and grit. Always the blood remained. For the key was bewitched, and there was no means of cleaning it completely. When the blood was removed from one side, ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... begot another rush, and men by the hundreds swarmed again upon the hills, in all that neighborhood, panning the gravel for their lives. Wild-catting started with an impetus that shook the State itself. And Van could only grit his teeth and ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... quarter-miles of "Lidgerwood flats" piled high with broken rock and earth, to scream at the American conductor and his black brakemen, often to find myself, by the time I had set down one of them, carried entirely out of my district, to Pedro Miguel or beyond the Chagres, and have to "hit the grit" in "hobo" fashion and catch something back to the spot where I left off. In short I poked into every corner of the "cut" known to man, bawling in the November-first voice of a presidential ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... of laceration and subsequent inflammation of the keratogenous membrane. Such complications may vary from a simple inflammation set up by laceration and irritation of the sensitive structures by particles of dirt and grit that have gained entrance through the crack, to other and more serious changes in the shape of the formation of pus, haemorrhage from the laminal vessels, caries of the os pedis, or the development of a tumour-like growth of horn on the inner surface of the wall ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... though luck had helped you much when I found you, Walt," remarked the captain, dryly. "It sorter looked to me like only hard work an' an amazin' lot of pluck an' grit ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... that government does everything possible to promote America's ability to compete. Second, we must act as individuals in a quest for excellence that will not be measured by new proposals or billions in new funding. Rather, it involves an expenditure of American spirit and just plain American grit. The Congress will soon receive my comprehensive proposals to enhance our competitiveness, including new science and technology centers and strong new funding for basic research. The bill will include legal and regulatory reforms and weapons to fight unfair trade practices. Competitiveness ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... his varses to Parson Wilbur bein he haint aney grate shows o' book larnin himself, bimeby he cum back and sed the parson wuz dreffle tickled with 'em as i hoop you will Be, and said they wuz True grit. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... 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. ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... 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 ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... trouble. When he got back into the world again, he was as husky as almost any man I have ever seen who wasn't dependent on his arms for his livelihood. He weighed one hundred and fifty pounds, and was clear bone, muscle, and grit." ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... having slight abrasive properties, but free from dangerous grit, should be used as the complement of a liquid. One way to use both is to pour on the wet brush or into the palm of the hand a sufficient quantity of powder and moisten it with the liquid. Occasionally the powder or the liquid alone could ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... limited, 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 ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... Ann Ez full o' grit ez any man 'T you ever see! She does the chores Days when I can't git out-o'-doors 'Account o' this 'ere rheumatiz, And sees to everything there is To see to here about the place, And never makes a rueful face At housework, ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... two miles across the fields from Dewley Burn, he walked that distance early in the morning to his work, returning home late in the evening. One of the old residents at Black Callerton, who remembered him at that time, described him to the author as "a grit growing lad, with bare legs an' feet;" adding that he was "very quick-witted and full of fun and tricks: indeed, there was nothing under the sun but he tried to imitate." He was usually foremost also in the sports and pastimes ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... evidently had not in their PRESENT form been aggregated in any previously existing rock. (I have lately seen, in a paper by Smith (the father of English geologists), in the "Magazine of Natural History," that the grains of quartz in the millstone grit of England are often crystallised. Sir David Brewster, in a paper read before the British Association, 1840, states, that in old decomposed glass, the silex and metals separate into concentric rings, and that the silex regains its crystalline structure, as is shown by its action on light.) It ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... 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 into the open box. He would ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... 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
... grit my teeth against De Gex and his unholy hirelings. I would follow and unmask them. I would avenge the innocent girl whom I loved so dearly, even though it ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... 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 ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Darnell got killed 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
... the prostrate man and shook hands with him. "I'm awful glad I met you, Holden. Yo're pure grit all the way through, an' I like to tie to that kind of a man. Don't you worry about nothing; Red can handle this proposition, an' we'll have you in Buckskin by to-morrow night; you'll be riding again ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... follow Black Hawk and to take you with me as soldiers. I mean to do both. There are the flatboats drawn up on the shore, and here are Uncle Sam's men drawn up behind you on the prairie." The volunteers were quick-witted men, and knew true grit when they met it. They dissolved their meeting and crossed the river without Uncle Sam's men being called ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... in the shed-room thar, chile, an' if you hear anybody a-hollerin' an' a-squallin', thes shet your eyeleds an' grit your teeth, bekaze hit'll be your pore ole granny a-tryin' to git even with some ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... They fail, not because they do not know what it is well to do, but because they do not choose to attempt it. And why do they not choose? So far as this question affects middle life, it is largely because so few of us have the grit to face its difficulties, and attack them, when we have to do it with the serious handicap of self-made disadvantages. It is while you are young that you must lay up these stores of living material for the after years; and this is the significance of it all—you can only do it, or you can do it most ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... felt different as we stood there at our last campfire, and I says, 'Hannah, you're a wonder. You are the best of the outfit. It was your money we started on. It was your grit kept me going on when I was for quitting, and you are in every deal I make. You bet I'll let the world know we are partners.' So that's why that signboard went up. Not a bad ad I reckon, for no one sees it without taking notice; ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... be thoroughly washed, and not a particle of grit must be left. A little oil, a crooked needle, and a small piece of soft rag should be procured. The blunt end of the needle should he dipped into the oil, and run round the inside of the lid, first above and then below. The operator will next—his fingers being oiled—press upon the protruded eye ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... 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 ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... do that as well as me; but it is more than a living for yourself you are wanting; you are thinking of Miss Elsie, poor bit lassie, and would fain work for two. I mind well when my sister left the bairns to my care with her dying breath, I felt my heart owre grit. It was more than I, a single woman, with but seven pounds by the year of wages, could hope to do, to keep the bit creatures; but yet it was borne on my mind that I was to do it, and God be praised that He has given ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... in my class at college, but I haven't seen him since. I'd be glad to see him again. A queer, dry fellow, but character and grit to his backbone." "I'd supposed he was younger," said Sherwen. "Anyway, he's comparatively new to the service. His rise is the more remarkable. At present, he's not only our quarantine representative, with full powers, ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... here for me, the Desmonds will gladly give you a home. He made the offer at once, and I know I couldn't leave you in better hands. Full details when we meet. It's a hard blow for us both; but you have grit enough for two, and here's a chance to prove it. Hurry up that ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... 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: ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... moral force and fortune, which are 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 ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... barrel or whistled past our parson's head; but here some of the more orderly of the inhabitants interfered in favour of peace and order, aided curiously enough by the afore-mentioned Maule and Phillips, who warmly espoused the cause of the little Scripture reader. "The little cus has got grit in him," the latter explained, rearing his bulky red-shirted form between the crowd and the object of its anger. "His ways ain't our ways, and we're all welcome to our opinions, and to sling them round from barrels or otherwise if so minded. What I says ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... pen should be held as nearly vertical as possible. Use the cleaning rag frequently. If the ink does not flow freely, after you have made a few strokes, as is frequently the case, gently press together the points. The least grit between the tines will cause an ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... say it, miss,—and thar ain't no love lost between us,—he's a 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 all through. ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... 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 ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... noticed that I would, long ago," said Nevada. "And I'm rather stuck on the snow-storm idea, myself. I surely would hate one of these flowery church noon-weddings. Gilbert, I didn't know you had grit enough to propose it this way. Let's shock 'em—it's our funeral, ...
— Options • O. Henry
... own tail!" Self-dependence was never more luridly expressed. History, climate, social conditions, and the national beverage have all combined (the pundits go on) to make the Scot an individualist, fighting for his own hand. The better for him if it be so; from that he gets the grit that tells. ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... approached by a Mormon who carried a long knife and a stick, and who would follow him, silently whittling. Soon a companion would join this whittler, and then another, until the stranger would find himself fairly surrounded by these armed but silent observers. Unless he was a man of more than ordinary grit, an hour or more of this companionship would convince him that it would be well for him to start ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... scrimmages with the Ingins, she was a crying and hugging Paul as if her heart was broke. After we'd told all we know'd, we asked her to tell us her story, which she did, and it showed she was a woman of grit ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... now; but be 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 with the ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... then crumbled no more; but I was helpless to save myself, for the current had sucked my legs under the ice, and now held them securely there, sweeping them from side to side, all the while tugging as if to wrench me from my hold. The most I could do was to resist the pull, to grit my teeth and cling to the advantage I had. It was for John ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... man's fight against a river and of a struggle between honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... said collectedly. "Don't row with me, because you haven't either the grit to stick to your ideas or the heart to confess them wrong. We've followed your lead, and—here we are! The camp's broken up—the Old Man's gone—and we're going. And as for the ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... and unclean. The parents did not seem to have either strength, grit or intelligence to fit them for any useful life. But they could creep forth and beg, the woman could stand in the gutter with a little bit of mortality wrapped in her old shawl, for tender-hearted passers-by to see its wizened face, and the father could ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... man could thus hale her home at will! It was grotesque, fantastic, awful, but—it was true! Next Tuesday she would journey back away from him to be again at the mercy of her Fate! The pain of this thought made him grip the railing, and grit his teeth, to keep himself from crying out. And another thought came to him: I shall have to go about with this feeling, day and night, and keep ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... hands with Mungo, and, after fastening his comforter about his neck, wished him a good journey, we saw him mounted on the front of limping Jamie's cart; and, as he drove away, I must confess my heart was grit. I could not help running up the stair, and pulling up the fore-window to get a long look after him. Away, and away they wore; in a short time, the cart took a turn and disappeared; and, when I drew down the window, and sauntered, with my arms crossed, back to the workshop, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... as it happened, was unhurt. Picking himself up, digging his heels into the moraine of plaster, and brushing the grit from his eyes, he had the pleasure of recognising Lord Rattley, the Parson, Mr. Humphry Felix-Williams (son of Sir Felix), and Mr. Batty, as they scrambled forth successively, black with dust but unhurt, save that ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the teeth of Denver grit, as though the yegg were being driven on into this madcap venture merely by a pride which would not allow him to show less courage—even rash courage—than ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... old lad! Home's in sight; you have borne My burden, and that of my basket, right well, Your carrying power some neighbours would scorn, But you're sound and good grit, though you mayn't look a swell. We're starting, lad, after our short half-way halt, If we don't make good time it ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... call spunk, Elnora! Downright grit," said Wesley Sinton. "Don't you let them laugh you out. You've helped Margaret and me for years at harvest and busy times, what you've earned must amount to quite a sum. You can get yourself a good many clothes ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... rocky flooring, the carbonic acid in the water acting chemically on the stone in addition to the wearing force of the element. Once a shallow channel is worn, new forces set to work to deepen it: sand, pebbles and grit of all kinds, washed down by the current, grind and wear away the rock. In course of time great depths are hollowed out, and if it happens that some obstacle turns the course of the water, and the river finds a new outlet, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... reckon I'd taken toll too often to be very profitable. But in this way I always kept a-goin'—never got down underfoot so the stronger ones could tread on me. When it comes to that, I want to die. Now if you've got plenty of clear grit—Leetle disposed to show the white feather though, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... 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 favour, in ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... valley. A merry cavalcade, indeed, we started—Harry leading the way at his usual slap-dash pace, so that one, less a workman than himself, would have said he went up hill and down at the same break-neck pace, and would take all the grit out of his team before he had gone ten miles—while a more accurate observer would have seen, at a glance, that he varied his rate at almost every inequality of road, that he quartered every rut, avoided every jog or mud-hole, husbanded for the very best his horses' ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... their hearts; but she thought that Dick was a little too brusque, a little too clownish, to be quite a gentleman. And though Lily was perfectly ladylike, in Constance's opinion she lacked backbone, or grit, or independence of spirit. Further, Constance considered that the disparity of age between them was excessive. It is to be doubted whether, when all was said, Constance had such a very great deal to learn from the self-confident wisdom of these ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... eyes glowed, As thro' the whirling gloom she rode, Her laboring breath drawn sharply in; Pitted against yon rushing wheels Were tireless grit and trusty heels, And with God's favor they might win! And soon along the perilous line Flamed out the lurid warning sign, While round her staggering horse the crowd Surged with wild cheers and plaudits loud.— And this is how, thro' flood ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... plumber's labourer (all these men who are somebody's "labourers" are poor samples of humanity, evidently lacking in grit, and destitute of ability to do any work which would mean decent wages). Judging from appearances, they will do nothing well. They are a kind of automaton, with the machinery rusty; slow, dull, and incapable. The man of ordinary intelligence leaves them in the rear. They could doubtless earn ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... clear: man cannot live in a universe of uninterpreted facts. The scientific approach to life is not enough. It does not cover all the ground. Men want to know what life spiritually means and they want to know that it "means intensely, and means good." Facts alone are like pieces of irritating grit that get into the oyster shell; the pearl of life is created by the interpretations ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... it," continued Jenkins, in his loud voice. "Without grit there's nothing done. That's what I ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... to it, and it utters no empty phrases, but music with a sting in its tail. It acts differently upon different people: some find it rich in national sweetness; some of us are rather constrained to grit our teeth and howl in melancholy wise. Never was stinging music ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... 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 ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... that the internal part was divided into interior or central, exterior or cortical. The exterior part, which in different specimens occupied various proportions of the whole, resembled a fine white and soft grit-stone; but acids being applied, showed it to be combined with a considerable portion of calcareous matter. The interior or central part was always circular, but seldom found of the same diameter, or of ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... Creation, in finding Yew and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, all as aforesaid, established in a country where the people air not absolute Loo- naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a Nip and Frizzle to the innermostest grit! Wheerfur—Theer!—I la'af! I Dew, ma'arm. I la'af!" And so he went, stamping and shaking his sides, along the platform all the way to ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... known all over the world for their stamina, for the grit and tenacity with which they can play a losing game; nay, it is even reported that they have frequently turned a losing game into a victory by this very capacity for ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... topic of the lost boy, Harry, is introduced, and later on a boy who 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 ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... the season, give it an overhauling. Grass and grit will creep in, and unless it is removed the efficiency of the machine ...
— Making a Lawn • Luke Joseph Doogue
... admiration to the man, who — together with his gallant companions — had planted his country's flag so infinitely nearer to the goal than any of his precursors. Sir Ernest Shackleton's name will always be written in the annals of Antarctic exploration in letters of fire. Pluck and grit can work wonders, and I know of no better example of this than what ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... of operations, and the elimination of grit from the machinery, therefore become the concern of all, directing their thought and purpose to the doing of whatever needs to be done to further the harmony and efficiency of the establishment, taking personal action where ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... toward which both great and small of the scientific world are bending eager steps. . . . The career of Marvin reads like a romance, and he has fought his way to his present enviable position by sheer grit, and ability, having had to combat with all the narrow criticism and misconceptions usual in the case of a progressive thinker in a small town. Indeed, it is said that even now his native village fails to recognize the honor ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... not 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
... "Pure grit, that feller," when, working like a snowplow, Bruce had disappeared. "He's man all through." The old voice trembled. "Say!" He turned ferociously. ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... yer father cam to the throne—there cam at his back a fearsome storm, sic as comes but seldom in a life lang as mine, an' sic 'at his lordship cudna win awa'. Thereupon yer father, that is, yer gran'father,—or it wad be yer grit-gran'father—I'm turnin' some confused amo' ye: ye aye keep comin'!—onyhoo, he gae the captain a kent like,'at he wad du weel to offer his room til's lordship. But wad he, think ye? Na, no him! He grew reid, an' syne as white's the aisse, an' luikit to be i' the awfu'est ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... he needed a man with a cool head, good sense, great courage, and, above all, what boys call "grit;" for whoever should go would have to make his way for many hundreds of miles through a trackless wilderness, over mountains and rivers, and among hostile Indians. Young Washington had already shown what stuff he was made of, and, young as he was, he was regarded as a remarkable ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... grit and you'll 'make the riffle,' sure. But you must live more regularly, now that you are to have a salary. I know what it means to live as you've been doing. I used to do it myself. I could tell to a cent the nutritive value of a pegged pie or a sewed one, and at a ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... nearly dying from a bad septic wound of his right arm. I judged that he might possibly survive an amputation, but that the loss of the breadwinner's limb would have been just as bad, as far as his family was concerned, as the death of the patient. There was nothing to do but grit one's teeth and take chances. I remained with him throughout the night, and in the morning was glad to detect some ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... 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 ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... man of bronze, who does not snivel or weep. I like Wigfall for his physique and his magnificent courage. It is the genuine thing. There is no put on there. He has native pluck—the actual article—and it is no strain on him to exhibit it. The grit is in him, and ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... he has nerve. It's in the family. Just look at that girl! Still, it did require some grit to sign his name in the hotel register and then calmly sit down to write a letter telling his people not to worry about him. I've known a few rum cases in my time, but ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... Woodhouse, full of fine shades, ranging from the dark of coal-dust to grit of stone-mason and sawdust of timber-merchant, through the lustre of lard and butter and meat, to the perfume of the chemist and the disinfectant of the doctor, on to the serene gold-tarnish of bank-managers, ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... Jackson as wide as my blanket where a bumbshell hadn't buried itself and blown up, and every minute we were lookin' for the magazine to go! Those awful shells! they'd torn both levees, the forts were flooded, men who'd lost their grit were weeping like children—" ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... not very clever in a literary or scientific point of view, was no fool. She had, in fact, under all her softness of manner, a great deal of that real hard grit which shrewd, worldly people call common sense. She saw through all the illusions of fancy and feeling, right to the tough material core of things. However soft and tender and sentimental her habits of ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... objectors at Newhaven have complained that their food often contains sandy substances. It seems a pity that the authorities cannot find some better way of getting a little grit ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... meaninglessness, that to turn to Stevenson's books is like an escape into mountain air from the stagnant vapours of a morass. The exact reproduction of conversation as it occurs in life can only be undertaken by one whose natural dulness feels itself incommoded by wit and fancy as by a grit in the eye. Conversation is often no more than a nervous habit of body, like twiddling the thumbs, and to record each particular remark is as much as to describe each particular twiddle. Or in its more intellectual uses, when speech is employed, for instance, to conceal ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... makin' my bed for me, Smoothin' the grass where I'm goin' to flop, When the quails roost up in the live-oak tree, And my legs feel like as they want to stop. Pal or no pal, it's about the same, For nobody knows how you feel inside. Hittin' the grit is a lonesome game,— But quit it? No matter how hard I tried. But mebby I will when that inside song Stops a-buzzin' like bees that's mad, Grumblin' together: 'There's nothin' wrong!' And—after the coffee ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... process is pure Lucca oil, which does not clagg; and the next, specially prepared pumice stone powder, which must be as fine as flour; and should there be any doubt about its being absolutely free from specks of grit, filter it through fine muslin or silk, and only use that which ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... memory of the camp, the knowledge of the life he led there; even the sight of his own legs in that abhorrent khaki. He felt as if the hideous cloth went into his blood and made it gritty and dirty. Then Winifred so ready to serve the soldier, when she repudiated the man. And this made the grit worse between his teeth. And the children running around playing and calling in the rather mincing fashion of children who have nurses and governesses and literature in the family. And Joyce so lame! It had all ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... if intelligently taught, can be learned in six months' training, though one feels bound to add it requires moral "grit" in the character to make one unswervingly faithful in observing it. The midwife, too, should run no risk of carrying infection from others, ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... that of playing cards, his bracing advice would run—"In playing cards it is very necessary to avoid the mistake (commonly made by maudlin humanitarians and Free Traders) of permitting your opponent to win the game. You must have grit and snap and go in to win. The days of idealism and superstition are over. We live in a time of science and hard common sense, and it has now been definitely proved that in any game where two are playing IF ONE DOES NOT WIN THE OTHER WILL." It is all very stirring, of course; but I confess ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... cried Deering, excitedly; "why, his sharp young eyes detected the one little bit of grit in the wheel that stopped the whole of the works. Lee, my dear old friend, I can look you triumphantly in the face again, and say that your money is not lost, for I can return it, tenfold—Do you hear, Mrs Lee, tenfold, twentyfold, if you like; and as for you—You black-looking young rascal!" he ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... appear like as though luck had helped you much when I found you, Walt," remarked the captain, dryly. "It sorter looked to me like only hard work an' an amazin' lot of pluck an' grit had ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... come, son," said the coach, kindly. "Don't you fret. I think you're improving, and, to be frank with you, there's lots of room for it. But you've got grit, and that's what I like ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... sniggered Jefferson Flinders, 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
... you say 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 |
