Dirt

“ To the place where lived the people who guarded the magic ax, there came a stranger. His eyes were aslant and little, the hair of him was reddish, and he was in rags and tatters and altogether dirty in appearance. To be sure, no one would look twice at rags and tatters, for one coming through the forest must needs be torn by thorns and bushes in all that tangle, but dirt was quite another matter, especially when the dirt included blood stains, because in that place was much water and many running streams, nor was the water chill to the skin. ”

“ The dirt was well watered and stirred about until all the clay was gone, and then the gravel that remained was emptied into the wash-pan. Now came the anxious moment. All heads were thrust forward to watch. ”

“ Around the root is dirt, but this dirt is just pulled up, you might even call it clean; you smell a moist odor, disagreeable, but not foul, and not putrid. You know that in the philosophical language which you and I use, this clean dirt is called actual dirt. It is dirt, to be sure; but look at it attentively and you will see that all the elements of which it is composed are healthy in themselves. When they are gathered together, they make dirt ”

“ The place seemed filled with beggars, pigs, monkeys, slatternly females, small donkeys, and big oxen; dirty soldiers and idle sailors of all the shades and colours which distinguish the human race, dressed in handkerchiefs, and shirts, and jackets, and petticoats of every hue of the rainbow—the only thing they had in common being their dirt. Indeed, dirt predominates throughout the streets and dwellings, and in every direction. The houses, though mean, from being white-washed deceive a stranger at a little distance as to the cleanliness of the place. ”

“ While the perversion of nice and nasty is British, there is an American perversion of dirt not unlike it. To most Americans, I think, dirt suggests earth or soil or clay or dust; to most Americans, I think, dirt no longer carries with it any suggestion of dirtiness. I have heard a mother send her little boy off to make mud-pies on condition that he used only “clean dirt”; and I know that a lawn-tennis ground of compacted earth is called a dirt court. Yet, tho the noun has thus been defecated, the adjective keeps its earlier force ”

“ By the wide hearth of stone or brick, one could whittle with impunity. Dirt is not common dirt in front of an open fire. Charles Lamb's clean hearth or that of the too fastidious modern house robs it of half its comfort and attractiveness. A little matter out of place, somebody's definition of dirt, is one of the most hospitable and cordial things I ever meet in the houses of my friends. ”

“ DIRT. To dream of dirty dirt or mud, signifies that some one will speak ill of you. If it is clean sand or soil, and you do not get befouled with it, it is a sign of thrift and good fortune. If some one throws dirt on you, it foretells that you will be abused. ”

“ Then him dig dirt in floor with hands, and cover up when they bring him bread and water—and he hide his hands all the time, fingers so much bleed. Then when dark and no moon, him dig out last dirt, him come up outside. ”

“ The word dirt in its strict sense comes from the Anglo-Saxon 'drit,' or excrement. 'Dirt,' then, is not earth or clean sand—not clean dirt, but dirty dirt, that is, matter soiled by some of the excreta of the human or animal body. Cleanliness must be insisted upon in a boys' Camp—not the cleanliness that makes a boy squeamish about working with his hands upon some necessary job, but cleanliness that makes him afraid of sharing his tooth brush or table utensils or his clothes. ”

“ To this I answer, that filth and dirt are two distinct things. The streets of a city may be very dirty, that is, covered with mud composed of inoffensive clay, sand, or lime, and, at the same time, be perfectly free from those filthy vegetable and animal matters which, by putrefaction, contaminate the air. ”

“ And dirt is so far from being a thing which we admire, that our scientific men—than whom the world has never seen wiser—have proved to us, for a whole generation past, that dirt is the fertile cause of disease and drunkenness, misery, and recklessness. ”

“ We hardly believe it when first it comes to our notice, but upon close examination—and invitation, too, to join them—we find it to be true. The dirt is a sort of heavy yellow clay, of which they have several large chunks. ”

“ We have seen as much of what is most ignorantly and malignantly denominated dirt—one week's earth—washed off the feet of a pretty young girl on a Saturday night, at a single sitting in the little rivulet that runs almost round about her father's hut, as would have served him to raise his mignonette in, or his crop of cresses. ”

“ In the one case the dirt is on the inside and is what we may call living dirt, because it is kept alive by the soul to which it is allowed to cling. In the other case the dirt is on the outside, and can be washed off with soap and water. Very [Pg 11] few so-called men or women of the world are willing to appear dirty and slovenly in their bodies,—but a great many are willing to be dirty and slovenly in their souls. ”

“ We may consider all putrefaction and decay of suitable substances, the refuse of our households, the waste water with which we irrigate and manure the soil, as affording food-fluids for the lower organisms. Then we might think—and the like has been thought and said—that dirt is not dangerous to health if it is only properly concentrated. It has been asserted that there is much more dirt in the country and in the villages where citizens go—as they say—to get the air, than in the city. ”

“ If the little Toy people want to dig in the dirt and make mud pies, or build forts, or play grocery store, their clothes or their hands and faces never get at all soiled, because the dirt there is not one bit dirty. ”

“ The old and excellent definition that dirt is suitable matter, but in the wrong place, suggests that the place should be changed. This can be done only by regular habits of personal cleanliness, not only of the skin, the hair, the teeth, the nails, and the clothing, but also by the rigid observance of a proper system in daily living. ”

“ Three men working together with a rocker—one digging, another carrying the dirt in buckets, and the third rocking the cradle—would wash on an average a hundred bucketfuls of dirt to the man in the course of the day. With a “long tom” the dirt was so easily washed that parties of six or eight could work together to advantage, and four or five hundred bucketfuls of dirt a day to each one of the party was a usual day’s work.{126}
I met a San Francisco friend in Hangtown practising his profession as a doctor, who very hospitably offered me quarters in his cabin, which I gladly accepted. ”

“ I seen Miss Estelle spreading an oilcloth on the floor, and then the butler come in and poured a lot of nice, clean, sterilized dirt on to it. And then she sent for William.
“William Dear,” she says, “we have decided that what you need is more recreation mixed in along with your intellectuals. You ought to romp and play in the dirt, close to the soil and nature, as is right for a youth of your age. For an hour each day right after you study your biology and before you take up your Euclid you will romp and play in this dirt like a child of nature, and frolic. ”

“ The most important thing to do in putting in this dirt and grass covering is to observe nature itself as closely as it is possible, seeing just how patches of vegetation grow—whether slopes are bare and what the “mosaic” of dirt and greenness is. ”

“ The presence of dirt in the sand is easily ascertained by rubbing a little in the palm of the hand. If a little is emptied into a pail of water, the presence of dirt will be shown by the discoloration of the water. ”

“ Your method is too slow—you don’t get over enough dirt in a day. We’ll start in the morning, early, just you and me, and we’ll take this washing-machine up the creek a bit and plant her solid, and shovel dirt and gravel into her. ”

“ But we should no doubt get used to these things if we were forced to dwell long in any city. I am, however, certain that I should always loathe the dirt of cities. The dirt of the country, good red mud, or the slime of wet stems of trees, does not trouble me, even if I am covered with it. ”

“ While some of the party shovel the dirt into the tom as fast as they can dig it up, one man stands at the lower end, stirring up the dirt as it is washed down, separating the stones and throwing them out, while the earth and small gravel fall with the water through the sieve into the ripple box. ”

“ Before we had washed them, they had been very, very dirty, it is true; but they were just wearable. After we had washed them—well, the river between Reading and Henley was much cleaner, after we had washed our clothes in it, than it was before. All the dirt contained in the river between Reading and Henley, we collected, during that wash, and worked it into our clothes. ”

“ Now, you see, these tracks are fresh; just notice how the dirt in each one seems kind of shining and polished. A big heavy animal putting its hoof down hard on the dirt makes the place where its weight rested look like that. ”

“ If there were only the dirt which comes from the use of the streets, the paid cleaners could easily remove it. [Pg 163] Most of the dirt, however, comes because people do not think or care. One little piece of paper, a banana peel, an apple core—how trifling they seem! Yet, suppose each boy and girl of thousands of boys and girls should forget, and should throw something into the street, how littered the streets would be! ”

“ The definition of dirt as matter in the wrong place is suggestive. All the details that throw light on the main action are of value. Those that obscure it are but petty dust. It is no sufficient plea that the dust is very real and that it took a great deal of trouble to collect it. ”

“ Dirt′-eating, a practice of using some kinds of clay for food, as among the Ottomacs of South America: a morbid impulse to eat dirt, amongst negroes (Cachexia Africana) and pregnant women.—adv. Dirt′ily.—ns. Dirt′iness; Dirt′-pie, clay moulded by children's hands in the form of a pie.—adjs. Dirt′-rotten (Shak.) , wholly decayed; Dirt′y, foul, filthy: unclean in thought or conversation: despicable: mean.—v.t. to soil with dirt: to sully:—pr.p. dirt′ying; pa.p. dirt′ied.—Eat dirt, submissively to acquiesce in a humiliation; Throw dirt at, to abuse scurrilously or slanderously. ”

“ The active life and the dirt remind one of southern cities. Decaying vegetables, squirrel skins, paper flowers, old ball gloves, ashes, and other trash make themselves comfortable on the large irregular stones of the pavement, and through the middle slowly creep the dull and stagnant waters of the drain. ”

“ Collars are changed twice a day, as the soil, being red, and the almost constant high winds, with the dry nature of the country, keeps the dust flying about most of the time. One will not have lived in this city long before he will have eaten his allotted "peck of dirt." ”

“ What dirt there is is pure gold dust, which the dust carts collect in order to throw in large baskets into the drains.
"The pebbles against which we stumble continually are brilliants as large as nuts, despised on account of the extraordinary abundance with which the soil supplies them. ”

“ Ef you look at it right close, you'll perceive that on one side on't the dirt looks new and fresh—which proves it's jest been started from its long quietude. Now cast your eyes a little higher up, agin yon dirt ridge which partly kivers them thar larger stones, and you'll see an indent that this here pebble stone just fits. ”

“ Then he would turn his back again, and just make the leaves and dirt fly into that hole.
Well, he scratched and scratched and scratched until there was not a bit of cheese anywhere to be seen. The hole [Pg 56] was full of leaves and dirt, so you never could have found it. ”

“ Every shower of rain washes some dirt—by which we mean sand or gravel or loam or chalk—from the land into the nearest rivulet. The rivulet hurries with it down to the neighbouring river, and the river carries it down to the sea. If the river is going very fast it carries most of its dirt along with it, and we generally find the river muddy after rain. But when the river slackens its pace, as it usually does when it nears the sea and meets the sea's tides, then it lets the dirt fall; and thus at the river's mouth we find mud-banks or sand-banks. ”

“ But here, owing to the warm climate, they can live out of doors, and thus the rags and dirt, which elsewhere are hidden in garrets and cellars, are paraded in the streets, making them like a Rag Fair. ”

“ "The dirt is picturesque, so I don't mind. ”

“ Most dug wells require cleaning occasionally, due to the entrance of dirt at the top and to the washing in of clay and silt with the ground water. Many of these wells contain harmful gases which have proved fatal to those entering them. ”

“ And any one may feel the force of the beautiful figure, who has ever gone into the water for the purposes of cleanliness and refreshment, on a warm summer’s day in this country, and has found by experience that after all possible ablution, on coming out and dressing himself, his wet feet in contact with the ground have become loaded with dirt which demands new diligence to remove it ”

“ That muddy water of the mind, muddied by all the foolish little thoughts which like a sediment infest it—but if you leave it alone it will become clear of itself. Sometimes walking along the common road after a shower you have seen pools of water lying here and there, dirty and unsightly with the mud stirred up by the hoofs of men and animals. ”

“ The country is highly cultivated; continual hill and dale; lower orders miserable in perfection; houses built of mud, the upper storeys of which are only built of beams, the mud having fallen off. Bridges thrown over the dirt they were too idle to remove. ”