"Dirt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had said thus he pulled out a piece of an earthen pot baked hard in the sun. "Here," says he, "is some of the dirt of this country, and if I would I could have got a great deal more;" and, showing it to us, I believe there was in it between two and three pounds weight of gold-dust, of the same kind and colour with that we had gotten already, as ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... Dolly said, with a frown. "We've got company, and you are both as black as the pot. If I were you I'd certainly stop at the branch and wash the dirt off ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... o' Hornbook's way; [sample] Thus goes he on from day to day, Thus does he poison, kill an' slay, An's weel pay'd for't; Yet stops me o' my lawfu' prey Wi' his damn'd dirt. ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... stepped between him and the door. "Uncle Jas," he said, "mostly I got a lot of respect for you and what you think. Tonight I don't care what you or anybody else has to say. Just one thing matters. I feel I've been living in the dirt. I'm going out and see ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... "Ghosts," in which I sought to show that man had been controlled in the past by phantoms created by his own imagination; in which the pencil of fear had drawn pictures for him on the canvass of superstition, and that men had groveled in they dirt before their own superstitious creations. I endeavored to show that man had received nothing from these ghosts but hatred, blood, ignorance and unhappiness, and that they had filled our world with woe and tears. This is what ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... Tog said placatingly, though with a mocking background in her tone. "Name of Bakunin. And very pleasant, too, from what little I've seen. Not a bit of smog, industrial fumes, street dirt, street noises—" ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... gold and silver to have been the causes of all the calamities of the republic. "I know not," says he, "by what weak compliance those metals are suffered to remain in the hands of suspected persons. Let us degrade and vilify gold and silver, let us fling those deities of monarchy in the dirt, and establish the worship of the austere virtues of the republic," adding, by way of exemplification of his virtuous abhorrence, "I send you seventeen chests filled with gold, silver, and plate of all sorts, the spoil ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... filled with the confusion of odds and ends that make up the belongings of such a home. A feeble fire rested on the uneven bricks of the fireplace, and the chimney above was covered with newspapers in the last stages of dilapidation and dirt. There was no window, but a little sliding shutter, moved aside a few inches, admitted light enough to make the darkness visible as it fell on the smoke-stained boards, and the dusky faces of the inmates seated close ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., May, 1888., No. 5 • Various
... my lodgings is always to avoid a thick and stinking air; and those beautiful cities, Venice and Paris, very much lessen the kindness I have for them, the one by the offensive smell of her marshes, and the other of her dirt. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... clutch, a bad old man's. A face rounded and smoothed by some half-dozen years, but pinched and twisted by the experiences of a life. Bright eyes, but not youthful. Naked feet, beautiful in their childish delicacy,—ugly in the blood and dirt that cracked upon them. A baby savage, a young monster, a child who had never been a child, a creature who might live to take the outward form of man, but who, within, would live and perish a ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... bales from the yarding machines now counts off the number of yards and cuts the bale in accordance with these directions. Some material she inspects yard by yard for imperfections and dirt. After marking the yards on the cut piece, she sends it on to the folder if it is clean, and if it is spotted, to girls who wash out the spots and press the cloth.[52] On other material, imperfections are marked by the girl at the yarding machine, by ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... that very much—and then when Julie has a great success, when people begin to come to Bruton Street, for her sake as well as Lady Henry's, then Lady Henry turns against her, complains of her to everybody, talks about treachery and disloyalty and Heaven knows what, and begins to treat her like the dirt under her feet! How can Julie help being clever and agreeable—she is clever and agreeable! As Mr. Montresor said to me yesterday, 'As soon as that woman comes into a room, my spirits go up!' And why? Because she never thinks of herself, she always makes other people show at their best. ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... man, with a thin, bronzed face and high cheek-bones; the features seemingly depicted in a moment of convulsive agitation. He wore a flowing Asiatic costume. Dusty and defaced as the portrait was, Tchartkoff saw, when he had succeeded in removing the dirt from the face, traces of the work of a great artist. The portrait appeared to be unfinished, but the power of the handling was striking. The eyes were the most remarkable picture of all: it seemed as though ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... put before him without giving a thought to it. When his eyes wandered round the kitchen the disorder and dirt worried him, but on that subject he could not speak. His hunger appeased, he looked steadily at Amy, and ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... to know that she was lowborn. From her usual costume you would have taken her for a German comedian. Her dress had been bought at a secondhand shop; it was very old-fashioned, and covered with silver and dirt. She had a dozen orders, and as many portraits of saints or relics, fastened all down her dress, in such a way that when she walked you would have thought by the jingling that a mule was passing." She could neither read nor ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... these shelves will be to keep clean than a bookcase! No polishing. Just a rub, and a wipe with a damp cloth now and then. And no dirt underneath. They will do away with four corners, anyhow. That's what I think of—eh, poor Maggie! Keeping all this clean. There'll be work for two women night and day, early and late, and even then—But ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... meeting, however, in another place, the Dingleyans were more successful; but on the 22nd of March, when they went to present the address, they were beset by a countless mob, shouting, "Wilkes and liberty—liberty and Wilkes for ever!" They were even pelted with dirt from the kennels, and assailed with every species of violence and insult. A hearse was dragged before them, covered with paintings, representing the death of Allen, in St. George's-fields, and the murder at Brentford by Sir William Proctor's chairmen. So violent was the conduct ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... time to time to keep you going. There were slaves,—armies of them; to have no more than a dozen personal attendants was poverty. There were slaves from the East to minister to your vices; some might cost as much as five thousand dollars; and there were dirt-cheap Sardinians and 'barbarians' of all sorts to run your estates and farms. All the work of Italy was done by slave labor; and the city swarmed with an immense slave population; the country slaves with enough ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... keys in a row, on the seat at his side. Looking from one to the other before he began the cleansing operations, he started, picked out one key, and held it up to the light. There was something inscribed on the handle, under a layer of rust and dirt. He snatched up his materials, and set to work with such good will that the inscription became visible in a few minutes. He could read it plainly—"Pink-Room Cupboard." A word followed which was not quite so intelligible to him—the word "Duplicate." ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... be the former, as was really the case. In a few seconds the Indian began drawing up the lasso again, and a short time thereafter the roll of blanket was brought to the surface. It was carefully examined by all the group. The dirt on it proved that it had rested on the bottom of the cave, but there were no marks to show that it had received any attention at the hands of ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... some taste in them. Give us them.' And so some of you say, 'The offer of pardon is of no use to me, for I am not troubled with my sin. The offer of purity has no attraction to me, for I rather like the dirt and wallowing in it. The offer of a heaven of your sort is but a dreary prospect to me. And so I turn away from the hands that offer precious things.' The man who is blind to the God that beams, lambent and loving, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... little hold-up and the Oriental rugs, and it was full of polished floors and monogram silverware and fancy pottery and framed prints, and other bang-up-to-date incumbrances. But in two hours thirty boys can change a whole lot of scenery. They had spread dirt and sand over the floor, had ripped out the curtains and chased the pictures. They had poked out a window-light or two, had unhung a few doors, and had filled the corners with saddles, old clothes, flour barrels and dogs. You never saw so many dogs. The whole neighborhood had been raided. ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... entry gives the total number of airports. The runway(s) may be paved (concrete or asphalt surfaces) or unpaved (grass, dirt, sand, or gravel surfaces), but must be usable. Not all airports have facilities for refueling, maintenance, or ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... the red-cross centre hung limp and drenched over the stables and barns. In the corn-field beyond, long trenches were being dug for the dead. Already two such trenches had been filled and covered over with dirt; and at the head of each soldier's grave a bayonet or sabre was driven into the ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... their direction. But you need freshening up a bit, and I'll wager you are hungry. I will send a man with you to my quarters. You will find soap and water there and a tin basin. The accommodations are a little primitive and not quite up to the Mariella's, but you can get some of the dirt out of those cuts. We will sup here when you are ready. Washington, you know the way to the mess-room. Go and fill up that empty stomach of yours and then return to me. You go back to Captain Morgan ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... sequins, for I have to give a feast to-day, and need much gold. Who will give fifty thousand?" And he again fell to capering and dancing. But this time the merchants drew a little apart, and some of the oldest and wisest said, "What dirt is this which the prince would have us swallow? If his godmother were well, why should he sell his stokh? Bismillah! The olives are old and the jar is broken!" When Prince Badfellah perceived them whispering, his countenance fell, and his knees smote against each other through fear,—but, dissembling ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... drew nigh to a very miry slough that was in the midst of the plain: and they, being heedless, did both fall suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was Despond. Here, therefore, they wallowed for a time, being grievously bedaubed with dirt; and Christian, because of the burden that was on his back, began to sink in ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... so," she cried hysterically, "I suppose so! I shall have to go through another scene and be spoken to as if—as if I were dirt under these women's feet instead of being as far above them in—in position and education and refinement as the clouds. Why can't I have peace—just a little peace and quiet? Why must I always have to undergo ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... changed by living among Indians and blacks: their eyes seemed to resemble those of a pig; their complexions were like the color of foul linen; they seemed to have no teeth, and to be covered over with rags and dirt. This prejudice, however, was not against these people only, but against all Europeans in general, when compared to the sparkling eyes, ivory teeth, shining skin, and remarkable cleanliness of those I had left ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... it up; one of the corners was torn and frayed rather badly, and the whole cloth was covered with grass-stains and dirt. "You can see for yourself," she said wrathfully; "and it a new ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... with the ones that got my money. It was eat or be eaten. I went after the suckers. There was never a man did me dirt but I paid him with interest. Of course, it's different now. The Good Book says: 'Do good unto them that harm you.' I guess I would, but I wouldn't recommend no one to try and ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... bell and ordered the steward in bring something to eat and drink, and after eating I occupied a quarter of an hour more in getting rid of the pirate smoke and dirt, and putting on one of his uniforms, for he had no other clothes on board, when I came out, looking not at all ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... to Byzantine customs, were startled by a cry, long, swelling, then mournfully decadent. Glancing in the direction from which it came, they saw a black boat sweeping through the water-way of the Port. A man of dubious complexion, tall and lithe, his scant garments originally white, now stiff with dirt of many hues, a ragged red head-cloth illy confining his coarse black hair, stood in the bow shouting, and holding up a wooden tray covered with fish. The sentinel to whom he thus offered the stock shook his head, but allowed him to pass. At the galley's side there was an ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... Court, when Clara had gone to Castle Richmond. Years were stealing over her. Ah, yes. She knew that full well. All her youth and the pride of her days she had given up for that countess-ship which she now wore so gloomily—given up for pieces of gold which had turned to stone and slate and dirt within her grasp. Years, alas! were fast stealing over her. But nevertheless she had something to give. Her woman's beauty was not all faded; and she had a heart which was as yet virgin—which had hitherto loved no other man. Might not that suffice to cover a few years, seeing that in return ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... improved the quality of sugar, but had raised the return to 9 per cent. of the weight of cane. From the letters which I saw, the process appears to have been tried on a very large scale, with the advantage of filters and a vacuum pan. Where the old mode of leaving half the dirt with the sugar, and boiling up to a temperature of 340 degrees or thereby, is continued, I fear there is not much chance of either bisulphate or anything else making any ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... plant at the Intermediate Shafts, which were located in a high-class residential district, would have been highly objectionable to the neighboring property owners, on account of the attendant noise, smoke, and dirt, and, in addition, the cost of the transportation of fuel would have been a serious burden. Except for the forges and, toward the last, the steam locomotives, not a pound of coal was burned on the work. The use of the bucket and telpher also eliminated most of the objectionable ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • James H. Brace and Francis Mason
... put dirt and small stones on the bottom of your pan, for craw-fish like to burrow and hide themselves in the mud. Feed them with worms and bits of meat. If they live, and you watch them carefully, you will find that the claws they lose will soon ...
— Harper's Young People, October 5, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... in almost at a glance, and notwithstanding that the room was dark. Yet it had two large windows, and they were curtainless. Its gloom came of the thick coating of dirt on their upper panes, and a couple of wire blinds that cut off ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... before he committed himself. Depend upon it, whatever esteem Mr Elliot may have for his own situation in life now, as a young man he had not the smallest value for it. His chance for the Kellynch estate was something, but all the honour of the family he held as cheap as dirt. I have often heard him declare, that if baronetcies were saleable, anybody should have his for fifty pounds, arms and motto, name and livery included; but I will not pretend to repeat half that I used ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... chosen. She turned to him, words of expostulation forming. But his eyes were bright, his look triumphant. He had already dismounted and was poking about here and there, examining everything at hand from a sand-storm stratum at the cliff's foot to loose dirt in the drifts and the hardy, wiry grass growing where it could. Helen turned away with ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... Two dirt-roofed log cabins showed as toy houses, small from distance, and he could see the slender threads of smoke ascending from others, the houses themselves beyond the scope of his vision. The range was taking on fall shades, the gray of the sage relieved by brown ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... "Girls" had always been unwilling to come out to Bellevue because of the distance from their friends and followers, and they now put forth another universally recognized obstacle in the phrase, "I never work out where there is a baby. They make so much dirt." Anastasia O'Hern was there, to be sure—heavy-handed, warm-hearted 'Stashie, who took the new little girl to her loyal spinster heart and wept tears of joy over her safe arrival; but 'Stashie had proved, as Paul ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... flickering about his lips. "Poor boy," he said apologetically, "he can't help it. But it's so, just the same. And I want to ask you to be on the lookout for him always, kid. He's liable to get you some time if he can. It's dirt mean of me to say this about my brother, but I don't want him to do anything like that. He—he might get desperate, don't you see; and—well, just keep your eye skinned, that's all. You—you got to remember, David, that his dad swung for killin' a man. Mebby it's in Ernie's system, too. He's ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... disagreeable sport cannot well be conceived; and when the balls were expended, the dust itself was resorted to, not only fresh, but that which had already been used was gathered up, with whatever dirt it might have become mixed. One rude fellow, with his hand full, sought to entrap his victims into talking, when he would stuff the nasty ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... and careless treatment. Probably its greatest injuries date from that period when, during the stress of the French Revolution, the treasures of the abbey library were hurriedly concealed in underground cellars, and suffered no little from damp and dirt during the period of their incarceration. Many portions of the narrative are either wholly absent or exist in such a fragmentary condition that, like a corrupt Greek text, they have to be restored by the desperate process of guesswork. Those, therefore, who ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... better defense, as of more safety, and one that can be maintained; and it is one of more opportunity and range; as, when we build a house, the rule is, to set it not too high nor too low, under the wind, but out of the dirt. ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... boilers the baffling is such as to render ineffective certain portions of the heating surface, due to the tendency of soot and dirt to collect on or behind baffles, in this way causing the interposition of a layer of non-conducting material between the hot ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... of this place—the back overlooked the river, while the front was on the by-road—and here the habitual revellers, the haunters, whose scored crosses lent the creaking shutters an unnatural whiteness over their weather-beaten surface, dark with age and dirt, loved to linger of a summer evening, and ply the noggin and ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... every request of your child. Allow them some privilege, let them engage in certain plays. Do not be so fastidious in your home that the little ones can not have a little play indoors. Certainly they should be taught to be clean, to remove dirt from their shoes before coming into the house, and not to tumble things all up in the room, yet they should not be expected to ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... Kitty Cat visited the kitchen a little later there wasn't a speck of dirt on her coat. And her face was spotless. No one would have guessed that she had ever made her way through ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... with the accumulated dirt of ages; but he affirmed them to be clean. He was going to visit a lady that was nice about those things, and that's the reason he wore nankeen that day. And then he danced, and capered, and fidgeted, and pulled up his pantaloons, and hugged ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... are dear to him, except through natural causes. But no man can feel this as things are now; and so we go on, pushing and pulling, climbing and crawling, thrusting aside and trampling underfoot; lying, cheating, stealing; and then we get to the end, covered with blood and dirt and sin and shame, and look back over the way we've come to a palace of our own, or the poor-house, which is about the only possession we can claim in common with our brother-men, I don't think the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... done that! Where were they? He dropped the leading strap, leaving the weary horses where they stood, and ran forward to enter the cabin and see the evidence of Indians all about. There were the clean-picked bones of their feast and the dirt from their feet on Amalia's carefully kept floor. The disorder smote him, and he ran out again in the sun. Looking this way and that, he called and listened and called again. Why did no answer reach him? Poor Amalia! In her ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... Bryant's mind from the first: a Pueblo contractor of Irish extraction, born in a railroad camp, trained on a dump, and now grizzled and aging but unequalled in handling men, in keeping them satisfied, in moving dirt. In his time he had turned off jobs from Maine to California, from Wisconsin to Texas. Already along the hillside a yellow gash was deepening from the dam site through the fenced fields where ran the right of way; while in the Pinas, low at this season, the traverse section ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... blindly I trusted that boy! I heard rumors about him, and turned a deaf ear to them. I knew he was inclined to be dissolute and extravagant, but I never dreamed of this! To drag the name of Chesney in the dirt! My nephew a liar and a traitor, a scoundrel of the blackest dye to a confiding friend, a seducer, a tout for money-lenders, a consort of blood-sucking Jews! By heavens, I will confront him and hear the truth from his own lips! ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... did this Province of diggers in dirt and gutters of fish send forth Rabbis? Thou makest ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... which I saw the other day a simple, paltry wreath of immortelles, yellow immortelles, brought thither by whom? Possibly by the last grisette, very old and now janitress in the neighborhood. It is a pretty little statue by Millet, but ruined by dirt and neglect. Sing ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... eagerness of the Yankee, so much despised in the Richmond prints, in disposing of half-starved chickens and heavy hoe-cakes at extortionate prices. With their dickering propensities there was an amount of dirt on their persons and about the premises, and roughness in their manners, that did great discredit to ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... settling, I can give you a chance of some of the finest lots of land ever offered for sale in Montcalm township. A friend of mine has a beautiful farm there that would just suit you; best part cleared and under fence—fine water privilege—land in good heart, and going, I may say, dirt cheap.' ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... cuffs of his shirt He had managed to get What we hoped had been dirt, But which proved, I regret, To be notes on the Rise of the Drama A question ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... appellation of this woman—was not attractive. Her face was of a colour much resembling Vandyke Brown. It was a woman's face, yet it resembled a man's, not excepting the whiskers, which seemed to grow vigourously, as it fertilized by the dirt which her uncleanly habits allowed to accumulate on ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... Hen started for the henhouse. And after her crept Grumpy Weasel, hoping that nobody else would see him. So far as he could tell, the hens were all out of doors, scratching in the dirt. But suddenly Mrs. Hen's jealous neighbor began to set up a great squawking, calling upon Mrs. Hen to be careful, for she ...
— The Tale of Grumpy Weasel - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... hydrophobia. Whatever the inside of the platter may be, the outside is far from clean. They walk by day and they sleep by night in the same old snuffy robe, which is not kept from contact with the skin by any luxury of linen, until it is worn out. Dirt and piety seem to them synonymous. Sometimes I have deemed, foolishly perhaps, but after the manner of my nation, that their goodness would not wash off with the soil of the skin,—that it was more than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... having lately been detected. At first it was believed that underpinning the central piers would secure the stability of the whole. This was done, as well as the shoring and strutting to the gables of the two outer arches. The clearing away of the dirt and rubbish, and the cleaning of the groining, disclosed greater danger than had been expected, and the architect recommended the rebuilding of parts of the gables. Before acting on this advice the Restoration Committee took the opinion of Sir A.W. Blomfield, and his report not only ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... war is it? The capitalists'. You're fightin' for Morgan and Rockefeller to save their investments and to help 'em to grind you into the dirt. England and France and America are all land-grabbers. They're ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... was terrible in that narrow space into which the people were huddled, and men and women were mixed together. All the women who were not dead drunk slept with men; and women with two children did the same. The sight was terrible, on account of the poverty, dirt, rags, and terror of the people. And it was chiefly dreadful on account of the vast numbers of people who were in this situation. One lodging, and then a second like it, and a third, and a tenth, and a ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... visit was brightly polished, was now a greenish-black, and there came from it an unpleasant odor of verdigris. The walls were fairly coated with dust, smoke, and fly-specks, and the windows let in the light but feebly through the dirt-obscured glass. The floor was filthy. Behind the bar, on the shelves designed for a display of liquors, was a confused mingling of empty or half-filled decanters, cigar-boxes, lemons and lemon-peel, old newspapers, glasses, a broken pitcher, a hat, a soiled vest, and a pair ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... anywhere you must scour your head every two or three days or it is full of grit. Your clothes must collect just as much dirt as your hair. If you wear white clothes you are clean, and your cleaning bill gets so heavy that you have to take care. I am proud to say that I can wear a white suit of clothes without a blemish for three days. If you need any further instruction in the matter of clothes ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ones? Who shall restore the lost to broken families? Who shall bring back the squandered treasure, the years of industry wasted, and convince you that four years of guilty rebellion and cruel war are no more than dirt upon the hand, which a moment's washing removes and leaves the hand clean as before? Such a war reaches down to the very vitals of society. Emerging from such a prolonged rebellion, he is blind who tells you that the State, by a mere amnesty ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... or tumbled in the dirt with a heartier glee than did Gideon, but no warrior, not even his illustrious prototype himself, ever kept sterner discipline in his ranks when his followers seemed prone to overstep the bounds of right. At a ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... four shoats on board, which had been kept in the launch, until that boat was put into the water, the night the Rancocus ran upon the rocks. Since that time they had been left to run about the decks, producing a good deal of dirt, and some confusion. These shoats Bob now caught, and dropped into the bay, knowing that their instinct would induce them to swim for the nearest land. All this turned out as was expected, and the pigs were soon seen on the island, snuffing around on the rocks, and trying to root. A small ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... into the Pyramids is a terrible task, which should be undertaken by no lady. Those who perform it have to creep down, and then to be dragged up, through infinite dirt, foul smells, and bad air; and when they have done it, they see nothing. But they do earn the gratification of saying that they have been ...
— An Unprotected Female at the Pyramids • Anthony Trollope
... is not commonly practiced, but this is the easiest means of preventing dampness in the house and is necessary in heavy soils. The ground-level may be raised with a plow and scraper, or the foundation of the house may be built and filled with dirt. ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... bridge; Oh fountain, where the cattle throng And sheep come trooping all day long, With Hans to urge them on their way. And Eva on the piebald gray! Ye storks and swallows with your clatter, And sparrows, how I'll miss your chatter! For every bit of dirt seems dear Which o'er my form you used to smear. Goodby, my worthy friend the pastor, And you, poor driveling old schoolmaster. 'Tis o'er, what cheered my heart so long. The sound ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... imputation on his personal liberty that Mealy resented. He replied "Uh-huh! you just bet your bottom dollar I can." Piggy began teasing again, but Abe silenced him, and the boys sat in the dirt behind the barn, chattering about the new boy, whose name, according to the others, was "Bud" Perkins. Mealy entered the conversation with much masculine pomp—too much, in fact; for when he became particularly vain-glorious some one in the group ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... the opposing quarter between him and the goal line, raced like the wind. About him was a roaring babel of sound, voices urging him on, shouts of dismay, imploring shrieks from behind. Then the quarter was before him, crouching with out-reached hands, a strained, anxious look on his dirt-streaked face. ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the samurai, first of all is righteousness; next life, then silver and gold. These last are of value, but some put them in the place of righteousness. But to the samurai even life is as dirt compared to righteousness. Until the middle part of the middle ages customs were comparatively pure, though not really righteous. Corruption has come only during this period of government by the samurai. A maid servant in ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... well enough," he answered sulkily, "Look at the minister there, glaring at me as I was dirt. Sure, didn't I marry the girl, and got intil a hell of a row over it with the oul' fella! And what's he got to glare at? There's no need to be giving you good advice about weemen, John, for you're well able to take care of yourself as far as ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... may help in capturing small prey, or they may be used when the creature has to fight a larger enemy. They are also certainly of use as cleansing tools. That is to say, they can pick off tiny scraps of weed or dirt which settle on the animal's body. Some Starfishes also own pincers of this sort, but they are not so perfect as those of the funny little Urchin. We must not forget that all these spines, tube-feet, and pincers are worked by a ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith
... but this may be mere local prejudice in a Selkirk man. To keep them clean costs money; and, though improvements are often promised, I cannot see much change—for the better. Abbotsford, luckily, is above Galashiels, and only receives the dirt and dyes of Selkirk, Peebles, Walkerburn, and Innerleithen. On the other hand, your ill-omened later dwelling, "the unhappy palace of your race," is overlooked by villas that prick a cockney ear among their larches, hotels of ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... of light, of truth, of definite knowledge, concerning life and its origin; concerning God and His nature? If I were only an old Greek, how I would pray to Minerva for help, and call upon Hercules to remove this Augean dirt, that pollutes and lumbers all the chambers of my mind! But when the old Greeks called, were they answered? Ah, there is ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... she said regretfully, "and I've always felt set on being free and independent. But it's no use. I'd never have a minute's peace of mind again, thinking of David living here in dirt and disorder, and him so particular and tidy by nature. No, it's my duty, plain and clear, to come here and make things pleasant for him—the pointing of Providence, as you might say. The worst of it is, I'll have to tell ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... blistered, peeled, and abominable, and it was given over to the sportings and spoutings of devils who threw mud, and steam, and dirt at each other with whoops, and halloos, ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... at in the Yahoos, was their strange disposition to nastiness and dirt; whereas there appears to be a natural love of cleanliness in all other animals." As to the two former accusations, I was glad to let them pass without any reply, because I had not a word to offer upon them ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... agreeable to the palate. I can't say that it worked on our sensibilities in just that way. But it is the old story of de gustibus, etc. We see the Fond du Lac people this evening roasting upon the coals, as choice tit-bits, the stomachs of the whitefish. Scraping the dirt and ashes from the blackened morsel, they offer it to us as one would pass the olives in those lands so far below us where people wear dress-suits and railroads run. It is all a matter of latitude, after all, for when a bottle of olives ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... they have been well fed, even from a calf, the better the hide. From what has been said of the effect of weather upon the hide, it seems a natural conclusion that a hide is better from an ox that has been fed in the open air, than from one that has been kept in the barn. Dirt adhering to a hide injures it, particularly in stall-fed animals; and any thing that punctures a hide, such as warbles arising from certain insects, is also injurious. The best hides are obtained from the West Highlanders. The Short Horns produce ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... the vicinity of the Marsh-gate and Victoria Theatre present an appearance of dirt and discomfort on such a night, which the groups who lounge about them in no degree tend to diminish. Even the little block-tin temple sacred to baked potatoes, surmounted by a splendid design in variegated lamps, looks less gay than usual, and as to the kidney-pie stand, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... sweetness, and live long in the land and see good days. No: lying is so deeply rooted in nature that we may expel it with a fork, and yet it will always come back again: it is like the poor, we must have it always with us. We must all eat a peck of moral dirt before ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... it was Miss Maggie as pushed her in," said Sally; "Master Tom's been and said so, and they must ha' been to the pond, for it's only there they could ha' got into such dirt." ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... slicked things up! You're not goin' to scrub the dirt floor, are you? Well, well, this looks like business— just the place for chickens. Wonder old man Jamison didn't keep 'em here; but he didn't care for fowls. Now I think of it, there's to be a vandoo the first of the week, and ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... spectacle, burning hot with enthusiasm. Whatever we do, he overdoes, till I recollect how Wilkes said he had never been a Wilkite. Three days ago, a portentous-looking ammonite attracted his attention; and whereas he started from the notion that earth was dirt, and stones were stones, the same all over the world, he has since so far outstripped his instructors, that as I write this he is drawing a plan of the strata, with the inhabitants dramatically ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dead things; you would not care to bathe in it. Well, still and stuffy air in a house is very much worse, only, unluckily, its dangers cannot be seen, but they are there lying in ambush for the ignorant person. Disease germs, poisonous gases, mildew, insects, dust, and dirt have it all their own ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... saucers on table in line. Into first put dirt; into second, water; into third, a ring; into fourth, a rag. Guests are blindfolded and led around table twice; then told to go alone and put fingers into saucer. If they put into dirt, it means divorce; into ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... with us still; The roads are deep in liquid dirt; The rain is wet, the wind is chill, And both are coming through my shirt; And yet my heart is light and gay; I shout aloud, I hum a snatch; Why am I full of mirth? To-day I'm planting my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... went on, after looking round as if unable to understand what the others were laughing at, "if it wasn't for the dirt. Of course it is annoying to be kicked in the shins and to be squeezed horribly in the greases, but it is the dirt I object to most. If one could but get one's flannels and jerseys properly washed every time it would not matter so much, but ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... earth-work behind which I had taken refuge, though shells kept striking and bursting around. My position, however, was favorable for a view of our own batteries, and for observing the effect of the enemy's fire. Sometimes the shells would strike the ground, sending the dirt many feet into the air, and go tearing across the field, touching the ground and bounding again at intervals. Others would strike the earth-works, or explode in the air, and hurl their fragments far and near, whizzing and buzzing ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... later in the afternoon Janet made her solemnly promise that henceforward she would consider Willie Jones as dirt beneath her feet. It was neither the time nor the place for Margery to ask herself whether she really wished to make such a promise, for, in the presence of so fiery an apostle of female rights, her private inclinations simply shriveled to fine ...
— A Little Question in Ladies' Rights • Parker Fillmore
... watching her mother working among the flowers. "Mama, I know why flowers grow," she said; "they want to get out of the dirt." ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... many fainted, but the women soon brought the victims to consciousness by dashing an olla of water in their faces, and with yells of delight witnessed the renewal of the poor fellows' agonies. I was so completely disguised in dirt, that the flies seemed to pass me by in despair; and being thus in a measure relieved, I turned my attention to my companion on my right, the trapper. He seemed to be taking things very quietly, and evinced great patience and fortitude ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... not fond of dirt, but I could kneel down and kiss this mud, so grateful am I to feel solid ground under my feet, after leading the life of a fly for so long,' said Lavinia with emotion, as the three trudged up the wharf at Brest into a sort of barn ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... weak to realise what was done with him. Then she got an empty bottle, filled it from the kettle, and put it to his feet; and finally she brought a bowlful of warm water and a bit of towel, and, sitting down by him, she washed the blood and dirt away from his face and hand, and smoothed down the tangled black hair. She, too, noticed the smell of spirits, and shook her head over it; but her motherliness grew with every act of service, and when she had made him warm and comfortable, and he was dropping into the dead sleep ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... service in hot weather. Sermon ended, Bishop Laud proceeded to his charge to the Clergy, and observing the Church ill repaired without, and slovenly kept within, I am sorry (said He) to meet here with so true an Etymologie of Diaconus, for here is both dust and dirt too, for a Deacon (or Priest either) to work in. Yea it is dust of the worst kind, caused from the mines of this ancient house of God, so that it pittieth his[1] servants to see her in the dust. Hence he took occasion to press the repairing of that, and other decaied places of divine ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... industrious man who was willing to sweep the pavement twice a week, carrying off the dirt from before all the doors, for the sum of sixpence a month, to be ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... with the pink dress and the red roses on her hat? When "Pug" snatches a high one out of the firmament we yell with delight, and even as we yell we turn sideways to look up and see how Undine is taking it. Undine's shining eyes are fixed on "Pug," and he knows it, stoops to brush the dust off his dirt-begrimed baseball pants, takes an attitude of careless grace and misses ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... conquered Latin empire, the Latin priesthood, who, in some respects, were—to their honour—the representatives of Roman civilisation and the protectors of its remnants, were the determined enemies of its cleanliness; that they looked on personal dirt—like the old hermits of the Thebaid- -as a sign of sanctity; and discouraged—as they are said to do still in some of the Romance countries of Europe—the use of the bath, as not ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... the province of Chung-Chong-Do as the Italy of Korea, but its beauty and prosperity required seeing to be believed. It afforded an amazing contrast to the dirt and apathy of Seoul. Here every one worked. In the fields the young women were toiling in groups, weeding or harvesting. The young men were cutting bushes on the hillsides, the father of the family preparing new ground for the fresh crop, and the very children ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... dead Indian. He was a miserable object, naked, except a ragged, filthy breech-clout, his figure gaunt, and his legs absolutely scaly with dirt, starvation, and hard living of all sorts. He might well be one of those outcasts who are in disfavor with their savage brethren, lead a precarious existence outside of the tribal organization, and are to the Apaches what the Texas Smiths are to ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... like dirt there, easy to get and to spend. I was all caked in on a dance-hall jade, but she shook me in the end. It put me queer, and for near a year I never drew sober breath, Till I found myself in the bughouse ward with a ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... Hyacinth; 'I shall be all right. But I can't bear to think of you and Mrs. Quinn. Poverty like that in Dublin! Have you thought what it means? A shabby little house in a crowded street, off at the back of somewhere; dirt and stuffiness and vulgarity all around you. She can't be expected ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... Barbara, had rushed to her bedroom, where she burst into a passion of tears. Jaff Chayne, she wailed, had always treated her like dirt. It was true that her father had stuck pigs in the stockyards; but he was of an old Albanian family, quite as good a family as Jaff Chayne's. It had numbered princes and great chieftains, the majority of whom had been most gloriously slain in warfare. She would like to know which of Jaff Chayne's ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... he knew of just the one he wanted. She was a widow who lived a few squares from him. She was as sweet-tempered as a dove, and nobody could find a speck of dirt in her house if he was to search ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... that nobody need expect to do at the parsonage. Just so sure as I make pot pie, Mr. Richmond'll hev to go to a funeral, and it's spiled or lost, for he's no time to eat it; and I never cleaned up that hall and steps yet, but an army of boots and shoes came tramping over it out of the dirt; when if it wants cleaning, it'll get leave to be without a foot crossing it all the afternoon. And if it's bakin' day, I have visitors, and have to run between them and the oven, till I don't know which ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... captain Smith's warm and judicious representations how absurd it was to neglect other things of immediate use and necessity, to load such a drunken ship with gilded dust, yet was he overruled, and her returns were made in a parcel of glittering dirt, which is to be found in various parts of the country, and which they, very sanguinely, concluded ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... to the right, in quarters that Hoke's Division had built. These were the most comfortable quarters we occupied during the war. They consisted of log huts twelve by fourteen, thoroughly chinked with mud and straw, some covered with dirt, others with split boards. We had splendid breastworks in front of us, built up with logs on the inside and a bank of earth from six to eight feet in depth on the outside, a ditch of three or four feet beyond and an escarpment inside. At salients along the line forts for the artillery were ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... time to see the guards about to fire. He dived for a mound of dirt and hid behind it. The energy shock waves licked at the sand where he had stood a second before. Roger got up and ran for better cover, the guards continuing to fire at him. Then, around the cadet, the slave workers ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... the reply. "You just sit still and I'll fly round and kinder hoe out some of this dirt. You don't look as if you had been accustomed to this sort of thing. Why, of the two, now I suppose, if the truth should be known, you are more tired with your work than I am with mine, cross baby and all; just think of it, when I was a girl, a day's work like this ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... Hum! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will scarcely lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... woodwork cracked and the paint came off in blisters, and the dirt that got into the seams and holes and places stayed there. Granville was visited with a plague of fine dust. It settled on everything; it penetrated; it worked its way in everywhere. Violet, going round languidly with a silly feather brush, made ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... parading, her bouquet clasped to her breast. He went over and walked to and fro beside her, studying the flowers. "Those come up out o' the dirt, didn't they?" he mused. "But they're pink and green. And dirt ain't, is it? So how can the roses be like they are? 'R else the ground ought t' be pink on top—that's t' make the flowers—and green 'way down, so's t' grow the stems. And how ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... springy leaves, probing cautiously for dangerous, loose boulders and treacherous slides. When they emerged, it was upon a narrow plateau; the rugged limestone rocks rose on one side, the precipice plunged down on the other. Against the rocks lay patches of snow, grimy with dirt and pebbles; from a cleft the long greenish white threads of "Peter's beard" waved at them; in a hollow bloomed a thicket ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... him to go with me; and at the same time pulling off one of my own garments, I speedily clothed him, or at any rate covered him. I next took him to a bath, scrubbed and oiled him myself, and laboriously rubbed the matted dirt off him. Having done all I could, though tired out myself, I supported his feeble steps, and with great difficulty brought him to my inn. There I made him lie down on a bed, gave him plenty of food, braced him up with wine, and entertained him with the news of the day. Pretty soon our ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... some bushes guarding the entrance to a cave-like depression in the dirt, gravel and rocks. He re-appeared with some packages for his companion. Then both went away ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... theirs by the way. At intervals during the forenoon we stopped at one of the many tea-houses along the road to give the men a chance to rest and smoke and drink tea. Sometimes I stayed in my chair by the roadside; more often I escaped from the noise and dirt of the village to some spot outside, among the rice- and bean-fields, where the pony could gather a few scant mouthfuls of grass while I sat hard-by on a turf balk and enjoyed the quiet and clean air. Of course I was often found out and followed by the village-folk, but their ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... an' snoopin' aroun' dodgin' der coppers; no more stallin' fer der push; no more dirt of no kind—say, I can't git dat jus' ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... volumes will agree with me that the proportion of offensive matter bears a very small ratio to the mass of the work. In an age saturated with cant and hypocrisy, here and there a venal pen will mourn over the "Pornography" of The Nights, dwell upon the "Ethics of Dirt" and the "Garbage of the Brothel"; and will lament the "wanton dissemination (!) of ancient and filthy fiction." This self- constituted Censor morum reads Aristophanes and Plato, Horace and Virgil, perhaps even Martial and Petronius, because "veiled in the decent obscurity of a learned language"; ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... which were spread pieces of dirty blanket to prevent further excoriation of the already bared and reeking back—bridles, the original thickness of which had been doubled by the incrustation of mould and dirt that pertinaciously adhered to them—stirrups and bits, with their accompanying buckles (the absence of curb chains being supplied by pieces of rope) covered with the rust of half a century —all afforded evidence of the wretchedness of resource peculiar to a back settlement population. ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... as the tortured idols of the Chinese; like theirs his eyes were beadlike, expressionless, dull; such are the eyes of dead seal. His face was brown and cracked like old leather, and was covered with a crust of dirt; his gray-streaked hair was matted and straggled over his face; it teemed with lice. He held his knotty hands motionless over the flame of his lamp. His nails were long and curled like sharp talons. As Maisanguaq saw him he could not repress ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... corners, the car skidded and lurched from one side of the narrow roadway to the other; once the embankment crumbled for an instant as a rear wheel raced for a foothold and gained it just in time. Thundering below, Barry could hear the descent of the dirt and small boulders as they struck against protruding rocks and echoed forth to a constantly growing sound that seemed to travel for miles that it might return with the strength of thunder. Then for a moment the sun came again and ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... a Yankee would have thought of such a plan!" exclaimed White, "or had the cheek to carry it out. But it makes me feel as mean as dirt to have run away and left you to ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... safe: in the most magnificent and luxuriously-decorated cafes they had perfect right of way, the contrast between the rich gilding, glass, fountains, etc., of the one, and the rags, dirt, and dramatically got-up horrors of the other being picturesque, but certainly not pleasant; and yet, as Jones remarked, they say this country has not ...
— The Foreign Tour of Messrs. Brown, Jones and Robinson • Richard Doyle
... then squeezed it hard. I see it now, he remarked, and fetching from his pouch a pair of pincers he pulled from the cut a sliver of glass. Wrapping the cloth round it he tied it with a bit of black tape, and told me if I kept dirt out it would heal in a day or two. Asking me where I was going, we had some talk. He told me the parish of Dundonald was a long way off and he did not know anybody in it by the name of Askew. I was on the right road and could find ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar |
