"Grumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were disposed to grumble at the small part they seemed to be playing in the great tussle in which England was engaged, the authorities were satisfied that for so small a town to have kept occupied during the first critical month of the war 10,000—and ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... old—guiltless as yet of the sty—with no original speck of the amor immunditiae, the hereditary failing of the first parent, yet manifest—his voice as yet not broken, but something between a childish treble, and a grumble—the mild forerunner, or praeludium, of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... that!" he roared, his anger lifting his voice high above the grumble and the sharp clack of the place. "I'll ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... minded to Fling it at him, knock him and the Chaplain down, and leave the precious pair to pick themselves up again, but I forebore. "Well," I said, "if that's the value you put upon your life, I can't grumble at your Guerdon. I suppose that shrivelled little carcass of yours isn't worth more than fourpence. I'll e'en change it in town, and buy fourpennyworth of Dutch cheese, and you shall have the parings for nothing to send to your Mamma as a gift from foreign parts. Good morning ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... superiors, and I predict that he will get well and be promoted. I think you will receive a letter in a day or two from the surgeon. I prescribe that you and mamma sleep in the morning till you are rested. I won't grumble at taking my coffee alone." Then, to the colored woman and her son: "Don't you worry. We'll see that you are ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... vanity overcame her prudence, and being unable to conceal the jewels any longer, she one day said to me, "Bourrienne, there is to be a large party here to-morrow, and I absolutely must wear my pearls. But you know he will grumble if he notices them. I beg, Bourrienne, that you will keep near me. If he asks me where I got my pearls I must tell him, without hesitation, that I have had them ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... we've reach'd her, lo! the captain, Gallant Kidd, commands the crew; Passengers their berths are clapt in, Some to grumble, some to spew, 'Hey day! call you that a cabin? Why 'tis hardly three feet square; Not enough to stow Queen Mab in— Who the deuce can harbour there?' 'Who, sir? plenty— Nobles twenty Did at once my vessel fill'— 'Did they? Jesus, How you squeeze us! ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... said; "but in any case I am sure your wit would have come to the rescue, and you would have said that you had in fact bought them from your savings; but that thinking your husband might grumble at your little economies you had thought it best to say that they came ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... clamor, hue and cry, plaint; lungs; stentor. V. cry, roar, shout, bawl, brawl, halloo, halloa, hoop, whoop, yell, bellow, howl, scream, screech, screak[obs3], shriek, shrill, squeak, squeal, squall, whine, pule, pipe, yaup[obs3]. cheer; hoot; grumble, moan, groan. snore, snort; grunt &c. (animal sounds) 412. vociferate; raise up the voice, lift up the voice; call out, sing out, cry out; exclaim; rend the air; thunder at the top of one's voice, shout at the top of one's voice, shout ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the two Generals came in from some vanity of inspection to grumble a little merrily at the open air banquet, but to take their places in all good humour, and the lively meal began with all the home witticisms, yet not such as to exclude strangers. Indeed, Hubert Delrio was treated with something like distinction, ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Work is such an admirable tonic. The princess works, and finds life very tolerable. You will never succeed with people like Frau von Treumann and the baroness. They belong to a class of persons that will grumble even in heaven. You could easily make those who are happy already still happier, for it is in them—the gratitude and appreciation for life and its blessings; but those of course are not the people you want to get at. You think I am preaching?" ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... and cry, plaint; lungs; stentor. V. cry, roar, shout, bawl, brawl, halloo, halloa, hoop, whoop, yell, bellow, howl, scream, screech, screak^, shriek, shrill, squeak, squeal, squall, whine, pule, pipe, yaup^. cheer; hoot; grumble, moan, groan. snore, snort; grunt &c (animal sounds) 412. vociferate; raise up the voice, lift up the voice; call out, sing out, cry out; exclaim; rend the air; thunder at the top of one's voice, shout at the top of one's voice, shout at the pitch of one's breath, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... rash when I ventured to remonstrate about a bill. Ellice pointed out, with justice, that so long as I slouched round and let Wandle rob me, I'd no right to grumble at her for buying a few things. Most unwisely I maintained my point and"—he indicated the broken crock and littered table—"you see ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... hours' sleep," he wrote to his mother. "And I was perfectly comfortable. I can tell you one thing, too, Mother. If I ever get home after this experience, there'll be one in the house who'll never grumble! This business puts the grumbling out of your head. This is where the men are. This is where every man ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... "the peasants will make a demonstration. You know as well as I do—as well as Prince Pavlo does, despite his imperturbable face—that the whole country is a volcano which may break forth at any moment. But the control is strong, and therefore there is never a large eruption—a grumble here, a gleam of fire there, a sullen heat everywhere! But it is held in check by the impossibility of communication. It seems strange, but Russia stands because she has no penny postage. The great crash will come, not by force of arms, but by ways of peace. The signal will be a postal ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... railways and the million ride. God hath so willed the toiling millions reap The golden harvest that the rich have sown. Six feet of earth make all men even; lo The toilers are the rich man's heirs at last. But there be men would grumble at their lot, Even if it were a corner-lot on Broadway. We stand upon the shoulders of the past. Who knoweth not the past how may he know The folly or the wisdom of to-day? For by comparison we weigh the good, And by comparison all evil weigh. "What can we reason, ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... gales. The "line" was passed; southern seas were reached; new constellations glittered overhead; strange fish and luminous creatures gambolled in the sea, and the whalers' fishing-ground was entered. Latterly the men had ceased to grumble at the captain, although he had by no means ceased to swear at and bully the men, and Gaff began to hope that they had got over their bad fit, and were going to settle down to ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... course not. I ain't one o' them blokes as grumble cause a feller's 'ungry. Wot d'yer say to a bit o' cold meat and ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... knocking up. At first I refused to go on, but on the promise that he would get a bullock at the nearest place I mounted upon the luggage. Fortunately, my gift camel is a good one, not like the horse, and can carry a large weight. I cannot grumble much, as the Sheikh's camels are transporting many of my private things. Nevertheless you must show a stern resistance to all these liberties, otherwise you will never be ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... kind master allowed her to do, for a few days after Cara's birth; grumbled when the Arabs and camels moved on; grumbled when any one touched him with a pat or caress, and grumbled when let alone. In fact, the only time when Cara did not grumble was when he took his meals, and this was simply because his mouth and tongue were occupied with getting ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... have not named the arrowroot plants, because I have planted my land with them again, but they might be fairly put to the credit of the account. The above statement shows what may be done with good land and good management; but even if a man can only clear L10 on an acre of land, he ought not to grumble. ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... old fellow was Sam, and he used to say that no one loved the young masters so well as he did; but somehow or another Sam never used to see them out in the garden without finding something to grumble about. His complaints were generally without foundation; but Sam used to think he had cause to complain; and, being rather an old man, he used to consider he had a right so ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... life. I got a love of adventure, and particularly of military parade and grandeur, that has since led me into more than one difficulty. Capt. Hugh Littlepage, my grandfather, was delighted with all he saw until after the expedition had sailed, when he began to grumble on the subject of the religious observances that the piety of the Puritans blended with most of their other movements. On the score of religion there was a marked difference; I may say there is still a marked difference between New England ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... self-control, thought, effort to fulfil that aspiration even in part. For to be discontented with the divine discontent, and to be ashamed with the noble shame, is the very germ and first upgrowth of all virtue. Men begin at first, as boys begin when they grumble at their school and their schoolmasters, to lay the blame on others; to be discontented with their circumstances—the things which stand around them; and to cry, "Oh that I had this!" "Oh that I had that!" But by that way no deliverance lies. That discontent ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... was once only a handful of atoms. There was the period of Birth; there was the period of Conquest; and finally there has come the period of Domination. Now, with its hold on the industry, the life of eight states, complete, like the great Serpent it can grumble, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... the man in black, 'why she will be true to herself. Let Dissenters, whether they be Church of England, as perhaps they may still call themselves, Methodist, or Presbyterian, presume to grumble, and there shall be bruising of lips in pulpits, tying up to whipping-posts, cutting off ears and noses—he! he! the farce of King Log has been acted long enough; the time for Queen Stork's tragedy is drawing nigh'; and the ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the toiler humble, Just reason to complain, To shirk your task and grumble And think that it is vain Because you see a brother With greater work to do? No fame of his can smother The merit ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... disgrace.' Many of them lived almost entirely upon biscuit, others on their own private supplies, and some paid extra for better rations from the ship. This marvellously changed my notion of the degree of luxury habitual to the artisan. I was prepared to hear him grumble, for grumbling is the traveller's pastime; but I was not prepared to find him turn away from a diet which was palatable to myself. Words I should have disregarded, or taken with a liberal allowance; but when a man prefers dry biscuit there can be no question of the sincerity ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... other matter. Hence it occurs that no offense against the post-office is committed when the connection between different mail trains is broken. The post-office takes the best it can get, paying as other customers pay, and grumbling as other customers grumble when the service rendered falls short of that which ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... restricted rations in England; but no starvation and no sign of it. There were partisan criticisms and plenty of "grousing." The Britisher is never contented unless he can grumble—especially at his own government. But there was no lack of a real unity of purpose, nor of a solid, cheerful, bull-dog determination to hang on to the enemy until he came down. It is this spirit that has enabled a nation, which was almost ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... said Will. "I will never grumble on that subject again." There was a gentleness in his tone which came from the unutterable contentment of perceiving—what Dorothea was hardly conscious of—that she was travelling into the remoteness of pure pity and loyalty towards ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... of fashion. After one of these feasts there was often much that was objectionable; and, wherever possible, farmers have abolished them, giving a small sum of money instead; but in places the labourers grumble greatly at the change, preferring the bacon and the beer, and the unrestrained license. It is noticeable how the women must have their tea. If it is far from home, the children collect sticks, and a fire is made in a corner of the field, and the kettle boiled; and about four o'clock they take a cup ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... finer perceptibilities. But when he learnt, after the interchange of various hoarse and to him unintelligible bellowings, that he was to wait in that narrow damp lobby for the coming of his fellow- Commissioner, the grating on his feelings was even more discordant. He had not pluck enough left to grumble: but he grunted his displeasure. He grunted, however, in vain; for in about a quarter of an hour Alaric was close to him, shoulder to shoulder. He also wore a white jacket, &c., with a nightcap of mud and candle on his head; but somehow he looked as though ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... experienced in war had volunteered to follow Richard Shelton. The service of watching Sir Daniel's movements in the town of Shoreby had from the first been irksome to their temper, and they had of late begun to grumble loudly and threaten to disperse. The prospect of a sharp encounter and possible spoils restored them to good humour, and they joyfully ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as the unpardonable sin. But what do we want of a hospitality that makes strangers of us, or of confidences that keep us at arm's-length? Better the tavern and the newspaper; for in the one we can grumble, and from the other learn more of our neighbors than we care to know. John Smith's autobiography is commonly John Smith's design for an equestrian statue of himself,—very fine, certainly, and as much like him as like Marcus Aurelius. Saint Augustine, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... paterfamilias, and that he showed his slaves great consideration for their welfare. He complains, indeed, jocularly in one place that too much kindness is not good for servants, as it leads them to presume upon the easy-going temperament of their master, but that is only a good- natured grumble on the ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... "Yes, I am very late, but I will not grumble as I did this evening when we were told we must work overhours, for it is thanks to the lateness that I have—prepare yourself, my girl—I have found the ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... about the over-preservation of game, and they grumbled about the rabbits. The hunt had its grumble too because some of the finest coverts were closed to the hounds, and because they wanted to know what became of the foxes that formerly lived in those coverts. Here was a beautiful place—a place that one might dream life away in—filled with ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... Anything may happen. They may shoot Shepstone and his staff and the twenty-five policemen, or they may just grumble and go home. Probably they ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... in such cases no writer would grumble, But give you his hearty permission, When two correspondents on one mark should stumble, To make ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various
... near. But as the general says, say I, One should always the whole of a case descry. We call ourselves all the Friedlander's troops; The burgher, on whom we're billeted, stoops Our wants to supply, and cooks our soups. His ox, or his horse, the peasant must chain To our baggage-car, and may grumble in vain. Just let a lance-corp'ral, with seven good men, Tow'rd a village from far but come within ken, You're sure he'll be prince of the place, and may Cut what capers he will, with unquestioned sway. Why, zounds! lads, they heartily hate us all— And would rather the devil should give ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... by the cells, the refectory, and the domestic buildings of the monks. The erection of the castle is dated in the twelfth century, and from this time we may consider the older abbey buildings around the church to have been deserted and left to ruin; but we can hardly grumble at a transfer which has given us so curious a combination of military and monastic architecture ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... supply of water to drink. It almost seemed that their meager allowance of a pint and a half each for the twenty-four hours did little more than increase their thirst. They could not safely alter their unpleasant situation, however, and they wisely made the best of it and did not grumble. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... ran with him to the nest. A contest now took place between them, who should have the egg; often the dog was foiled, although he was the stronger of the two. If he gained the victory, he ran joyfully to me with the egg, and put it into my hand. Kees, nevertheless, followed him, and did not cease to grumble and make threatening grimaces at him, till he saw me take the egg,—as if he was comforted for the loss of his booty by his adversary's not retaining it for himself. If Kees had got hold of the egg, he endeavoured to run with it to a tree, where, having devoured it, he threw down ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... that on that day the great debacle was to culminate. We listened all day for cannon thunder; under certain conditions of the atmosphere the sound of heavy guns may reverberate as far perhaps, as from Sedan to Waterloo. That day, however, there was no ominous grumble from the eastward, the sky was cloudless, the flowers bloomed about the Chateau d'Hougomont, and the birds twittered in peace at the point before La Haie-Sainte to which the First Napoleon advanced in the evening and where for the ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... is apparently the one new thing in the town, and it is new enough to more than make up for the oldness of everything else. We went there to grumble because, after we had done the ruined castle (and it had done Mamma), Joseph's "all little" hour threatened to lengthen itself into at ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the distance behind them. It came nearer as the sound of the motor approached. The motor's mutter became a grumble. It was definitely a truck. They could hear those other sounds that trucks always make in ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... your life long, and if you drink nothing but water, or the very mildest beer, and live on very plain food, and never lose your temper, and go to church every Sunday, and always remain content in the position in which Providence has placed you, and never grumble nor swear; and always keep your clothes decent, and rise early, and use every opportunity of improving yourself, you will get on very well, and never come ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... and had arranged about billets. So the men were immediately shown into their billets. I am billeted in a farm-house; I have a nice little bedroom all to myself, and sleep in a civilian bed. So I am very well off. What do you say? I have nothing to grumble about as regards my quarters. B Company is billeted in the two barns belonging to this farm: two platoons in each barn. The Company parade in a delightful field the other side of the barns. There are three officers' messes: Headquarters and two of two combined companies. ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... invoked war, turned every development of material and social science to aggressive ends, and at last when she felt the time was ripe she let loose the new monster that she had made of war to cow the spirit of mankind. She set the thing trampling through Belgium. She cannot grumble if at last it comes home, stranger and more dreadful even than she made it, trampling the German towns and fields with German blood upon it ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... weather vor I," he would frequently grumble to his greatest crony, James Coachman, who, for his part, bitterly resented the abnormal length of the daily drives. "Zure as vate, when I zits down tu my tea, cumes a message from one are t'other on 'em, ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... and still. He could hear the footsteps of his recent visitor pounding up the road, and the splashy grumble of the surf on the bar was unusually audible. He stood for a moment looking up at the black sky, with the few stars shining between the cloud blotches. Then he turned and looked at the little house ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... years. He is one of the foremost men in the city; he has broad and liberal ideas, and none of the jealousy of us Flemings that is so common among the citizens, although my countrymen more directly rival him in his trade than they do many others who grumble at us, though they are in no way ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... month's time you should grumble and fall out with me for not writing, you will certainly be in some degree justified; for I think it must be near upon three weeks since I wrote to you, which is a sin and a shame. To say that I have not had time to write is nonsense, for in three weeks there ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... patient, down-trodden Canadians began to grumble. One day a crowd of angry women threw their horse-flesh at Vaudreuil's door. Another day even the grenadiers refused to eat their rations. Then Montcalm's second-in-command, Levis, who ate horse-flesh himself, for the sake of example, told them ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... enemy. No matter; the British Army, colloquially speaking, knew its way about. Thus when the shades of night were falling, the general disposition was one of willingness to wait. The food, to be sure, lacked something of its wonted excellence; but it served (in the summer), and we did not grumble. The shelling, too, had fallen somewhat flat. Mafeking was more out of the way and in a worse plight than Kimberley. Reflections of this kind begot condescension and ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... you with a speckled trout, Pull your hair to make it sprout; Though you grumble, also pout, One, two, three, and ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... glory slumber comes Bosomed amid the archangelic choir; Not with the grumble of impetuous drums Deepening the chorus ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... paper in the morning, and idly and slowly peruse the advertisements on the first page, forget it, eat some bacon, grumble at the youngest boy, open the paper, read the breach of promise case on page three, drop it, and ask your wife for more coffee—hot—glance at your letters again, then reopen the paper at the news page, and ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... chase, father!" cried Jack, "Nothing like real hunting after all. And just to see how Storm and Grumble go along over a grassy plain! It is perfectly splendid! We soon tired out the little antelopes, and were able ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... changed, and not for the better. Still, if any one has no right to grumble, it is the archaeologist, because the building of these suburban quarters has placed more knowledge at his disposal than could have been gathered before in the lapse of a century. I quote only one instance. Famous ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... in Martin, an' a lovin' gran'mother in me. Dry your eyes an' be a Blanchard. God A'mighty sends sawls in the world His awn way, an' chooses the faithers an' mothers for 'em; an' He's never taught Nature to go second to parson yet, worse luck. 'Tis done, an' to grumble at a dead man's doin's—specially if you caan't mend ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... with some Satisfaction, and fell to work might and main: and continued at it for near two years together, felling Timber, and fetching it out of the Woods, laying Foundations, hewing Stone, till they were almost killed with labour. And being wrought quite tyred, they began to accuse and grumble at one another for having been the occasion of all this toil. After they had laboured thus a long while, and were all discouraged, and the People quiet, the King sent word to them to leave off. And now it lies unfinished, all the Timber brought in, rots upon the place, and ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... sauce. You may then abandon yourself to the delights of making a cake for yourself, baking it for yourself, and then eating it yourself, and if you spend a couple of hours over the operation the man will not grumble. As this arrangement combines both the pleasure of making a cake and playing with fire, it is very popular, and we cannot wonder that Taro took a turn, though Miss Blossom did not. She felt herself rather too big to join the swarm of ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore
... contrived to miss my lunch to-day, I shan't grumble," replied Peter, smiling. "Till ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... twice I caught some tone of you in some American Magazine; utterances highly noteworthy to me; in a sense, the only thing that is speech at all among my fellow-creatures in this time. For the years that remain, I suppose we must continue to grumble out some occasional utterance of that kind: what can we do, at this late stage? But in the real "Model Republic," it would have been different with two ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... glanced up at the thermometer, and it registered a hundred in the shade! Mechanically I pushed the lime- juice towards Mulholland, and pointed to the water-bag. There was nothing else to do except grumble at the drought. Yet there my wife was, a picture of coolness and delight; the intense heat seemed only to make her the more refreshing to the eye. Water was not abundant, but we still felt justified in trying to keep her bushes and flowers alive; and she stood there holding ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... I daresay you'll miss them when you are away, for all your scolding when you are with them. No, no, I don't mean that you are unkind to them, but you do grumble a lot! All the same I won't be unjust, and I know ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... Dog-Tooth when he took his second wife, and his third wife. They said Dog-Tooth was different from other men and second only to God that Big-Fat kept in his taboo house, and Dog-Tooth said so, too, and wanted to know who were they to grumble about how many wives he took. Dog-Tooth had a big canoe made, and, many more men he took from work, who did nothing and lay in the sun, save only when Dog-Tooth went in the canoe, when they paddled for him. And he made Tiger-Face ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... people who take part in the early stages of a political campaign—who attend caucuses and primaries, who speak of politics to their neighbors, as members and parts of the machine, and regard only those as good and reliable American citizens who take no part whatever, simply reserving the right to grumble after the work has been done by others. Not much can be accomplished in politics without an organization, and the moment an organization is formed, and, you might say, just a little before, leading spirits will be developed. Certain ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... we had room to grumble about discomforts within, we could only admire unceasingly without the very lovely road along which we were rapidly passing. The country consisted of undulating hills and slopes, prettily wooded, while ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... do for me, old fellow?' asked Mr Lenville, poking the struggling fire with his walking-stick, and afterwards wiping it on the skirt of his coat. 'Anything in the gruff and grumble way?' ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... wet to the skin, covered with mud and filth, without a smoke, groping about in the dark to find a likely stone, carried on the work in silence; and when the word was passed along to knock off work, they "turned in" without a grumble into a wet bivouac. There was no complaining, and the men were never required by their officers to bring along the stones faster. The only noise that broke the stillness of the night was the incessant ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... former times the chief had been a very quiet and dignified man, but now he sang, danced in the streets, and publicly hugged the women, so every one thought him crazy. The Crows disliked the conduct of their chief very much, and began to grumble against the trader; for they thought he was to blame for the great change that had come over their chief. Some said he was bewitched, others that the trader had an evil spirit in one of his boxes, and thus they talked, some believing one thing, and some another, but ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... bed as we had, squire, and we don't grumble. Why, you're not half a fellow. Like to go ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... the Tore fjeld before nightfall, they would have to spend the night outdoors. One of them suggested to the others that perhaps this delay was intentional. The owner of the place probably wanted them to spend the night there; they began to grumble among themselves, and at last ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... south, along what is called "the Mosquito Coast," the weather grew stormy and the gales were severe. His ships were crazy and worm-eaten; the food was running low; the sailors began to grumble and complain and to say that if they kept on in this way they would surely starve before they could ...
— The True Story of Christopher Columbus • Elbridge S. Brooks
... blundherin' man, an' don't you be doin' ut," sez he. Wid that he shows me a Waster action—the breech av her all cut away to show the inside—an' so plazed he was to grumble that he dimonstrated fwhat Hogan had done twice over. "An' that comes av not knowin' the wepping you're purvided ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... listening men the noise dropped to a loud grumble; rose to a piercing shriek; wavered and leaped rapidly from note to note. It was increasing; rushing upon them with unbearable sound. The sense of something approaching, driving toward them swiftly, was strong upon Lieutenant McGuire. He tore the head-phones from his ears and rushed ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... referring to the appointment of Dr. Michaelis, says "there is no chance of his clubbing together with the big industrialists and misguided agitators." So long however as they are clubbed separately we shall not grumble. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... had no knowledge of Box and Cox he did not reply to this grumble, but, rolling up in his blankets until he resembled a huge cocoon, almost ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... moved slowly by. One or two stopped before the shop, and the carters offered vegetables for sale. The old woman would have nothing to say to them, but waved them on irritably. Three had thus stopped and again proceeded, and an impatient grumble broke from the old lady as a fourth, a covered wagon, drew ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... ground of reason. But even terror and admiration of the captain failed us before the end. The men wearied of the hopeless, unremunerative quest and the long strain of labour. They began to shirk and grumble. Retribution fell on them at once, and retribution multiplied the grumblings. With every day it took harder driving to keep them to the daily drudge; and we, in our narrow boundaries, were kept conscious every moment of ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... my boy," answered his father, "it is bet- ter to give warning of a danger that does not exist than overlook one that does. I dare say the sailors will not grumble much, if they don't find a reef where ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... on shore after so long a voyage could scarcely seem otherwise than strange, one missed the eternal rocking at which so many grumble on board ship. Dogs (Melbourne is full of them) kept up an incessant barking; revolvers were cracking in all directions till daybreak, giving one a pleasant idea of the state of society. The next few days were busy ones for all, though rather dismal ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... latter a large hound was kept. The hound did not hear their steps of himself, whether that he were naturally drowsy, or overwearied the day before, but, the gardener's curs awaking him, he first began to growl and grumble in response, and then as they passed by to bark out aloud. And the barking was now so great, that the sentinel opposite shouted out to the dog's keeper to know why the dog kept such a barking, and whether anything was the matter; who answered, that it was nothing, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... where the knights, their pages and squires were placed, the crowding was of course less excessive, but even here the amount of space, which a subaltern traveling to India for the first time nowadays would grumble at, was considered amply sufficient for half a dozen knights of distinction. It was a week after sailing, when Cnut touched Cuthbert's arm as he came on deck ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... do not mean the Senator who spoke last. He [Mr. HUNTER] says that this proposition here is worse than the old Constitution. If that be really so, what in the world has he been complaining of so bitterly? He tells us, now, that under the old Constitution slavery was secure. Then, why do you grumble? He considers it as secure, not only wherever it is, but wherever it can go—nay, more than that; wherever the Stars and Stripes of the American Republic can float. I have been telling my people that, as a Republican, ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... with bank bills drawn through their fingers, who are prepared to receive your 50c. It is not unusual to hear a great deal of indignation expressed by travellers on such occasions. No man has a right to grumble at the fare which hospitality sets before him. But when he buys a dinner at a liberal price, in a country where provisions are abundant, he has a right to expect something which will sustain life ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... mademoiselle; but can you say that these proofs are not in my hands? Should you, however, desire to buy them, you are at liberty to do so. I give you the first option, and yet you grumble." ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... to enter for your cash, smash, crash, Past drowsy Charley, in a deep sleep, creep, But frightened by Policeman B 3, flee, And while they're going, whisper low, "No go!" Now puss, while folks are in their beds, treads leads. And sleepers waking, grumble—"Drat that cat!" Who in the gutter caterwauls, squalls, mauls Some feline foe, and screams ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... for my benefit, that I might not fancy that I had nothing further to do than to wait for the coming of good luck, as is the case too often with certain people, who then grumble and find fault with the world because their luck never comes. I do not mean to say that opportunities do not occur to some men more frequently than to others, but I believe that they visit most of us at some time or other of our lives, ...
— Peter Biddulph - The Story of an Australian Settler • W.H.G. Kingston
... road; An honest cord in Jethro still would fail By a good foot upon the Deacon's scale, And, more to abate the price, his gimlet eye Would pierce to cat-sticks that none else could spy; Yet none dared grumble, for no farmer yet But New Year found him in the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... the exchange by being generous, and told his messenger so; then a small quantity of maize was brought, and I grumbled at the meanness of the present: there is no use in being bashful, as they are not ashamed to grumble too. The man said that Kabinga would send more when he had ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... John Bull dislikes keeping the idle, bastard children of other nations. He readily protects all those who tread upon English soil, but in return for this kindness he expects them, like bees, to be all workers. Drones, ragamuffins, and rodneys cannot grumble if they get kicked out of the hive. If 20,000 Englishmen were to tramp all over India, Turkey, Persia, Hungary, Spain, America, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, South Africa, Germany, or France, in bands of from, say two to fifty men, women, and children, in a most wretched; miserable condition, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... that she should become a first-rate singer. The pupil was apt, the master was exceedingly skilful; and, accordingly, Mrs. Walker's progress was very remarkable: although, for her part, honest Mrs. Crump, who used to attend her daughter's lessons, would grumble not a little at the new system, and the endless exercises which she, Morgiana, was made to go through. It was very different in HER time, she said. Incledon knew no music, and who could sing so well now? Give her a good English ballad: it was ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... South at break of day, Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay, The affrighted air with a shudder bore, Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door, The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar, Telling the battle was on once more, And Sheridan twenty ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... was run to earth in the cardroom and introduced to her. Ida did not wait for him to ask her to dance but calmly ran her pencil through three names on the programme and bestowed the vacancies thus created on him in such a way that he could not refuse them. Dermot, however, did not grumble. She was Noreen's friend; if not the rose, she was near ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... offence against her dear Thomas. SHE never showed such disrespect to HER husband: and as for affection, wives never think of that now-a-days, she supposes: but things were different in HER time—as if there was any good to be done by staying in the room, when he does nothing but grumble and scold when he's in a bad humour, talk disgusting nonsense when he's in a good one, and go to sleep on the sofa when he's too stupid for either; which is most frequently the case now, when he has nothing to do but to ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... he looked over the long ridges that lay stretched in rows before him, he was vexed, and began to grumble, and say, "The harvest would be backward, and all things would go wrong." At the mere thought of which he frowned more and more, and uttered words of complaint against the heavens, because there was no rain; against the earth, because it was so dry and unyielding; ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... and began to grumble as usual; but his wife said not a word and went to bed repeating to herself: "To-morrow you will see!" The next morning the hundred peas had become a hundred sons. One cried: "Papa, I want to drink." Another said: "Papa, I want to eat." Another: "Papa, take me up." He, in ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... psychological fact, mystical states of a well-pronounced and emphatic sort ARE usually authoritative over those who have them.[281] They have been "there," and know. It is vain for rationalism to grumble about this. If the mystical truth that comes to a man proves to be a force that he can live by, what mandate have we of the majority to order him to live in another way? We can throw him into a prison or a madhouse, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... it means my death," young Calverley assented. "Well! I have feasted with the world and found its viands excellent. The banquet ended, I must not grumble with my host because I find his choice of cordials not altogether to my liking." Thus speaking, he was aware of nothing save that the fiddlers were now about an air to which he had often danced ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... rogues have good dinners; even Bois l'Hery has his meals sent in to the prison from the Cafe Anglais, and poor old Passajon is reduced to live on scraps picked up in the kitchen. Still we must not grumble too much. There are others more wretched than we are—witness M. Francis, who came in this morning to the Territorial, thin, pale, with dirty linen and frayed cuffs, which he still pulled down by force ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... may secure the attachment and confidence of their people. A grateful and contented spirit certainly characterizes the negroes of Antigua. They do not lightly esteem what they have got, and murmur because they have no more. They do not complain of small wages, and strike for higher. They do not grumble about their simple food and their coarse clothes, and flaunt about, saying 'freemen ought to live better.' They do not become dissatisfied with their lowly, cane-thatched huts, and say we ought to have as good houses as massa. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... But, grumble as she might, there was no getting out of it, and, as Hauskuld would listen to nothing, she sought for her foster-father, Thiostolf, who never had been known to say her nay. When she had told her story, he bade her be of good cheer, prophesying that Thorwald should ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... all the copies struck off after the first lot of 2500. I daresay there will be a new edition in the course of nine months or a year, and this I will correct as well as I can. As yet the publishers have kept up type, and grumble dreadfully if I make heavy corrections. I am very far from surprised that "you have not committed yourself to full acceptation" of the evolution of man. Difficulties and objections there undoubtedly are, enough and to spare, to stagger ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... longer deemed lucky; promotion passed him by and seized upon his fellow in the field. I had missed the war in China and the fighting in the Philippines and, as a consequence, had seen juniors lifted over me. Yet, possibly, I had small cause to grumble; for my own gold leaves had dropped upon me in Cuba, to the disadvantage of many who were my elders, and, doubtless, my betters as well. I had applied for active service, but evidently it had not met with approval, for ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... keep her sense of it alive, but she much preferred to forage with him in the afternoon; that was poetry, she said, and the other was prose. He would have liked to talk the proposition over with her; to realize the compliment while it was fresh, to grumble at it a little, and to be supported in his notion that it would be bad business just then for him to undertake a task that might draw him away from his play too much; to do the latter well would take a great deal of time. Yet he did not feel quite that he ought to ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... public mind at this time is thus described by Gray:—"Grumble, indeed, every one does; but, since Wilkes's affair, they fall off their metal, and seem to shrink under the brazen hand of Norton and his colleagues. I hear there will be no Parliament till after Christmas. If the French should be so unwise as to suffer the Spanish court to go on in their ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... make him angry to keep his mind off the score," said Pickings, feebly to himself. He added aloud, "Stop kicking about your old sixth hole! You've had the darndest luck I ever saw, and yet you grumble." ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... trees to shake them down, and worked much harder for their own pleasure than they had done for their master's bidding, for it is a strange truth that fairies and children never complain of the toil and trouble they take in search of amusement, although they often grumble when asked to work for ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... reader may possibly exclaim, 'there is nothing new about this. Woman has ever been man's favourite grumble-vent, from the day when the first man got out of his first scrape by blaming the only available woman!' True enough, age cannot stale the infinite variety of women's misdemeanours, as viewed by men; tradition has hallowed the subject, custom carries it on; ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... to be pleased with them. If they demean themselves as fools and incapables, (as they sometimes do,) they bring grist to your mill; but if they show wisdom, courage, and constancy, they leave you to stand at your mill-doors and grumble for want of toll,—as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... fellowship examination, and once I have mounted my hobby-horse, good-bye to letters, good-bye to replies, goodbye to everything." (Carpentras, 27th November, 1848.) "You are right, seven times right to storm at me, to grumble at my silence, and I admit, in all contrition, that I am the worst correspondent you could find. To force myself to write a letter is to place myself on the rack, as well you know...But why do you get it into your ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... more cordially to books, since it looked as if there were a good two years of them ahead at the least. But he liked the honesty that would not pretend to anything it did not feel, and he liked even better the spirit that had kept the lad true to his pledge of honest work without a squirm or grumble through all these weeks of grilling summer weather when sustained effort of any sort, particularly mental effort, was undoubtedly a weariness and abomination to flesh and soul, to his restless, volatile, ease-addicted, liberty ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... gives him the best of characters. He says the boy is thoroughly to be depended upon, and that his work is well done, even to cleaning the pigs; and, best of all, he is never heard to grumble." ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... "the Rebels keep their best generals for their Home Guard. Lee and Early, and the rest of the crew, are lambs and sucking doves to Generals Starvation, Wear-'em-out, and Grumble,—especially that last-named fellow, who is the worst of the three, because he comes under our own colors, and we feel shy about firing on our own men. I believe we are all too apt to think that muscles are the vital ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... returned Mrs. Peet, with a heavy sigh, as she gazed at her son with tears in her eyes, 'and he is so patient! Why, you never so much as hear a grumble, nor a fret! Now, what do you think his great wish is—what he is ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... man finds no place where he can rest the sole of his foot. Twice a year, regularly, have I to pass through this trying ordeal, willy-nilly, as it is said, in some strange language. To rebel is useless. To grumble of no avail. Up come the carpets, topsyturvy goes the furniture, and swash! goes the water from garret to cellar. I don't know how other men act on these occasions, but I find discretion the better part of valor, ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... and opening the bundle, "here you are. Don't grumble with me when we have to go to ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... luck in the wars, you've the less reason to grumble at the bit of a surge you may have felt in your garments, as they run you up to this here yard-arm. I say, brother, I've known stouter fellows take the same ride, who never knew when or how they ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... and bad flour; now they have bacon, dried venison, fresh fish, fresh game, potatoes, flour, baking powder, tea, coffee, milk, sugar, molasses, lard, cocoa, dried apples, rice, oatmeal, far more than was promised, all ad libitum, and the best that the H. B. Co. can supply, and yet they grumble. There is only one article of the food store to which they have not access; that is a bag of beans which I am reserving for our own trip in the north where weight counts for so much. Beaulieu smiles when I speak to him, but I know he is at the ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the jackal, 'you go to the well and fetch the water, and I will pour it into the trenches that run between the patches of corn.' And as he did so he sang lustily. The work was very hard, but the sheep did not grumble, and by-and-by was rewarded at seeing the little green heads poking themselves through earth. After that the hot sun ripened them quickly, and soon harvest time was come. Then the grain was cut and ground and ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... as the vernacular says, 'tail off.' The trouble taken about Halbert by personages natural and supernatural promises the case of some extraordinary figure, and he is but very ordinary. Still, at the works of how many novelists except Scott should we grumble, if we had the admirable descriptions of Glendearg, the scenes in the Abbey, the night-ride of poor Father Philip, the escape from the Castle of Avenel, the passage of the interview of Halbert with Murray and Morton? Even the episode of ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... and brushed the dirt off his knees. "If there's anything that stirs my temper, it's this mumble-grumble, whiffle-and-hint business. Out and open, that's my style." He was reflecting testily on the peculiar reticence of ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... thermometer is at 109 degrees in the shade, and everything one touches seems to be at melting point! Unfortunately we have had all our cool things for our journey, and they are too dirty to wear in a "live" town. These three last days are the only days we have had to grumble at the heat; and, I expect, if we bad been out at the farm, quietly doing our various works, we should not have felt it so much; but a tent on a hot day is ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... all go from him to his enemies! And the things themselves were to himself of so very little value! Living alone at Scumberg's was not a pleasant life. Even going out in his brougham at nights was not very pleasant to him. He could do as he liked at Como, and people wouldn't grumble;—but what was there even at Como that he really liked to do? He had a half worn out taste for scenery which he had no longer energy to gratify by variation. It had been the resolution of his life to live ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... at the station at Plum Creek, the coach was a little ahead of time, and the driver who was there to relieve ours commenced to grumble at the idea of having to start out before the regular hour. He found fault because we had come into the station so soon, and swore he could drive where our man could not "drag a halter-chain," as he claimed in his boasting. We at once took a dislike to him, and secretly wished that he would come ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... Evelyn. If I am satisfied, who should have the right to grumble? The pain of losing you is better than the pleasure of winning anybody else.... So you think, Evelyn, you will never return to ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... which he always took in the company of his wife and daughters—a correct, but possibly a depressing, way of spending a vacation which must have been intended to furnish some social variety in a man's life; and we were all very idle, and all very much inclined to grumble at the heat, and length, and general slowness of the days, when one morning, as I was going out in order to send a parcel off to Mrs. Craven, who should I meet coming panting up ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... colloquialism which is so expressive that perhaps its use may be forgiven. "The daughter's tragedy," I muttered, and considering it, philosophising according to my wont, I tried to reconcile myself to this visit. "After all," I said, "I am on my own business, therefore I have no right to grumble." ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... right there, missy, an' its only half what he desarves the whole of us together could give him, but shure, if we give him all we're able, an' our good intinshions along wid that, he won't be the man to grumble at that same." ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... can't help themselves. There is a right of way all round the Island, and nobody would be allowed to close it. Some owners grumble and don't like it a bit; but mamma says it is one of the best things in Newport, and that it would be a great injury to the place to have it taken away. The Cliff walk is very celebrated, you know. Lots of people have written ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... was also received with shouts of laughter by those assembled, and even while Pat was paying over his dust he continued to grumble and threaten; and when we got clear of him he bade us adieu with a mocking smile, perfectly satisfied to think that he had delayed us all that he was able to, and that if he did ultimately have to pay over the ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... only a favorite resort in summer, but is thronged every winter afternoon with people promenading or sitting under the snow-powdered trees in an arctic fairyland, while the mercury in the thermometer is at a very low ebb indeed. It is fashionable in Russia to grumble at the cold, but unfashionable to convert the grumbling into action. On the contrary, they really enjoy sitting for five hours at a stretch, in a temperature of 25 degrees below zero, to watch the fascinating ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... I must try to show them that Luke Raeburn's daughter knows how to bear pain; I must be patient, however much I boil over in private. Yet is it honest, I wonder, to keep a patient outside, while inside you are all one big grumble? Rather Pharisaical outside of the cup and platter; but it is all I shall be able to do, I'm sure. That is where Mr. Osmond's Christianity would come in; I do believe that goes right through his life, ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... quell him," said he. "When Godefroy's tongue is out he can't grumble, and grumbling is his ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... Featherstone and rather sympathized with him, but could not stay at the Garth or come back there until he had cleared up the mystery about his comrade's silence. Pete did not grumble much when they went down the drive, but said he had no friends in the neighborhood and it was a long way to ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... these? Where is the rascall Cooke? How durst you villaines bring it from the dresser And serue it thus to me that loue it not? There, take it to you, trenchers, cups, and all: You heedlesse iolt-heads, and vnmanner'd slaues. What, do you grumble? Ile ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... person. However that may be, the law would benefit the rich, because the rich would be owners of the land. Certain provisions of it were directly meant to prevent opposition in the country. For if many of the poor farmers would grumble at being ousted from their land, the land which had been specially assigned to Latin towns, and of which Tiberius Gracchus had threatened to dispossess them, was left in the same state as before his legislation; ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... pretensions that he seldom showed any signs of, except of ill—humors, a good share of which he bestowed on me; though I was pleased to hear him play the flute, on which he was a tolerable musician. This second Egistus was sure to grumble whenever he saw me go into his mistress' apartment, treating me with a degree of disdain which she took care to repay him with interest; seeming pleased to caress me in his presence, on purpose to torment ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... to grumble, those old salts, for as soon as one had shot off his grievance his neighbour would follow with another, each more bitter ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... doing well, but not well enough for that. Next year, if I live, you will be able to have a carriage. Don't begin to grumble, Honoria. I have got L150 to spare, and if you care to come round to a jeweller's you can spend ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... kitchen. When you find it she is worried because it is the opposite end of the house to the dining-room. You point out to her the advantage of being away from the smell of the cooking. At that she gets personal: tells you that you are the first to grumble when the dinner is cold; and in her madness accuses the whole male sex of being impractical. The mere sight of an empty house makes ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... don't grumble," returned the Cellarman. "If anything grumbles, it's what I've took in through the pores; it ain't me. Have a care as something in you don't begin a grumbling, Master George. Stop here long enough for the wapours to work, and ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... grumble floated faintly to their ears, at which there was an immediate comparing of opinions. Some seemed to incline to the belief that it must be distant thunder, and that they were bound to soon be caught in a storm, which had been ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... commodities and ask ourselves, in the light of experience and common sense, upon what factors their price seems mainly to depend? Two factors spring to mind at once; their cost of production and their usefulness. As regards the former, the case seems clear enough. We may indeed sometimes grumble that the price of this or that commodity is unconscionably high in comparison with its cost; but this only goes to show that we conceive a relation between price and cost as the normal, governing rule. If one commodity cost only a half as much to produce as another, we should think ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... newly arrived Englishman with his large wooden packing-cases marked 'Settlers' Effects' had no more part in the show than a new boy his first day at school. But two years in Canada and one run home will make him free of the Brotherhood in Canada as it does anywhere else. He may grumble at certain aspects of the life, lament certain richnesses only to be found in England, but as surely as he grumbles so surely he returns to the big skies, and the big chances. The failures are those who complain that the land 'does not know a gentleman ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... It's no use courting trouble, honey, as Willy Shakespeare says somewhere. Oh, well, if it wasn't Willy Shakespeare it was somebody else who said it, and it's just as true anyway. Take your umbrella and wait till the rain comes down before you grumble. I've got an exeat and I didn't expect it, and I'm going off my head a little. That's all! Don't worry yourselves about me. I'm sane at ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... followed by general assent and gladness. A small group there is, however, of malcontents, former adherents of Telramund's, who grumble: "Hear that! He is to remove us out of the country, against an enemy who has never so much as threatened us! Such a bold beginning is ill-beseeming. Who will stand up against him when he is in command?"—"I will!" comes from a muffled figure that has crept among them, and Friedrich uncovers ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... for his little weaknesses—of which evil tongues, said Mrs. Turpin, of course made the most. He might be irregular in payment; he might come home 'at all hours,' and make unnecessary noise in going upstairs; he might at times grumble when his chop was ill-cooked; and, to tell the truth, he might occasionally be 'a little too free' with the young ladies—that is to say, with Mabel and Lily Turpin; but all these things were forgiven him because he was 'a real gentleman,' and ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... be obsequiously obeyed, "no questions asked," and no payment demanded; and as for the future, why - as Mr. Larkyns observed, as they strolled down the High - "I suppose the bills will come in some day or other, but the governor will see to them; and though he may grumble and pull a long face, yet he'll only be too glad you've got your degree, and, in the fulness of his heart, he will open his cheque-book. I daresay old Horace gives very good advice when he says, 'carpe diem'; but when he adds, 'quam minimum credula ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... more to bear. We all have our share of trouble at one time or another. Who knows but you may see prosperous days yet,—you and your aunt together? Though indeed that's more than I think," she added, with the old ominous shake of the head; "but, grumble here or grumble there, it will make little difference in ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... Arizona. But you fellows wouldn't. We've seen some thing of the soldiery down in that part of the world, and they're the laziest crowd you ever saw. Why, the Army officers in Arizona sleep all day and grumble about the heat all night. They have tame Apaches to do their work for them. Oh, no, you wouldn't suffer down ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... I. When they sent me here from Russia I set my teeth at once and said: 'I want nothing!' The devil whispers to me about my wife and my kindred, and about freedom and I say to him: 'I want nothing!' I stuck to it, and, you see, I live happily and have nothing to grumble at. If a man gives the devil the least opportunity and listens to him just once, then he is lost and has no hope of salvation: he will be over ears in the mire and will never get out. Not only peasants the like of you are lost, but the nobly born and the educated also. About fifteen years ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff |
