an attic on State
Street, in Boston: "I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not
excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." Was
Garrison heard? Ask a race set free largely by his efforts. Even the
gallows erected in front of his own door did not daunt him. He held
the ear of an unwilling world with that burning word "freedom," which
was destined never to cease its vibrations until it had breathed its
sweet secret to the last slave.

If impossibilities ever exist, popularly speaking, they ought to have
been found somewhere between the birth and the death of Kitto, that
deaf pauper and master of Oriental learning. But Kitto did not find
them there. In the presence of his decision and imperial energy they
melted away. Kitto begged his father to take him out of the poorhouse,
even if he had to subsist like the Hottentots. He told him that he
would sell his books and pawn his handkerchief, by which he thought he
could raise about twelve shillings. He said he could live upon
blackberries, nuts, and field turnips, and was willing to sleep on a
hayrick. Here was real grit. What were impossibilities to such a
resolute will? Patrick Henry voiced that decision which characterized
the great men of the Revolution when he said, "Is life so dear, or
peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?
Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but
as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

Grit is a permanent, solid quality, which enters into the very
structure, the very tissues of the constitution. A weak man, a
wavering, irresolute man, may be "spunky" upon occasion, he may be
"plucky" in an emergency; but pure "grit" is a part of the very
character of strong men alone. Lord Erskine was a plucky man; he even
had flashes of heroism, and when he was with weaker men, he was thought
to have nerve and even grit; but when he entered the House of Commons,
although a hero at the bar, the imperiousness, the audacious scorn, and
the intellectual supremacy of Pitt disturbed his equanimity and exposed
the weak places in his armor. In Pitt's commanding presence he lost
his equilibrium. His individuality seemed off its centre; he felt
fluttered, weak, and uneasy.

Many of our generals in the late war exhibited heroism. They were
"plucky," and often displayed great determination, but Grant had pure
"grit" in the most concentrated form. He could not be mo