Grit

“ It is a curious circumstance that sometimes in profound sleep a person seems vaguely aware of the presence of an intruder, and the feeling is frequently strong enough to disturb slumber. Grit was a sound sleeper, but, however we may account for it, whether it was the instinctive feeling I have mentioned, or the glare of the candle, he woke up, and his glance rested on the kneeling figure of his stepfather rummaging his pockets. ”

“ He sank into a doze, with Grit still licking the drooping hand.
"I think he will sleep now," said the physician who had examined Dick at the lake. "We will go out, and the dog had better come, too."
"Come, Grit," called Mr. Hamilton, but Grit paid no attention.
"I'll bring him," said the physician, as he reached for the bulldog's collar. Grit growled menacingly.
"Better not," advised the millionaire. "No one but Dick can do anything with him." ”

“ For synonyms, see Creamstick and Prick.
Grit, subs. (originally American: now colloquial) .—1. Character; pluck; spirit; sand (q.v.) . Also clear grit. No grit = lacking in stamina; wanting in courage.
1825. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, bk. II., ch. xiv. A chap who was clear grit for a tussle, any time.
1848. Burton, Waggeries, etc., p. 13. The old folks ... began to think that she warn’t the clear grit.
1849. C. Kingsley, Alton Locke, ch. vi. A real lady—l’air noble—the rael genuine grit, as Sam Slick says.
1852. H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. vii. You’re a right brave old girl. ”

“ The wind has been blowing, and the rushes and young plants bowing and bending to it, lest it should do them harm, the cowards—and Grip—ha ha ha!—brave Grip, who cares for nothing, and when the wind rolls him over in the dust, turns manfully to bite it—Grip, bold Grip, has quarrelled with every little bowing twig—thinking, he told me, that it mocked him—and has worried it like a bulldog. ”

“ The clamor oppressed the spirit, the dust fretted the nostrils and blinded the eyes, the sweltering heat baked and exhausted the body, and everything-buildings, men, pavement—seemed strained, breaking, ready to burst, losing patience, on the verge of exploding into some immense catastrophe, some outbreak, after which one would be able to breathe freely and easily in the air refreshed by it. ”

“ The children, riotous from school, grow bold And quarrel with the wind whose angry gust Plucks off the summer-hat, and flaps the fold Of many a crimson cloak, and twirls the dust In spiral shapes grotesque, and dims the gold Of gleaming tresses with the blur of rust. ”

“ It exists as long as our bones exist, whether we admit its existence or not. These gusts of wind, therefore, not only blew dust and sand over me, they also roused that secret and instinctive faith as well. By and by the wind grew stronger. Now when the wind blows through a skull, a sound very much like a sigh is produced. ”

“ On the instant there came a crackling, tearing sound—a heaving roll—a splintering crash and uproar. The man aloft was seen to make a flying leap—or was it only a hurled fragment of the falling chimney?—and white dust rose in a fog once more and blotted out all the tragedy that might be enacting behind it. ”

“ At one moment it bursts upon these icy fragments and buries them many feet beneath its wave, and the next, as the buoyancy of the depressed body struggles for reascendancy, the water rushes in foaming cataracts over the edges, while every individual mass, rocking and laboring in its bed, grinds against and contends with its opponent, until one is either split with the shock or upheaved upon the surface of the other. ”

“ Let his nose and ears be cut off! Let him be flayed alive, or burnt at a slow fire and his ashes scattered to the winds! Oh, I shall die of shame and despair!’
Her women ran at the sound of her screams, and tried to wrench off the horns, but it was of no use, and they only gave her a violent headache. ”

“ Smelt sickly, till it seemed through a swift tear-flood
That dead men blossomed in the garden-close.
[23]
LIMBO
After a week spent under raining skies,
In horror, mud and sleeplessness, a week
Of bursting shells, of blood and hideous cries
And the ever-watchful sniper: where the reek
Of death offends the living ... but poor dead
Can't sleep, must lie awake with the horrid sound
That roars and whirs and rattles overhead
All day, all night, and jars and tears the ground ”

“ A wild gust of wind shrieks angrily above board as the smack rises and plunges in the trough of a choppy sea. The blood-red sun has vanished, an inky darkness has set in, and the wind is rapidly increasing from a fresh breeze into a regular fierce and nasty gale. ”

“ She cried, and said, ‘Ah me!’ and the drops of blood answered, ‘If your mother knew this it would break her heart.’
While she stooped over the water to drink, the piece of cambric with the drops of blood on it fell out of her bosom, and floated away on the stream; but she never noticed this in her great fear. ”

“ I fear a high wind, because storm demands that exertion of strength and use of action I always yield with pain; but the sullen down-fall, the thick snow-descent, or dark rush of rain, ask only resignation—the quiet abandonment of garments and person to be drenched. ”

“ Already she seemed to feel the hot tongues of flame licking her cheek—already the struggle for life, dear life, appeared to have begun—already the scorching heat was drying up her blood—already she was beating against the closed gates, beating with her clenched hands till they were bruised and bleeding, while the fire raged behind, and the air became hotter and hotter, the flames fiercer and fiercer. ”

“ The gale outside was like a living immensity, a vast soul raging with world-suffering, thousand-voiced and thousand-winged, and under its raging agony, which filled all the air above the land, the house that contained the life of them all was small as some tiny casket.... ”

“ What is wanting in the density of the element is more than made up by the force of the contending winds, which rush into the mouth, eyes, and nostrils, as if flying from a water-fiend. The “courage of worse behind” alone persuades the gasping sufferer to take one desperate step more. ”

“ The cold had become intense, a bitter piercing cold which strained and snapped at joist and beam and turned the slush of yesterday to flint. From the street below every sound broke sharp and metallic—the clatter of sabots, the rattle of shutters or the rare sound of a human voice. The air was heavy, weighted with the black cold as with a pall. To breathe was painful, to move an effort. ”

“ And as the wind knocked the hanged men against each other, and they moved backwards and forwards, he thought to himself, "Thou shiverest below by the fire, but how those up above must freeze and suffer!" ”

“ An accident always caused a feeling of sullenness in the works; this was now intensified by the gloom of the weather and the increased discomfort of the conditions; the thick and acrid smoke that would not rise, the floating particles of grime that clogged one's breathing-passages, the chill dampness, worse than wind, worse than rain, that greeted the man who went sweating from his furnace to draw a breath of air. ”

“ The gale roared above us with the peculiar tearing sound that accompanies the body of a typhoon—a sound suggestive of unearthly anger and violence, as if elemental forces were ripping up the envelope of the universe—a sound that carries its own message of latent power, of savage impulse, of unloosed destruction. ”

“ He rather thinks that death was due to heart-failure following on a violent shock of some kind.”
“Oh, Usk, how terrible! If he could only speak! But the bruises?”
“I have a theory which may account for them. Do you remember what the landlord said about this river flowing underground from Bagnanera, fifteen or sixteen miles away? Well, suppose the poor fellow was thrown into the water there, whether dead or alive, in the hope that he would sink and never be heard of again, but that the river carried him all the way to this place? The bruises would be easily accounted for then, you know.” ”

“ Clouds of dust were driven up into the skies, and the plain became covered with banners, lances, and all kinds of arms, and with emblems of every colour and device, torn and broken, and soiled with blood and dust. ”

“ It is not so much the sighing of the blast as that pause, as Gray expresses it, "when the gust is recollecting itself," that thrills us, and is infinitely grander than the importunate howlings of the storm. ”

“ Another day, the sixth of the interminable gale. Will it never end? The wind and drift continue with unabated violence. For some three hours to-day, I pushed, and butted, and at times almost crawled on hands and knees, back and forth across the small floe on which we are camped. ”

“ For, after all, a gale of wind, the thing of mighty sound, is inarticulate. It is man who, in a chance phrase, interprets the elemental passion of his enemy. Thus there is another gale in my memory, a thing of endless, deep, humming roar, moonlight, and a spoken sentence. ”

“ A tiny wind from the north, keen as a knife blade, blew in my face as I stood there, out of the calm blue sky, and seemed to whisper to me of the terrifying nights of storm, of the deadly wind before which all life goes down like a straw, that raged here in the winter. ”

“ Suddenly arises a yell—a wild, unearthly cry, which almost makes one's blood run cold even in that atmosphere. A tremor seizes us as a female form appears at an upper window, framed in flame, curtained with smoke and noxious fumes. ”

“ As they sat by the fire waiting, they could hear the frost cracking and snapping the tree-boughs. Now and then a crash like thunder came. It was a limb, overloaded with ice, breaking off, and falling to the ground. And by and by, among the other noises, a strange, wild voice began to mingle, making them all more fearful. ”

“ For the autumn leaves have covered
And hid the sodden ground.
[Pg 128]
THERE IS A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS.
Though life may be gloomy,
And dark be thy way,
No light in thy pathway,
Not even one ray.
Look up to the heavens;
There’s a rift in the clouds.
Though life may be warfare,
Thy heart have no peace,
Fear not, thou wilt conquer,
Thy heart have surcease.
Look upward, not downward,
There’s a rift in the clouds.
Though friends may prove faithless,
And false unto thee;
There may be a reason
That thou dost not see.
Have charity always,
[Pg 129] And see rift in the clouds. ”

“ They're chaps without legs, with an arm gone, a hand gone, back wounds, stomach wounds, holes in the head. They start chaffing one another. There's no hint of tragedy. A gale of laughter sweeps the ward from end to end. ”

“ As children, many of us have played with it; some of us have seen an outbreak of fire. First a small tongue-like flame appears; it grows into a devastating fury of heat. We out here in the field have seen more than enough of it. ”

“ Sometimes the wind would cause her veil for a few moments to rear straight up above her head in a monstrous black column of woe. Sometimes, if she stopped a moment waiting to cross the street, it would whip round the body of any one who happened to be near, like a cord. ”

“ A mountain of flame, thirty feet high, and of unknown length, moving onward, roaring like "many waters"—in a gentle, stately movement, and unbroken front—then impelled by a gust of wind, suddenly breaks itself to pieces, here and there shooting ahead, whirling itself high in air—all becomes noise, and strife, and uproar, and disorder. ”

“ When the blasts beat loud and the tempests shriek,
And the winds are smote as the chords of a lyre,
I curtain the cold where the corners leak,
Tossing the logs till the flames leap higher,
As I sit on the hearth while the rafters creak,
Feeding the fangs of the hungry fire. ”

“ No one can stand very near the crashing sweeps of a windmill in half a gale without a tightening of the heart—a feeling comparable to that which comes from watching the waves break over a wall in a storm. ”

“ Those that come on while the juices of the heart remain, seize upon the body of the heart, and hence the febrile flame is kindled, like the flame of a lamp from its wick. This is one of the modes of formation. ”

“ You find a quiet little hill of clay, with nothing stirring round about; you smash into it with your boot-heel or a bit of wattle, and instantly the earth is covered in every direction with a scrambling, scurrying—doubtless, if one could hear them, a screaming—crowd, all bent on knowing what has caused the disturbance. ”

“ What a night for the poor maiden! The storm of rain and wind raged still more furiously than it had done during the day. It broke and roared through the sharp rocks, while the howling and whistling of the raging winds sounded like the sobs and sighs of [53] thousands of dying men. Like continuous peals of distant thunder, as they flung themselves in their might against the steep and jagged rocks of the cliff, the breaking of the raging waves might be continually heard. ”

“ So much sickness and suffering may, we are convinced, be prevented by kindling a small fire every night and morning, that all pleasure in the beauty of fresh, pretty-colored grates and fireplaces is lost in the knowledge of the price paid for it. A well blackened grate has more attractions for us, as it speaks of dry rooms, rosy cheeks, and good health, whereas unused and spotless bricks tell of rheumatism, chills and fever, and pale, sallow faces. ”

“ At the same time, the thuddings of the earth grew more severe than ever and they were accompanied by rumblings, roars, and reverberations of terrifying force and insistency. Crash after crash burst upon our ears as if from some remote storm-center—crash after crash that echoed and re-echoed eerily in that narrow corridor, until our ear-drums ached from the strain and our agitated hearts pumped with a thumping rapidity. ”

“ How the sparks mount and twinkle and disappear like tropical fire-flies, and all the leaves murmur, and clap their hands! Some of the sparks do not go out: we see them flaming in the sky when the flame of the fire has died down. ”

“ Or, that last scene, when the trumpet sounds and earth is shivering to its foundations, the fire is bubbling forth through the rents in its surface, and the dead are coming together flesh to flesh, and bone to bone, and muscle to muscle—then the weary man sits down and casts off his shoes! ”