"Complain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more friends and helpers than he knows; And when a patient people are oppressed, The land that bore them feels it in her breast. Spirits of field and flood, of heath and hill, Are grieved and angry at the spreading ill; The trees complain together in the night, Voices of wrath are heard along the height, And secret vows are sworn, by stream and strand, To bring the tyrant low and free ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... "that's just the trouble, the German worker, as a worker, has little to complain of, but he is becoming systematised. He cannot rise, he is forced to be content and do his job. His health is insured by groups of employers sharing the responsibility. If workers get hurt too much or sick too ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... for Carlstadt, and he challenged Eck himself. He would not reproach him for having so maliciously, uncourteously, and in an untheological manner charged Carlstadt with doctrines to which he was a stranger; he would not complain of being drawn himself again into the contest by a piece of base flattery on Eck's part towards the Pope; he would merely show that his crafty wiles were well understood, and he wished to exhort him in a friendly spirit, for the future, if only for his own reputation, to be a little more sensible ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... if you DO—then I needn't tell you how silly it is for you to complain of being neglected, when you know his time is all taken up with trying to ferret out a way to block their little game. He feels ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... more ignorant, insolent, and abandoned writer than this Matth. Earbury. Whether you are to answer, or not to answer, the F. according to his folly, I must leave to your discretion. Yet I cannot but wish you would revise the Life of Wickliffe; and, in the preface, justly complain of the spiteful injuries done to his memory, and, through his sides, to our Reformation. I have somewhat to say to you on that head, if you think to resume it. I am, in the mean time, your affectionate friend and brother, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... had been two miles up the stream exploring, and had seen a moose, but, not having the gun, he did not get him. We made no complaint, but concluded to look out for Joe the next time. However, this may have been a mere mistake, for we had no reason to complain of him afterwards. As we continued down the stream, I was surprised to hear him whistling "O Susanna," and several other such airs, while his paddle urged us along. Once he said, "Yes, Sir-ee." His common word was "Sartain." He paddled, as usual, on one ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... were absent, you would find some worse evil in their stead— pestilence, perhaps. Teach your children this, if you hear them complain of anything to which Providence has given life and an errand among us. The cocoa walks at Plaisance—are they fenced ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... Church, when priests were only allowed on sufferance inside abbeys at all. The Low Church party need not be considered, because they can have no sentiment about what they regard as relics of superstition and Broad Churchmen could hardly complain at the logical development of their own principle. The Nonconformists, the backbone of the nation, could not be otherwise than grateful. The decision about admitting busts, statues, or bodies into the national and sacred 'musee des morts' (as the anti-clerical French might ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... involved in the first, is, that every man ought to allow his own principles and practices to be freely discussed, with patience and magnanimity, and not to complain of persecution, or to attack the character or motives of those who claim that he is in the wrong. If he is belied, if his character is impeached, if his motives are assailed, if his intellectual capabilities are made the objects of sneers or commiseration, he has a right to complain, ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... an iceberg under a tropical sun. I don't mind discussing the religion of the future as a subject of interesting speculation; but, depend upon it, we had better let well alone. It seems to me that we—at least those of us who are well off—have nothing to complain of. Let us trust to the silent forces of evolution. See how much they have lately done for us in the matter of art. What can be pleasanter than this gentle process of aesthetic development which our higher faculties are undergoing? With due deference to ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... all he could to cure others, his own health was very poor for several years. He suffered frequently from violent headaches that caused intense pain. Yet he was never heard to murmur or complain, but would say to us, when we tried to sympathise with him, "Never mind, by-and-by I shall get home, and when I see Jesus I shall have no more pain." About nine days before his departure he caught a severe cold that settled upon his lungs, which seemed to have ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... that, even in the daytime, a lady with any claims to good looks, and who walks alone, is always liable to such treatment, no matter how modest her apparel and reserved her demeanor. It is not merely of insolent and persistent staring that they complain, for they have grown to expect that as a matter of course; but they are actually spoken to by men who are strangers to them, in the most insinuating and offensively flattering terms. These men are commonly described as 'gentlemen' in appearance; ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... to draw heavy hay-waggons, women and girls were shamefully outraged by him, and persons possessing property unjustly condemned, in order that he might take possession of their goods. When the peasants came to him to complain, he had them driven away with stripes, or else cut off their ears, or hung them up in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... "She did complain to Churn that Pete was horrible to her, and that if Churn had been there to hear what he said, he'd have killed him ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... it out of my nostrils. These considerations, with my anxiety to proceed on my voyage, determined me not to yield tamely to my fate, for, as to having to spend the rest of my days in the society of Oilyblubbina, that was out of the question. I had, however, no reason to complain of my treatment by them, for they would not allow me to do any work, but brought me the best food, and did everything for me. Yet, notwithstanding all her tenderness, the charms of the loving Oilyblubbina ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... there, and that Jackson was coming with fifty thousand more, but Shepard, who always knew, said that they did not number more than twenty thousand. What a chance! What a chance! He almost repeated Colonel Winchester's words, but he was only a young staff officer and it was not for him to complain. If he said anything at all he would have to say it in a guarded manner and to ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Him live in us as closely as though actually eaten, is the same as Jesus' own life on earth being lived in His Father, dependent upon the Father. And when the crowds take His words literally and complain that none can understand such statements, He at once explains that, of course, He does not mean literal eating—"The flesh profiteth nothing" (even if you did eat it): "it is the Spirit that gives life:" "the words ... ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... a veneration for the voice of mankind beyond what most people will own; and as he liberally confessed that all his own disappointments proceeded from himself, he hated to hear others complain of general injustice. I remember when lamentation was made of the neglect showed to Jeremiah Markland, a great philologist, as some one ventured to call him. "He is a scholar, undoubtedly, sir," replied Dr. Johnson, "but remember that he would run from the world, ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... the dignity of a landholder rising within him. He had a little of the German pride of territory in his composition, and almost looked upon himself as owner of a principality. He began to complain of the fatigue of business; and was fond of riding out "to look at his estate." His little expeditions to his lands were attended with a bustle and parade that created a sensation throughout the neighbourhood. His wall-eyed horse stood, stamping and ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... seems to me very high-handed, very! And I told him very plainly what I thought. You can have no idea how galling is a woman's position left at the mercy of a trustee—a stranger too. And now that I am quite alone in the house—but I know you don't like people who complain. It's all very well for you, you know. Ah! if I had your independence! What I would make of my life!—Till Thursday, then, and don't, please, be bored with ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... the name of Baliol as king, although a helpless captive in England. For a short time Scotland enjoyed peace, save that Earl Percy responded to the raids made by the Scots across the Border, by carrying fire and sword through Annandale; and the English writers who complain of the conduct of the Scots, have no word of reprobation for the proclamation issued to the soldiers on crossing the Border, that they were free to plunder where they chose, nor as to the men and women slain, nor the villages and ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... receive them, or at least to permit his friends to take them, who for his sake deserved some gratification, and could not have much done for them out of Cato's own means. Yet he would not suffer it, though he saw some of them very willing to receive such gifts, and ready to complain of his severity; but he answered, that corruption would never want pretense, and his friends should share with him in whatever he should justly and honestly obtain, and so ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... these phials contained the blessed eucharist under the form of wine, if admitted, would form a new proof of the real and permanent presence of Christ's blood in the B. Sacrament; yet it is a novel, unsupported, and untenable conjecture. Some of the ancient Christian Fathers complain, it is true, of the abuse of burying the eucharist with the deceased under the form of bread; but the phials of blood have been found with so many bodies, that we cannot reasonably suppose the custom to have been an abuse: and who among ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... and quartered at London in the spring of 1594. The queen wished to send a special envoy to the archduke at Brussels, to complain that Secretary of State Cristoval de Moura, Count Fuentes, and Finance Minister Ybarra—all three then immediately about his person—were thus implicated in the plot against her life, to demand their punishment, or else, in case of refusals to convict the king and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a French room with half-a-dozen doors, leading to half-a-dozen different places, with which arrangement not a few of us are familiar in pieces brought over fresh from the Palais Royal, and occurring in farces of which Bebe, Anglice Betsey, at the Gymnase and Criterion is a type, shall we complain? Shall we not rather laugh heartily over the good old game of Hide-and-Seek, which on the stage is invariably the cause of much amusement to one person for whom, at all events, I can answer? What does it matter if to some it recalls a few farcical comedies all excellent material? Not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... emergency. The result of their life's work may even disappoint them if they judge it by the anticipation of their more sanguine years. Yet, in their decline of life, they see some of the fruits they prayed for, and they will not complain when they remember that the measure of their success ...
— Speeches of His Majesty Kamehameha IV. To the Hawaiian Legislature • Kamehameha IV
... useless to complain of the position in which a man is. The minister's duty is to utilize him in his own status and to enable him to practise the virtues which are open to him. The retired farmer can become an active and devoted evangelist, preacher ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... centre of the canals, which ought not to be given to a stranger. Don Camillo Monforte, the cavalier to whom thou art indebted for thy life, and of whom thou hast so lately spoken with gratitude, has far more cause to complain of these hard decrees, than thou mayest have, in ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... now fairly begun. Merchants are desperately busy buying and selling, chiefly exchanging goods against slaves. All complain of ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... and clearly, "that Jesus Christ is a sun and a shield; and those that put themselves at His feet are safe from all fear, and they who go to Him for light shall complain of darkness ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... European he should henceforth take. This desperado has for upwards of seventeen years been the terror of the Straits of Macassar, during which period he has committed the most extensive and dreadful excesses sparing no one. Few respectable families along the coast of Borneo and Celebes but have to complain of the loss of a proa, or of some number of their race; he is not more universally dreaded than detested; it is well known that he has cut off and murdered the crews of more than forty European vessels, which have either been wrecked on the coasts, or entrusted themselves ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... reply was left with him, so that he could scarcely complain that no warning had been given ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... were pinned to the earth with bayonets, and left writhing like worms, to die by inches. I can't forgive the devils for that.' 'I fear you've got more than you bargained for.' 'Not a bit of it; we went in for better or worse, and if we got worse, we must not complain.' Thus talked the beardless boy, nine months only from his mother's wing. As I spoke, a moan, a rare sound in a hospital, fell on my ear. I turned, and saw a French boy quivering with agony and crying for help. Alas! he had been wounded, driven several miles in an ambulance, with ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... well aware that in four of the annexing States, namely, Greece, Bulgaria, Servia, and Montenegro, the Constitutions provide for the equal rights of all religious denominations, and they gratefully acknowledge that for many years past the Jews in those countries have had no reason to complain; but in the new conditions of mixed races and creeds which confront those States, and in face of the symptoms already apparent of an accentuation of the long-standing inter-confessional bitterness and strife, they prefer ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf
... hand, if any one is inclined to complain that the logical aspect of the question has not proved itself so unequivocally definite as has the scientific, I must ask him to consider that, in any matter which does not admit of actual demonstration, some margin must of necessity be left for variations of individual opinion. ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... threatened with another burden, for, as you may know, her son Charles got keeping company with a servant at a wine shop, who of course ran away after she had a baby, which she left him to see to. So one can understand that the Toussaints themselves are hard put. I don't complain of them. They've already lent me a little money, and of course they can't go on lending ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... should never have married you if you had told me we were to be at war all our lives with our next neighbor, that everybody respects. To live in the country, and not speak to our only neighbor, that is a life I never would have left my father's house for. Not that I complain: if you have been bitter to them, you have always been good and kind to me; and I hope I have done my best to deserve it; but when a sick lady, and perhaps dying, holds out her hand to me—-write her one of your cold-blooded letters! That I WON'T. Reply? ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... notoriety, "I don't live in a cupboard myself." His own terse summing up of the Irish difficulty could hardly be better illustrated than by the current story of the discomfiture of an English Treasury official, who came into his official chambers to complain of the expenditure for fuel in the Court over which he presides. The Lord Chief-Justice looked at him quietly while he set forth his errand, and then, ringing a bell on his table, said to the servant who responded: "Tell Mary the man has come about ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... infancy, being thus annoyed with these insects, they do never open their eyes as do other people, and therefore they cannot see far unless they hold up their heads, as if they were looking at somewhat over them." We found constant occasion, when on shore, to complain of this fly nuisance; and when combined with their allies, the mosquitoes, no human endurance could, with any patience, submit to the trial. The flies are at you all day, crawling into your eyes, up your nostrils, and down your throat, with the most irresistible perseverance; and no sooner do they, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... provides in her services that we shall be enlightened by that light, that we shall be instructed and fed. We have little or nothing to complain of in that respect. But there are others—hundreds and thousands—who cannot share our privileges, who do not understand the words they hear when they are able to come to public worship. What is to be done for such? Are their needs sufficiently ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Boarding, from $30 to $40 per month. Gen. Winder has issued an order fixing the maximum prices of certain articles of marketing, which has only the effect of keeping a great many things out of market. The farmers have to pay the merchants and Jews their extortionate prices, and complain very justly of the partiality of the general. It does more ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... on, and still there was no sign of the pit-mouth being opened. There began to be secret gatherings of the miners and their wives to complain at the conduct of the company; and it was natural that Hal's friends who had started the check-weighman movement, should take the lead in these. They were among the most intelligent of the workers, and saw farther into the meaning ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... how often you complain of other people for not saying what they meant. How I have heard you growl over the three stone ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... me not grown tired of the search. Think not that I complain that the search is long or arduous. I shall go on seeking where the call may lead me. And ever seek to be worthy of finding it. He who decides all things shall decide as to that. Nor will He find me ever questioning. For this I have ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... gradually lightened. You have mistaken for love the negative attitude of a young girl who was waiting for happiness, who flew in advance of your desires, in the hope that you would go forward in anticipation of hers, and who did not dare to complain of the secret unhappiness, for which she at first accused herself. What man could fail to be the dupe of a delusion prepared at such long range, and in which a young innocent woman is at once the accomplice and the victim? Unless you were a divine ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... that day was about away, back in the time of Stephenson," continued the tall scout, who, once he began to complain, could only be shut off with ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... you," said Jim. "But we will spoil their game I guess, and I don't think the railroad company will complain at the loss of a cowcatcher." Meantime both had raced back ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... the countless barks behold; Earth's inland realms their naval paths unfold. Her plains, long portless, now no more complain Of useless rills and fountains nursed in vain; Canals curve thro them many a liquid line, Prune their wild streams, their lakes and oceans join. Where Darien hills o'erlook the gulphy tide, Cleft in his view the enormous banks divide; Ascending sails ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... and my name dishonoured," said Brian de Bois-Guilbert, "if thou shalt have reason to complain of me! Many a law, many a commandment have I broken, but my ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... constitution. I accordingly soon satisfied her that she had not cast away her hints on a barren or cold soil: on the contrary, they instantly produced her an eager and desiring lover. Nor did she give me any reason to complain; she met the warmth she had raised with equal ardour. I had no longer a coquette to deal with, but one who was wiser than to prostitute the noble passion of love to the ridiculous lust of vanity. We presently understood one another; ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... night, but three hours in broad daylight alone in that house. My curiosity is not satisfied but it is quenched. I have no desire to renew the experiment. You cannot complain, you see, sir, that I am not sufficiently candid; and unless your interest be exceedingly eager and your nerves unusually strong, I honestly add, that I advise you not to pass ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... excitement, excessive mental work, or other conditions involving severe nerve strain. This nervous fatigue is not usually conducive to sleep, but a tired condition of the muscles of the body generally, as a result of natural physical activity, is always favorable to sleep. Many who complain of insomnia, therefore, would often be able to remedy their trouble by the simple expedient of a long walk, covering sufficient distance to bring about the physical fatigue which makes sleep possible. Conditions of air, temperature and bed covering are ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... what sort of a man Esau was: hasty, careless, fond of the good things of this life. He had no reason to complain if he lost his birthright. He did not care for it, and so he had thrown it away. Perhaps he forgot what he had done; but his sin found him out, as our sins are sure to find each of us out. The day came when he wanted his birthright and could not have it, and found no place ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... received Lord Derby's letter of the 14th inst. She did not intend to complain personally of Lord Malmesbury, who, the Queen is sure, was most anxious to do the best he could under the circumstances; but she still thinks that a question of such importance should not have been brought immediately before her for her decision; and although Lord Derby states his opinion ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... very strong," said Mrs. Haskins. "Our folks was Canadians an' small-boned, and then since my last child I hadn't got up again fairly. I don't like t' complain. Tim has about all he can bear now but they was days this week when I jest wanted to lay right ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... he just knows what it is he wants to do, and how. I'll find some common ground that we can both stand on while we have out our differences. But these folk aren't like that. They say what they don't mean. And they tell you, if you complain of that, they are interested only in the end they want to attain, and that the ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... the eggs which I spent my last groschen for, nor the boys whom I had invited. I was made to stay in my room all Easter week, learn twenty Latin words every day, and write three pages of German words in good handwriting. It was a hard punishment, but I knew that I deserved it, and did not complain. I only thought that I would do ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... strikes, co-operations, and bank holidays, an employer has one privilege left—he has not ceased to be a Man, and he has not forfeited a man's right to keep his own secrets. I fail to see anything in my conduct which has given you just reason to complain." ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... I recognized as American, and others of various families and names. In a neighboring field stood a plot of rye-grass two feet in height, notwithstanding the season was yet so early; and a part of it had been already mown for the food of cattle. Yet the people here complain of their climate. "You must get thick shoes and wrap yourself in flannel," said one of them to me. "The English climate makes us subject to frequent and severe colds, and here in Lancashire you have the worst climate of England, perpetually ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... Pope, being desirous of printing his letters, and not knowing how to do, without imputation of vanity, what has in this country been done very rarely, contrived an appearance of compulsion; that, when he could complain that his letters were surreptitiously published, he might decently and defensively ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... he remained the doomed failure and outcast he knew himself to be. Rachel's implied confession rankled in him like a burn. Tanner!—that wretched weakling, with his miserable daubs that nobody wanted to buy. So Rachel had gone to him, as soon as she had driven her husband away, no doubt to complain of her ill-treatment, to air her woes. The fellow had philandered round her some time, and had shown an insolent and interfering temper once or twice towards himself. Yes!—he could imagine it all!—her flight, and Tanner's maudlin sympathy—tears—caresses—the natural ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was not long after Streone's death that I had a message from Emma the queen to bid me to her wedding with Cnut, that should be completed with all magnificence. And I went with Thorkel the jarl and Egil, and I could not complain of the welcome I had both from the queen and from Cnut. I might say much of that wedding, for it was wonderful, but I cared not much for it, except that there I met Elfric the abbot again, and he would have me stay in his house, so that it was most pleasant to be with him, and ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... Jessie, tell me why My fond suit you still deny? Is your bosom cold as snow? Did you never feel for woe? Can you hear, without a sigh, Him complain who for you could die? If you ever shed a tear, Hear me, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... undertake to have him enrolled in the household of the Duke of Burgundy in an honourable condition, and would himself take care of his advancement. And although Quentin, with suitable expressions of gratitude, declined this favour at present, until he should find out how far he had to complain of his original patron, King Louis, he, nevertheless, continued to remain on good terms with the Count of Crevecoeur, and, while his enthusiastic mode of thinking, and his foreign and idiomatical manner of expressing himself, often excited a smile on the grave cheek of the Count, that ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... be general, so that throughout the school there should be a spirited interest in the questions and replies. This will never be the case if a small number of the boys only take part in the answers, and many teachers complain that when they try this experiment they can seldom induce many of the pupils to ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... the physical agony; she did not cry out, or complain, or repent, or pray. Most of the spiritual emotion and life left in her had gone into the letter. Memory called up only the last moments of her life—when she saw Ancliffe die; when she folded innocent Allie Lee to the breast that had always yearned for a ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... brigade was furnished, and he engaged to defray the charge of paying and maintaining it. From that time his independence was at an end. Hastings was not a man to lose the advantage which he had thus gained. The Nabob soon began to complain of the burden which he had undertaken to bear. His revenues, he said, were falling off; his servants were unpaid; he could no longer support the expense of the arrangement which he had sanctioned. Hastings ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... she weaves all the abuse which long experience tells her will lash her husband up to boiling-point. The later stanzas complain that the singer has been taken from her own home among a nation of real warriors to live among a gang of skulking cowards, whose hearts, livers, and other vital organs are not at all up to ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... the only Catholics on board. We scarcely ever went on deck, preferring to remain quietly in the cabin allotted to us, and perform our devotions. The crew, at times, sang their prayers too loudly for the comfort of an invalid, and Mlle. Mance was reluctantly obliged to complain to the captain. After that the singing of the prayers ceased, and we were treated with marked attention and respect. We had a prosperous voyage over the blue sea, and cast anchor at La Rochelle, during the Christmas holidays. Mlle. Mance went immediately ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... passage occurs: "It seems to me that I have treated the Single Taxers as fairly as they could ask, and if I now proceed to state a few plain truths about them and their faith they will have no just cause to complain." From the tone and tenor of these words it is fair to assume that in the editorial referred to you have discharged against the Single Taxers and their faith the heaviest broadsides of which your ordnance is capable. If, notwithstanding ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... compartment next to mine. Obviously they were traveling together, equally obvious was it that there was plenty of room in their own compartment. The train was hardly in motion, however, when the woman of the party entered my compartment. She started to complain about being annoyed by the man next door and to ask my protection. As a matter of course, I got up and offered my assistance to remove her belongings into my compartment. I had, up to now, not the slightest doubt as to there being anything fishy in her request. I had, in fact, no reason ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... expenditure seems to be in building. He keeps about fifty horses, of which a dozen are of prime quality; his only amusement is sporting with the hawk and the pointer. He lives on very bad terms with his family, who complain of his neglecting them; for the greater part of them are poor, and will become still poorer, till they are reduced to the state of Fellahs, because it is the custom with the sons, as soon as they attain the age of fifteen or sixteen, to demand the share ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... the kingdom's splendid growth 465 Honoured in countless ways. Its noble sons these honours reap, But let no careless strain Prevent you what you win to keep; Ye prelates, 'tis no time for sleep! 470 Ye priests, do not complain! When mighty Rome was in full sail Conquering all the Earth The girls and matrons without fail, That so the soldiers should prevail, 475 Gave all their jewels' worth. Then O ye shepherds of the Church Down, down with Mahomet's creed! ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... you lose your needle you lose your day's work. Spoken to shiftless persons who complain loudly on the least trifle going wrong ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... from aristocratic halls to decidedly second-rate institutions down back streets. In fact, the 'wave' that has come over the spirit world seems to resemble that which has also supervened upon the purely mundane arrangements of Messrs. Spiers and Pond; and we anxious investigators can scarcely complain of the change which brings us face to face with fair young maidens in their teens to the exclusion of the matrons and spinsters aforesaid, or the male medium who was once irreverently termed by a narrator a ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... although you have had plenty of time to write. Harvey has written me that he has no one in view at present to buy my land. Well, I shall have tasted the cup of bitterness to the very dregs, but I do not complain. Good-by. I forgive you your conduct toward me and trust you will be able to forgive yourself. I prefer to be a dead gentleman to a ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... all right enough; but how am I to know how to take it? Is it serious, or is it spoof? If the author knows what his play is, let him tell us what it is. If he doesnt, he cant complain if I dont know either. I'm ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... evening when Clara left the farm to go to the train that was to take her away, her father said he had a headache, a thing he had never been known to complain of before, and told Jim Priest to drive her to the station. Jim took the girl to the station, saw to the checking of her baggage, and waited about until her train came in. Then he boldly kissed her on the cheek. "Good-by, little girl," he said gruffly. Clara was so grateful she could not ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... look ahead," Mrs. Welland once ventured to complain to her daughter; and May answered serenely: "No; but you see it doesn't matter, because when there's nothing particular to ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... have heard me complain a mile off when I came to the end of a journey I once took. I roared like a bull when I began to cool. Joseph, could you not get a European saddle for Mr. Smith?" But Joseph did not seem to like Mr. Smith, and declared such a thing to be impossible. ...
— A Ride Across Palestine • Anthony Trollope
... Phil Forrest was not the lad to complain. He went about his studies the same as he approached any other task that was set for him to do—went about it with a grim, silent determination to conquer it. And he ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... I'm principled about this matter," said she, turning to Miss Ophelia; "you'll find the necessity of it. If you encourage servants in giving way to every little disagreeable feeling, and complaining of every little ailment, you'll have your hands full. I never complain myself—nobody knows what I endure. I feel it a duty to bear it quietly, and ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... tempt an anchorite! What! do I hear thy slender voice complain? Thou wailest when I talk of beauty's light, As if it brought the memory of pain. Thou art a wayward being—well—come near, And pour thy tale of sorrow in ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... said? Tell nobody." That Lambert, clerk at the palace, told her he had brought the packets to Madame from Sainte-Croix; that Lachaussee often went to see her; and that she herself, not being paid ten pistoles which the marquise owed her, went to complain to Sainte-Croix, threatening to tell the lieutenant what she had seen; and accordingly the ten pistoles were paid; further, that the marquise and Sainte-Croix always kept poison about them, to make use of, in case of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... cannot be changed," continued Daniel Boone. "James was a good son and I looked forward to a useful life for him, but he is not to be here. It does no one any good to rebel uselessly, and only children and savages complain when everything they desire is not arranged as ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... wife of the deceased, was the first witness examined. She said her husband died on Saturday, the 24th of October, and had been at work on the Caharagh road the day he died. He had been so engaged for about three weeks before his death. He did not complain of being sick. She explained to the coroner and the jury what they had had to support them during the week, on the Saturday of which her husband died. Her family was five in number. She had nothing, she said, ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... surely very ungrateful to my heavenly Father," said he, half aloud. "Hereafter, when I am disposed to complain of my food, I will think of this poor boy. But stop; I had forgotten the rolls Mrs. Burton gave me. I am not very hungry now;" and taking the packet from his bosom pocket, he gave it to the ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... undeviating system he owed a great measure of the comfort and tranquillity of his well-ordered house, and hence he struggled earnestly not to complain at the bondage that resulted from their cast-iron methods. Long since he had despaired of expecting adaptability from them. They must cling to their rut or all was lost. Once out of their customary ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... then," was the reply. "We all have our trials, Mr. O'Grady, and she's mine. I don't complain, but I don't deserve it, for a harder working woman never lived, but there ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... complain of illness. She hoped every day that the worst was over, and that she would be as well as usual again. Mrs Seaton lightened her duties in various ways. Martha, the nurse in the lower nursery, was very kind and considerate too, ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... wife that matter of his parliamentary ambition, and found in her a very ready listener. Having made up his mind to do this thing, he was resolved to do it thoroughly, and was becoming almost as full of politics, almost as much devoted to sugar, as Mr Palliser himself. He at any rate could not complain that his wife would not interest herself in his pursuits. Then, as they returned, came letters from Lady Glencora, written as her troubles grew nigh. The Duke had gone, of course; but he was to be there at the appointed time. "Oh, I do so wish he would have a fit of the gout in London,—or ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... torture. I said to him, that as he had so great a devotion to our Lord carrying His cross on His shoulders, he should now think that His Majesty wished him to feel somewhat of that pain which He then suffered Himself. This so comforted him, that I do not think I heard him complain afterwards. ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... bills as you desire. You can depend upon my settling up as cheap as possible, though I confess I have not hitherto been nearly as economical as I might have been. Now that I know it is necessary, you shall have no reason to complain ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... feeling, and on the other to calm his own people, who were, not without reason, both disappointed and provoked. To Sullivan, fuming with wrath, he wrote: "Should the expedition fail through the abandonment of the French fleet, the officers concerned will be apt to complain loudly. But prudence dictates that we should put the best face upon the matter, and to the world attribute the removal to Boston to necessity. The reasons are too obvious to need explaining." And again, a few days later: "First impressions, you know, ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... something to do," cried Aunt Judy. "You surely don't expect me to give them up, and go arm and arm with you round the house, bemoaning the slowness of our fate which gives us nothing to do. Or shall we? Come, I don't care; I will if you like. But which shall we complain to first, mamma, or ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... apt to complain that his territory is poor. The good salesman makes any territory good. So in prospecting your field of immediate opportunities, make the best, not the worst, of your present circumstances. The star base-ball player does not refuse to play on the small-town ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill, Complain thou not, my heart, for these Bank in the current ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... the Government to set limits to prices. The law of supply and demand, I am sorry to say, has been replaced by the law of unrestrained selfishness. While we have eliminated profiteering in several branches of industry, it still runs impudently rampant in others. The farmers for example, complain with a great deal of justice that, while the regulation of food prices restricts their incomes, no restraints are placed upon the prices of most of the things they must themselves purchase; and similar inequities obtain on ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson
... blacksmith and the shopkeeper once more—two years after marriage—time long enough to have made common people as common to each other as the weed by the roadside; but these are not common to each other yet, and never will be. They will never complain of being desillusionnes, for they have never been illuded. They look up each to the other still, because they were right in looking up each to the other from the first. Each was, and therefore each is and ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... light and peace. This country is a good and pleasant country, and those who are coming to live here are sprung from a noble race, and if you, my friends, all prove as good and true as this departed red-man, you will have no cause to complain at the pale faces settling around you. You will secure a righteous treatment of your race, and your people will be a happy people. The British people (my people) are a great people, and where they settle they govern wisely, and in their ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... thou must follow the footsteps of My Passion. For he who loves God, and is inwardly united to Him, finds the cross itself light and easy to bear, and has nought to complain of. No one receives from Me more marvellous sweetness, than he who shares My bitterest labours. He only complains of the bitterness of the rind, who has not tasted the sweetness of the kernel. He who relies on Me as his protector and ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... Smallbones, "why, you must come for to go for to complain on it, as he comes on board. You must take the tail, and tell the tale, and purtend to be as angry and as sorry as himself, and damn her up in heaps. That's ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... said, "Then, sir, you must borrow it." In a large party one evening, the conversation turned upon young men's allowances at college. Tom deplored the ill-judging parsimony of many parents in that respect. "I am sure, Tom," said his father, "you have no reason to complain; I always allowed you L800 a-year." "Yes, father, I confess you allowed it; but then—it ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... complain that their husbands are silent during dinner have usually good reason to overhaul the quality of their own conversation. Don't bore him with your fight with the grocer or the catty things Mrs. X said at ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... probability, the election would take place the next day, the good people preserved their patience. Besides, it had been very hot that day, and they were so broken with fatigue and roasted by the sun, these dwellers in shade and idleness, that they had no strength left to complain. ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... golden rule of Plotinus, which lays down that the future is foreseen and arranged by the gods. Being thus arranged, it must needs be just, for God is the highest expression of justice. Against a fate thus settled for us we have no right to complain, lest we should seem to be setting ourselves into opposition to God's will. Here, although he writes in the spirit of a Christian, the authority cited is that of a heathen philosopher, and the form of his meditations is taken rather from Seneca than from father ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... and drink, and rose up to play. [10:8]Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them did and fell in one day twenty-three thousand. [10:9]Neither let us try Christ, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents. [10:10]Neither do you complain as some of them complained and were destroyed by the destroyer. [10:11]All these things happened to them as examples, and are recorded for our admonition on whom the ends of the ages have come; [10:12]so ...
— The New Testament • Various
... them for the heat and the distress which they must have endured in the heavy, high-fitting, long-sleeved garments; yet we cannot but think they would have looked better on top of a coach than their granddaughters—who should remember, when they complain of the rude remarks, that we have no aristocracy here whose feelings the mob is obliged to respect, and that the plainer their dress the less apt they will be to hear unpleasant epithets applied to them. In the present somewhat aggressive Amazonian fashion, when a woman drives a man ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... the highest degree in South America and the West Indies. The following account is given by Du Tertre of the Carib couvade in the West Indies. When a child is born, the mother goes presently to work, but the father begins to complain, and takes to his hammock, and there he is visited as though he were sick, and undergoes a course of dieting "which would cure of the gout the most replete of Frenchmen." The imaginary invalid must repose and take careful nursing and nourishing food. In Brazil, on the birth of a child, the ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... poor Jeremy, who was forced to have a young elder shoot, with the pith drawn, for to feed him. And once, when they wanted pickled loach* (from my description of it), I took up my boyish sport again, and pronged them a good jarful. Therefore, none of them could complain; and yet they were not satisfied; perhaps for want ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... get rid of, reminds me of what I think a more prudent conduct in another sect among us, that of the Dunkers. I was acquainted with one of its founders, Michael Welfare, soon after it appear'd. He complain'd to me that they were grievously calumniated by the zealots of other persuasions, and charg'd with abominable principles and practices, to which they were utter strangers. I told him this had always been the case with new sects, and that, to put a stop to such abuse, I imagin'd ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... coupling up," Gastrell exclaimed suddenly. "At our next stopping place I'll complain, and ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... countenance expressed such exceeding bitter anguish. I saw that passion obscured his reason; that while under its dominion he was incapable of perceiving the truth. I remembered the warning accents of his mother: "You have no right to complain." I remembered her Christian injunction, "to endure all;" and my own promise, with God's help, to do it. All at once, it seemed as if my guardian angel stood before me, with a countenance of celestial sweetness shaded by sorrow; and I trembled as I gazed. I had bowed my shoulder ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Barrie and ending, now very doubtfully, with myself, that I was able to preserve my equanimity. Later one heard that this undergraduate from overseas had gone up at an age more advanced than customary; and just as Cambridge men have been known to complain of the maturity of Oxford Rhodes scholars, so one felt that this WESTMINSTER free-lance in the thirties was no fit competitor for the youth of other colleges. Indeed, it ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... to Rob Adair that this good and worthy thought had come. In him more than in any of his fellow-elders the dead man's spirit lived. He had sat under him all his life, and was sappy with his teaching. Some would have murmured had they had time to complain, but no one ventured to say nay to Rob Adair as he pushed the modest, clear-faced youth ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... rustic love: Which being known,—as what is hid from Jove?— He inly storm'd, and wax'd more furious Than for the fire filch'd by Prometheus; And thrusts him down from heaven. He, wandering here, In mournful terms, with sad and heavy cheer, 440 Complain'd to Cupid: Cupid, for his sake, To be reveng'd on Jove did undertake; And those on whom heaven, earth, and hell relies, I mean the adamantine Destinies, He wounds with love, and forc'd them equally To dote upon deceitful Mercury. They offer'd ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... Moe among the former, Bjoernson, Ibsen, Kjelland, and Lie among the latter, were, as far as Englishmen were concerned, "to fortune and to fame unknown." All this has been changed; sportsmen now complain that it becomes more difficult every year to hire rivers. Tourists swarm over the country from the Naze to the North Cape. Ibsen's dramas are played in London theatres, and his novels, and those of Bjoernson and Lie, are read in Germany ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... that this note was very pleasing to Caroline Danby; but, whatever were her dissatisfaction, she did not complain, and probably soon lost all remembrance of her chagrin in the gayeties which a few men of fortune still remained, amidst the almost universal ruin, ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... been attacked for not preferring Robert Louis Stevenson's "Macaire" to the version which he actually produced in 1883. It would have been hardly more unreasonable to complain of his producing "Hamlet" in preference to Mr. Gilbert's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern." Stevenson's "Macaire" may have all the literary quality that is claimed for it, although I personally think Stevenson was only making a delightful idiot of himself in it! Anyhow, it is frankly ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... them to their last dying speech and confession. But come with me, my lad; there is a tavern hard by, and we may as well discuss matters over a pint of wine. You look cursed seedy, to be sure; but I can tell Bill the waiter—famous fellow, that Bill!—that you are one of my tenants, come to complain of my steward, who has just distrained you for rent, you dog! No wonder you look so worn in the rigging. Come, follow me. I can't walk with thee. It would look too like Northumberland House and the butcher's abode next door taking ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... nothing, except it be given him from heaven," he said. The power over men which he had wielded for a time had been given to him. Now the power had been withdrawn, and given to Jesus. It was all right, and he should not complain ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... responsibility permits me to do it." Then there results the possibility of the emperor's saying: "If that is so, I must look for another chancellor." This did not happen; another thing happened, namely—the resolve was not submitted. The ensuing situation is this, that the persons entitled to complain—if there are any—constitute the majority of the governments who passed this resolve in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... I complain if you hold roughly in your mind, subject to a whim's reversal, an evening destination to check your hunger. But do not bend your circuit back to the noisy city! Let your march end at the inn of a country town! If it is but a station ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... brutal, and he threatened even Catherine with death it she hesitated to obey his slightest whim. They had been reared in monotonous retirement hitherto, and never saw their bridegrooms till the marriage-day. Their wrongs were seldom redressed if they ventured to complain, and the convent was the only refuge from unhappy married life. The royal princesses were not allowed to appear in public nor drive unveiled through the streets. Suitors did not release them from the dreary empty routine of their life, because their religion ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... I haven't a word to say. You did your duty. Now I want you to bear witness how I do mine. I do not complain that I am condemned rather through the form than the fact. I was carried out of my senses by the ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... health. For myself I immediately took double precautions, and although I could not hope soon to shake off such a disease, especially under such unfavourable circumstances as those in which we were placed, I was yet thankful that I did not become worse. For Mr. Browne, as he did not complain, I had every hope that he too had succeeded in arresting the progress of this fearful distemper. It will naturally occur to the reader as singular, that the officers only should have been thus attacked; but the fact is, that they had been constantly absent from the ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... his partner's persistency in putting to Hawkesbury the same questions as had been put to me, but he could hardly complain. He turned to his nephew and said, "Did ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... to complain of,' replied Caldigate, feeling himself at the moment to be the most ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... the British cabinet declines all negotiation on the subject, with a disavowal, however, of any disposition to view in an unfriendly light whatever countervailing regulations the United States may oppose to the regulations of which they complain. The wisdom of the Legislature will decide on the course which, under these circumstances, is prescribed by a joint regard to the amicable relations between the two nations and to the just interests of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... to me what I had been doing, and I saw the poor woman had her hand at her throat; she was half-choking with the "hysteric ball,"—a very odd symptom, as you know, which nervous women often complain of. What business had I to be trying experiments on this forlorn old soul? I had a great deal better ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... large party, one evening, the conversation turned upon young men's allowance at college. Tom Sheridan lamented the ill-judging parsimony of many parents in that respect. "I am sure, Tom," said his father, "you need not complain; I always allowed you eight hundred a year."—"Yes, father, I must confess you allowed it; but then ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... successful cultivation of the arts of peace and industry; he must have felt somewhat like Cassandra among the less gifted. If we could look on life, as our successors will two hundred years hence, we too might complain of being "lone in the city of the blind;" unless large Hope and Benevolence enabled us to live on the future. Thus we find additional motive to desiring a united and absolute, rather than an individual and relative progress, in the consideration that knowledge ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington
... dare to speak so if her brother had been there. Then it was that he threw it at me. He might have thrown a dozen if he had but left my bonny bird alone. He was forever ill-treating her, and she too proud to complain. She will not even tell me all that he has done to her. She never told me of those marks on her arm that you saw this morning, but I know very well that they come from a stab with a hatpin. The sly devil—God forgive ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... builders had no intention to deceive him. He will see that every slab of facial marble is fastened to the next by a confessed rivet, and that the joints of the armor are so visibly and openly accommodated to the contours of the substance within, that he has no more right to complain of treachery than a savage would have, who, for the first time in his life seeing a man in armor, had supposed him to be made of solid steel. Acquaint him with the customs of chivalry, and with the uses of the ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... that individual. He began to flatter Mali-ya-bwana; to fraternize just enough; to assume complete resignation to his plight—in short, to use just those tactics a clever man would use to lull the alertness of any bright child. Naturally he succeeded. At sundown of the second day he began to complain of ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al |
