Various

“ Even in great men, like Cromwell, there is something in its aspect which is harsh, ugly, haggard, and ungenial; even in them it is strong by the stifling of many a generous thought and tolerant feeling; and when it descends to animate sterile and stunted natures, endowed with sufficient will to make their meanness or malignity efficient, its unfruitful force is absolutely hateful. It has done good work for the cause of truth and right; but it has also done bad work for the cause of falsehood and wrong: for evil has its grit as well as virtue. ”

“ But again there are others, and their number is legion,—perhaps you and I, reader, may know something of it in ourselves,—who have an instinctive habit of repression in regard to all that is noblest and highest, within them, which they do not feel in their lower and more unworthy nature.
It comes far easier to scold our friend in an angry moment than to say how much we love, honor, and esteem him in a kindly mood. Wrath and bitterness speak themselves and go with their own force; love is shamefaced, looks shyly out of the window, lingers long at the door-latch. ”

“ These work creatively from within to mould character, not only inflaming great passions, but touching the springs of pity, tenderness, gentleness, and love,—above all, infusing that wide-reaching sympathy which sends the individual out of the grit-guarded fortress of his personality into the wide plain of the race. The culmination of these ideal powers is in genius and heroism, which draw their inspiration from ideal and spiritual sources, and radiate it in thoughts beautifully large and deeds beautifully brave. ”

“ It is charming to be in a circle where human nature is pranked out in purple and fine linen, and where you sometimes see manners as beautiful as the masterpieces of the arts; yet some people cannot get rid of the uneasy consciousness that a subtle tyranny pervades the room and ties the tongue,—that philanthropy is impolite, that heroism is ungenteel, that truth, honor, freedom, humanity, strongly asserted, are marks of a vulgar mind ”

“ His face was full of humor, although when quiescent it seemed dull and heavy; his eyes were singularly small and inexpressive, whether from their own color or the light tint of the lashes I cannot say, but they seemed to me to be what are called white eyes. I do not believe that in society he had much of the sparkle that characterized his friend, or that might have been expected in so formidable a wit of the pen. Sam Beazley, on the contrary, was a light, airy, graceful person, who had much refinement, without that peculiar manner which bespeaks the well-bred gentleman. ”

“ The same mingling of urgent civilization and unsubdued Nature observable in Corry characterizes Oil City to a greater extent. On one side of the street, crowded with oil-wagons, the freight of each worth thousands of dollars, stand long rows of dwellings, shops, and warehouses, all built within two years, and on the other impinges a bluff still covered with its forest growth of shrubs and wood-plants,—while upon the frowning front of a cliff that has for centuries faced nothing meaner than the Alleghany, with its mountain background, some Vandal has daubed the advertisement of a quack nostrum. ”

“ The next morning was meant for an artist, and it is to be hoped that there was one at Tarr Farm to see the curtain of fog slowly lifting from the bright waters of the Creek, and creeping up the bluff beyond it, until it melted into the clear blue sky, and let the sunshine come glancing down the valley, where groups of derricks, long lines of tanks, engine-houses, counting-rooms replaced the forest growth of a few years previous, and crowds of workmen, interspersed with overseers and proprietors on foot or horseback, superseded the wild creatures hardly yet driven from their lifelong haunt. ”

“ Only Miselle could not rest. The steady rapidity of motion,—the terrible power of this force that man has made his own, and yet not so wholly his own but that it may at any moment break from his control, asserting itself master,—the dim light and motionless figures about her,—all these things wrought upon her fancy, until, through the gray mist of morning, great round hills stood up at either hand with deep valleys between, from whose nestling hamlets lights began to twinkle out as if great swarms of fireflies sheltered there. ”

“ Freedom only thirty miles off,—that vast territory behind him, three times traversed for her dear sake and Love's,—a slave-owner's stable close by,—a wife and a baby crouching in the thicket,—God above saying, "The laborer is worthy of his hire." No Chief-Justice in the world could have convinced that man.
With an inspired touch,—the tactus eruditus of a bitter memory and a glorious hope,—John felt for and found the best horse in the stable, saddled him, led him out without awakening a soul, and, mounting, took his wife before him with the baby in her arms. ”

“ It is a mistake to suppose that relations must of course love each other because they are relations. Love must be cultivated, and can be increased by judicious culture, as wild fruits may double their bearing under the hand of a gardener; and love can dwindle and die out by neglect, as choice flower-seeds planted in poor soil dwindle and grow single.
Two causes in our Anglo-Saxon nature prevent this easy faculty and flow of expression which strike one so pleasantly in the Italian or the French life: the dread of flattery, and a constitutional shyness. ”

“ Men, being thus thrown back upon the resources of character, were put to terrible tests. As the intellect cannot act when the will is paralyzed, many a merchant, whose debts really bore no proportion to his property, was seen sitting, like the French prisoner in the iron cage whose sides were hourly contracting, stupidly gazing at the bars which were closing in upon him, and feeling in advance the pang of the iron which was to cut into his flesh and crush his bones.
In invigorating contrast to the panic-smitten, we had the privilege to witness many an example of the grit-inspired. ”

“ Then, Emmy, there will be a constant, still, undefined, but real friction of your life-power, from the silent grating of your wishes and feelings on the cold, positive millstone of their opinion; it will be a life-battle with a quiet, invisible, pervading spirit, who will never show himself in fair fight, but who will be around you in the very air you breathe, at your pillow when you lie down and when you rise. ”

“ As grit decomposes society into an aggregate of strong and weak persons, genius and heroism unite them in one humanity. Thus, not many years ago, we were all battling about the higher law and the law to return fugitive slaves. It was argument against argument, passion against passion, person against person, grit against grit. The notions advanced regarding virtue and vice, justice and injustice, humanity and inhumanity, were as different as if the controversy had not been between men and men, but between men and cattle. ”

“ I know nothing in life more fascinating than the nocturnal ascent of an unknown river, leading far into an enemy's country, where one glides in the dim moonlight between dark hills and meadows, each turn of the channel making it seem like an inland lake, and cutting you off as by a barrier from all behind,—with no sign of human life, but an occasional picket-fire left glimmering beneath the bank, or the yelp of a dog from some low-lying plantation. ”

“ How much freer utterance among many good Christians have anger, contempt, and censoriousness, than tenderness and love! I hate is said loud and with all our force. I love is said with a hesitating voice and blushing cheek.
In an angry mood we do an injury to a loving heart with good, strong, free emphasis; but we stammer and hang back when our diviner nature tells us to confess and ask pardon. Even when our heart is broken with repentance, we haggle and linger long before we can ”

“ Flattery is insincere praise given from interested motives, not the sincere utterance to a friend of what we deem good and lovely in him.
And so, for fear of flattering, these dreadfully sincere people go on side by side with those they love and admire, giving them all the time the impression of utter indifference. Parents are so afraid of exciting pride and vanity in their children by the expression of their love and approbation, that a child sometimes goes sad and discouraged by their side, and learns with surprise, in some chance way, that they are proud and fond of him. ”

“ The banquet over, Miselle found the drawing-room, and in company with a woman, a girl, a baby, and a lawless stove, devoted herself to the study of Corry as seen through a window streaming with rain. Tired at last of this exhilarating pursuit, she engaged in single combat with the stove, and, being signally beaten, resolved to try a course of human nature as developed in her companions. ”

“ They do not merely exert power, they communicate it. If you are overcome by a man of grit, he insolently makes you conscious of your own weakness. If you are overcome by genius and heroism, you are made participants in their strength; for they overcome only to invigorate and uplift. They sweep on their gathering disciples to the object they have in view, by making it an object of affection as well as duty. Their power to allure and to attract is not lost even when their goal is the stake or the cross. ”

“ The word is so close to the thing it names, has so much pith and point, is so tart on the tongue, and so stings the ear with its meaning, that foreigners ignorant of the language might at once feel its significance by its griding utterance as it is shot impatiently through the resisting teeth.
Grit is in the grain of character. It may generally be described as heroism materialized,—spirit and will thrust into heart, brain, and backbone, so as to form part of the physical substance of the man. The feeling with which it rushes into consciousness is akin to physical sensation ”

“ Cabmen, draymen, porters, all assume a new ferocity of bearing, horses are more cruelly lashed, ignorant wayfarers more crushingly snubbed, new trunks more recklessly smashed, than would be possible at a later hour of the day; and that large class of persons who may be denominated intermittent gentlemen fold up their politeness with their travelling-shawls and put it away for a future occasion.
Solaced by a breakfast and rest, Miselle bade good-bye to her attentive escort, and set forth alone to view New York with the critical eye of a Bostonian. ”

“ In the kayak the Esquimaux attains to beauty. As he rows, the extremes of the two-bladed oar revolve, describing rhythmic circles; the body holds itself in airy poise, and the light boat skims away with a look of life. The speed is greater than our swiftest boats attain, and the motion graceful as that of a flying bird. Kayak and rower become to the eye one creature ”

“ A plank walk from the hotel to the station elevates the foot-passenger in Corry above the mud of the streets, through whose depths flounders a crowd of wagons laden with crude oil for the refinery, with refined oil for the freight-trains, with carboys of chemicals, with merchandise, and with building materials for yet more houses.
Everything here is new. Not one of the thousand buildings is yet five years old ”

“ To get their minds near each other, to think close to the subject, to feel the griding contact of pure intellect with pure intellect, and, as spiritual beings, to conduct the war of reason with spiritual weapons,—this is their ambition. Conventionally courteous to each other, they are really in the deadliest antagonism; for their contest is the tug and strain of soul with soul, and each feels that defeat would be worse than death. ”