"Grumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I fear we must grumble again. In most decent houses, or what are so called, the windows are much too big, and let in a flood of light in a haphazard and ill-considered way, which the indwellers are forced to obscure again by shutters, blinds, curtains, screens, heavy upholsteries, and such other nuisances. The windows, ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... elder sisters had something to grumble about with a vengeance, for a telegram arrived to say that the merchant was no longer a rich merchant, for he had ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... and I do so love those kind of puddings, especially when they are made with strawberry jam. Oh dear, how I envy Alexander Selkirk on his desert island! I am sure he never had any nasty old lessons to learn, and I think he was very stupid to grumble over his solitude when he could do every day simply what he pleased. Well, if I must study, I must; so, here goes," and, drawing the despised grammar towards her once more, Winnie set herself steadily to master part ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... no 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 my original ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... was never cold; the cook's sleeve was ever above the elbow. Countrymen came down from distant villages into towns and cities, to see perverters whom they had never heard of, and to learn the righteousness of hatred. When heretics waxed fewer the religious began to grumble that God, in losing his enemies, had also ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... rogues, and a like contempt of the public, is allegorically conveyed in the third act, in which 'Apollo' casts the parts for a performance among sundry unworthy actors, and declares that the people may grumble 'as much as they please, as long as we get their money.' "There sir," cries the author to the critic of the rehearsal, "is the sentiment of a great man." The Great Man was a phrase, to use Pope's words, "by common use appropriated to the first minister"—that is, to Walpole. In the next scene ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... the very air of Canada severs the tie of mutual obligation which bound you together. They fancy themselves not only equal to you in rank, but that ignorance and vulgarity give them superior claims to notice. They demand in terms the highest wages, and grumble at doing half the work, in return, which they cheerfully performed at home. They demand to eat at your table, and to sit in your company; and if you refuse to listen to their dishonest and extravagant claims, they tell you ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... pair of pessimists," he pronounced. "For some reason best known to themselves Jennings and Knox have decided upon a Busman's Holiday. Very well. Why grumble?" ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... 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
... the cake the gallants cram the cake and gulp the punch. The fiddler-improvisator disappears, reappears, and with crumbs on his breast and pan-gravy and punch on his breath remounts his seat; and the couples are again on the floor. The departing thunders grumble as they go, the rain falls more and more sparingly, and now it is a waltz, and now a quadrille, and now it's a reel again, with Miss Sallie or Louise or Laura or Lucille or Miss Flora "a-comin' down ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... and dissipated humour and who marvelled that a man could engrave so much and so well as he did while showing so little perseverance. Gamelin made up his mind to wait a while for his return and the woman offered him a chair. She was in a black mood and began to grumble at the badness of trade, though she had always been told that the Revolution, by breaking windows, was making the ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... victory of Bunker's Hill (as we used to call it in those days), the nation flushed out in its usual hot-headed anger. The talk was all against the philosophers after that, and the people were most indomitably loyal. It was not until the land-tax was increased, that the gentry began to grumble a little; but still my party in the West was very strong against the Tiptoffs, and I determined to take the field ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... out of the annoyance they felt on knowing that their martinetism was a total failure, and the whole work had been done by General Brown and the Police Commissioners from their head- quarters in Mulberry Street. Acton and Brown had no time to grumble or dispute about etiquette. They had something more serious on hand, and they bent their entire energies to their accomplishment. General Sandford held the arsenal, an important point, indeed a vital one, and let him claim and receive all the credit ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... view of a large section of the public which regards it as a crime "to buy anything new" are either shutting down till better days, or doing a greatly restricted business. Taxation has grown much heavier, and will be more and more severely felt. Yet very few grumble, and there is a general and determined cutting down of the trappings and appendages of life, which is to the good of ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... flags,—I wish my box 'D a-got em all in ceaepes an' frocks,— A-weaeven wide an' flappen loud In playsome winds above the crowd; While fifes did squeak an' drums did rumble, An' deep beaezzoons did grunt an' grumble, An' all the vo'k in gath'ren crowds Kick'd up the doust in smeechy clouds, That slowly rose an' spread abrode In streamen air above the road. An' then at church there wer sich lots O' hats a-hangen up wi' knots, An' poles a-stood ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... exploit the majority almost as effectively after Home Rule as before it. Captain Craig will dictate terms to us not from the last ditch, but from a far more agreeable and powerful position, the Treasury Bench. And we undertake not to grumble, for these ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... world, where illness is unknown and labour never wearies, woman continues always gay and fresh and pleasant. She talks as much perhaps as her sisters in less-favoured worlds, but never learns to scold or grumble or complain. ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... hain't no use to grumble and complain, It's jest as cheap and easy to rejoice; When God sorts out the weather and sends rain, Why, rain's ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... I hate to grumble, and I have, I believe, shouldered my share of the new taxes like a man, but I am not made of such stern stuff as to be superior to all human aid, and in my own case the mortification of non-combating, which now and then becomes ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... the good woman. "But, there! how the baggage men do grumble at having to lug up big trunks like yours ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... huge black sea came roaring up, which I thought must come down and swamp us; but it broke just before it reached the boat and merely sent the foam flying over our heads. Thus hour after hour passed slowly away. Some of the men began to grumble, and to blame themselves for their ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... it is that we cannot hear all the noises of the earth at the same time, nor know of every danger that lurks near as we are passing by! We grumble a great deal that God does not send us as much as we think he might, but we give scarce a thought to our escape from the many perils, lying close as our very breath, of which ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... conic problems proposed at the 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 ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... off his saddle into the middle of the road. His horse stood still; but after remaining patiently for some time, and not observing any disposition in the rider to get up and proceed further, he took him by the collar and shook him. This had little or no effect, for the farmer only gave a grumble of dissatisfaction at having his repose disturbed. The animal was not to be put off with any such evasion, and so applied his mouth to one of his master's coat laps, and after several attempts, by dragging at it, to raise him upon his feet, ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie
... it is up to you to prevent him from wandering far afield. At the objections stage, as at every other step in the selling process, you should dominate the other man. Tactfully keep him concentrated on the subject and on your application. If he starts to grumble that some man he has engaged previously was "no good," you can smile and reply, "You would not give me credit for anybody else's fine work, and of course you do not blame me for ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... taking that for granted, wrote more largely of less tangible things. She remembered that she had said that life, if it was no more than its present appearances, was "utter nonsense." She went back to that. "One says things like that," she wrote "and not for a moment does one believe it. I grumble at my life, I seem to be always weakly and fruitlessly fighting my life, and I love it. I would not be willingly dead—for anything. I'd rather be an old match-woman selling matches on a freezing night ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... Felice didn't have to play chess all of the days. Never on the days when Certain Legal Matters came. Then Grandfather disappeared into the gloomy depths of the library and from the garden Felice could hear the disagreeable grumble of the burly lawyer as he consulted with ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... about it. At one end stands what looks like a little black hillock, from which smoke was rising, as it was from various crevices in different parts; that little hillock is the crater from which all eruptions burst. The mountain was provokingly still, and only gave one low grumble and a very small emission of smoke and fire while we were there; it has never been more tranquil. The descent is very good fun, galloping down the cinders; you have only to take care not to tumble over the stones; slipping is impossible. The whole ascent of the mountain is ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... I'se plenish your parish wi' bastards, to see what ye'll mak o' that,' and away he went. He read Hooke's Pantheon, and made great use of the heathen deities. He railed sadly at the taxes; some one observed that he need not grumble at them as he had none to pay. 'Hae I no'?' he replied, 'I can neither get a pickle snuff to my neb, nor a pickle tea to my mouth, but they maun tax 't.' His sister and he were on very unfriendly terms. She was ill on one occasion; Miss Ballantyne asked how she was to-day. He replied, 'I dinna ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... number one's mind came all to pieces again, and he wanted "to room his bundle," i.e. change articles in it for other articles of an equivalent value, if it must be, but of a higher, if possible. Oh ye shopkeepers in England who grumble at your lady customers, just you come out here and try to serve, and satisfy a set of Fans! Mr. Glass was evidently an expert at the affair, but it was past 11 p.m. before we got the orders written out, and getting my baggage into some canoes, that ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... to grumble. If you heard those ballet girls talk, and see how they go on at the back, you'd grumble. As for the music—" She laughed, as if against her will. "If anybody had told me six months ago—me, that used to go to the Cathedral Service every afternoon—that ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... 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
... back. If that nigger on his mule got too fur ahead so old doctor couldn't see de light he sho' catch de devil from that old doctor and from old Master, too, less'n he was one of old Missy's house niggers, and then old Master jest grumble to ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... train being in advance they must check speed or perhaps stop. This was a species of insult to the "Flying Dutchman," whose way ought to have been kept perfectly clear, for even a check of speed would inevitably cause the loss of several minutes. With an indignant grumble John Marrot cut off steam, but immediately the signals were lowered and he was allowed to go on. Again, in a few ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... see if the little spirit had spoken the truth. Sure enough, when I got to the bay, there was the walrus sitting beside its hole, and looking about in all directions as if it were expecting me. It was a giant walrus," said Simek, lowering his remarkably deep voice to a sort of thunderous grumble that filled the hearts of his auditors with awe in spite of themselves, "a—most—awful walrus! It was bigger,"—here he looked pointedly at Okiok—"than—than the very biggest walrus I have ever seen! ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... weakened. Their literature possessed brightness. The books were printed in the best style of the Chiswick Press, with bindings and end papers especially designed. They included these tales: Puck's Reports to Oberon; Four New Fairy Tales; The Sisters; Golden Locks; Grumble and Cherry; Little Red Riding Hood, with four colored illustrations by Webster; Beauty and the Beast, with four colored illustrations by Horsley; Jack and the Bean-Stalk, with four colored illustrations by Cope; Jack the Giant-Killer, also illustrated ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... 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: ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... They'd grumble at being taken away from their work to assemble a review of all the known facts about Eden—a dead issue as far as their own work was concerned, for Eden had been assayed and filed away as solved. They'd moan and groan about having ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... they ask of life, they, and people like them—never to have to meet anything face to face. So long as they can bury their heads like ostriches! ... Faugh!" There would be a moment's silence; then Adrian would complete his thought. "In my uncle's case," he would grumble in the darkness, "one phase of the selfishness is obvious. He couldn't even get himself originally, I suppose, to face the inevitable matter-of-fact moments of marriage. It began when he was middle-aged, a bachelor—I suppose he wants the sort of Don Juan, eighteen-eighty, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... can believe it might, from those huge hands. The man wrenched himself about with an oath of inquiry and pain. I could hear one side of what followed. The captain's high-pitched tones carried clearly; but the grumble and growl of the mate ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... that wonderful Elizabethan age there were blossoming, side by side, the meekness of Hooker, the subtlety of Bacon, the platonic dream of Spenser, the imperturbable wisdom of Shakespeare. Raleigh had no part in any of these, and to complain of that would be to grumble because a hollyhock is neither a violet nor a rose. He had his enemies during his life and his detractors ever since, and we may go so far as to admit that he deserves them. He was a typical man ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... and full of hope. He set his seamen to work to drag along the coast, and for weeks they went on fishing up seaweed, shingle and bits of rock. No occupation could be more trying to seamen, and they began to grumble one to another, and to whisper that the man in command had brought them ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... Seth, thinking that the other was merely keeping back his decision until he heard what terms might be offered him, and that a practical suggestion about money matters would settle the matter, "why, mister, we sha'n't grumble about the dollars, you bet! As yer knows, the Kernel kinder invited yer jest now, when we had no sort o' reckonin' as to who and what yer were. Tharr'll be no worry about yer share ov the ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... men bayoneted him at the very instant he struck me, and it was only the head of the lance that went through my arm. Still, it made a hole big enough to be uncommonly painful; the more so because it gave it a frightful wrench as the man dropped the lance. However, there is nothing to grumble at; and I may consider myself lucky indeed to have got off with a flesh wound when so many good ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... ta better. She'll no' grumble to shange a progue for the Prince's guid," one of the caterans answered cheerfully by way ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... and having no tobacco about him, our hero asked permission to fetch a supply from the zuleetah-bag attached to his saddle. "Lamentations" acknowledged his approach with the usual grumble; but it was the last greeting he was ever destined to give his master. A bullet flew past with a sharp zip, the poor beast started and shivered, and a thin stream of blood trickled down his shoulder. Poor "Lam!" he was unclean and unsavoury, an inveterate ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... like Brauer must live a dull sort of life. What could be the use of saving money if one forgot how to spend it in the drab process? As a matter of fact, old Wetherbee wouldn't gobble him. He'd grunt or grumble or even rave a bit, but in the end he would yield up the money. He always did. And suddenly, while his courage had been so adroitly screwed to the sticking point, he went over to old Wetherbee's desk ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... knew a man, and his name was Horner, He used to live at Grumble Corner,— Grumble Corner, in Cross Patch Town,— And he never was seen without a frown. He grumbled at this, he grumbled at that; He growled at the dog, he growled at the cat; He grumbled at morning, he grumbled at night, And to grumble ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... guns and the remainder of our tents being just issued,) an order came from Beaufort that we should be ready in the evening to unload a steamboat's cargo of boards, being some of those captured by them a few weeks since, and now assigned for their use. I wondered if the men would grumble at the night-work; but the steamboat arrived by seven, and it was bright moonlight when they went at it. Never have I beheld such a jolly scene of labor. Tugging these wet and heavy boards over a bridge ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... we will run if we can So that never a man or a woman need grumble— If theatres, should the idea not include Books, clothing and food for the great and the humble? You will pay a fixed sum and accept what may come, Be it loser or plum; and, to shun all that vexes, We'll even eliminate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... he had never dreamed—and he began to see that the only reason these men could do these things was that they dared to do them. Well, he too—he and Allan—would dare some things...He paid a dollar for their lunch without a grumble, and again they ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... upper room of the rear wing of the farmhouse, dignified by the name "Attica." My companions were all single men; good, reliable fellows who were working for a principle and would ordinarily have declined such a lodging- place, but under the circumstances were not apt to grumble, but made the best of it. It was like camping out, and all its mischances were turned into fun. My roommates were called "the Admiral," "the Dutchman," "the General" and "the Parson,"—nicknames given each one of ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... often other Lions, younger and weaker than the one who has provided the dinner, who must wait until their master or father is done before they have a chance to take a bite. But, as you may see by this picture, they do not wait very patiently. They roar and growl and grumble until ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... appointments, great or small, simply do not exist. If He appoints me to work there, shall I lament that I am not to work here? If He appoints me to wait in-doors to-day, am I to be annoyed because I am not to work out-of-doors? If I meant to write His messages this morning, shall I grumble because He sends interrupting visitors, rich or poor, to whom I am to speak them, or "show kindness" for His sake, or at least obey His command, "Be courteous?" If all my members are really at His ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... hussy, wilt thou grumble at tarrying with me to care for thine own dear sister and brother? Fie ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... everybody is disagreeable, and inclined to speechify—much the same thing, by-the-bye; but at a charity dinner you see people of all sorts, kinds, and descriptions. The wine may not be remarkably special, to be sure, and we have heard some hardhearted monsters grumble at the collection; but we really think the amusement to be derived from the occasion, sufficient to counterbalance ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... father. "He'd talk the hind leg off an elephant. When things need settling, I just settle them myself and leave him to grumble away to Thomieson." ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... 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 ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... Weimar; and when it was a question of taking sides, where was the force that could hope to make headway against the combined strength of Goethe and Schiller? The odds were too great; there was nothing to do but to grumble a little and then—acquiesce in the new leadership. As for the Dioscuri, they had the wisdom to see that one sharp campaign was enough; that for the rest they could further the good cause much more effectively by admirable creation than by peppery ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... Metz they grumble, "When?" Guns of Verdun answer then, "Sisters, when to guard Lorraine Gunners lay ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various
... we poor single men can do under the circumstances. Married men bully their wives, grumble at the dinner, and insist on the children's going to bed. All of which, creating, as it does, a good deal of disturbance in the house, must be a great relief to the feelings of a man in the blues, rows being the only form of amusement in which ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... holes of 600 yards in length, it is time to call out "Enough!" for by this time we have descended to slogging pure and simple, and the hard field work at which an agricultural labourer would have the right to grumble. So I repeat that the best hole for golfing is that good two-shotter which takes the ball from the tee to the green in two well-played strokes without any actual pressing. As for total length, it should be borne in mind that a links over 6000 yards long ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... Batholommey? It's queer, Frederik," he added, bidding his host good-bye, "it's queer—deucedly queer how things turn out. There's one thing certain: the old gentleman should have made a will. But it's too late now for us to grumble about that. By the way, what are you going to do with all his relics and family heirlooms, Frederik? Have you thought of it? I supposed, of course, you'd keep everything just as he left it. But from the way you've ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... 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 ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... out each day with a resolve not to grumble you will find the proposition not difficult. The first two or three hours of the day is the time when your resistance is called into play. There is no better antidote or cure for the poisonous grumbling disposition than the following, which has been for many years a pet ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... man, he did not like to come home and find his wife gone. He missed her as he would the sun from day. Althea was much inclined to remain at home; and Thornton would not often have found chance to grumble upon this score. He was not given to habits of self-denial; nevertheless, to secure good will and triumph over Sharp, he would encourage Althea to make frequent visits—nay, often insist upon it, against her inclination and his own private wish. If his wife could ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... 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
... thing I should like to say, viz. that this definite commandment overrides everything else. We hear a great deal from unsympathetic critics, which is but a reproduction of an old grumble that did not come from a very creditable source. 'To what purpose is this waste?' Why do you not spend your money upon technical schools, soup-kitchens, housing of the poor, and the like? Well, our answer is, 'He told us.' We hear, too, especially just in these days, a great deal about ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... voice. She couldn't hear what he was saying. Then she heard Aunt Isabel's voice, no louder than uncle Charlie's but more penetrating; it had a queer note in it—almost as if she were crying. Suddenly she did cry out!—And then Uncle Charlie's deep grumble again. ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... short way when two of them fell ill. They felt they just had to lie down, and did so, and became thoroughly chilled, which added to their pangs of nausea. After awhile we proceeded very slowly. No longer their song echoed against the cliffs. They broke their pained silence only to grumble at one another. ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... country, wet or dry, hot or cold, Tom Codlin suffers. But Tom Codlin isn't to complain for all that. Oh, no! Short may complain, but if Codlin grumbles by so much as a word—oh dear, down with him, down with him directly. It isn't his place to grumble. That's quite out ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... blind one, at my loss! Well, that is some comfort. So long as you acknowledge how much you cost me, I will endeavor not to grumble. It is hard to be ill-treated, ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... health, and Johnnie gaining strength. It is a fine exchange from deep and aching uncertainty on so interesting a subject, to the little spitfire feeling of "Well, but they might have taken the trouble to write"; but so wretched a correspondent as myself has not much to say, so I will just grumble sufficiently to maintain the ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... If we grumble at sickness, God won't grant us death," replied Platon, and at once resumed the story he ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... the world quite as he would like it. You will be sure to have burdens laid upon you that belong to other people, unless you are a shirk yourself; but don't grumble. If the work needs doing and you can do it, never mind about the other one who ought to have done it and didn't; do it yourself. Those workers who fill up the gaps, and smooth away the rough spots, and finish up the jobs ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... his own countrymen the comfortable things that he tells of the English; but we need not grumble at that. The father who is severe with his own children will freely admire those of others, for whom he is not responsible. Emerson is stern toward what we are, and arduous indeed in his estimate ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... Gloucester, did all he could to keep him back, and hinder him from taking his affairs into his own hands. Not till he was twenty-four did Richard begin to govern for himself; and then the Duke of Gloucester was always grumbling and setting the people to grumble, because the king chose to have peace with France. Duke Thomas used to lament over the glories of the battles of Edward III., and tell the people they had taxes to pay to keep the king in ermine robes, and rings, and jewels, and ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... so heartily that they soon had it out of the way; Sandy remarking as they finished it, that, for his part, he did not like the business at all, but he did not think it fair that they two, who could not do the heavy work, should grumble over that they could do. "The worst of it is," he added, "we've got to look forward to months and months of this sort of thing. Father and Uncle Charlie say that we cannot have the rest of the family come ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... written orders) he was compelled to visit the line to see if things had been built as reported, or, if it was just optimism again. Half-an-hour later a sentry brought him down the trench at the point of the bayonet for muttering as he rounded the traverse, "Galoot—Gunning—Grumble—Grumpy," in pseudo-Wessex. Naturally, to Native Yorkshire this sounded ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... bill before it adjourned, consequently no money can be paid to the Army until the next session! Yet the Army is expected to go along just the same, promptly pay Uncle Sam himself all commissary and quartermaster bills at the end of each month, and without one little grumble do his bidding, no matter what the extra expense may be. I wonder what the wise men of Congress, who were too weary to take up the bill before going to their comfortable homes—I wonder what they would do if the Army as a body would say, "We are tired. Uncle, dear, and are ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... quick, and very soon they had completed the work necessary for the protection of all. The tools of the enemy "casualties," the spades and picks left behind in deserted villages, were all gladly piled on to the French soldiers' knapsacks, to be carried willingly by the very men who used to grumble at being loaded with even the smallest regulation tool. As soon as night had set in on the occasion of a lull in the fighting, the digging of the trenches was begun. Sometimes, in the darkness, the men of each fighting nation—less than 500 yards away from their enemy—would hear the ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... oppressively hot yesterday—but I'll never grumble about heat again. It has now cleared a lot and we came along on the cairns easily—but on a very soft downy surface, and the travelling has not been fast. We bring with us the Southern Party's gear. The sledge, which was ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... deep ruts, An we mun tak gooid heed lest we stumble; Man is made up of "ifs" and of "buts," It seems pairt ov his natur to grumble. ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... body in the car, and in spite of the weariness of our journey, and the vexation of the misadventures which had succeeded one another unsparingly ever since we left home, we found ourselves far on the way to Genoa before we thought to grumble at the distance. There was with us, besides the bridal party, a lady travelling from Bologna to Turin, who had learned English in London, and spoke it much better than most Londoners. It is surprising how thoroughly Italians master a language so alien to their own as ours, and ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... her there myself, at which the old Argus appeared to grumble a little; and my friend Tiberge, who was puzzled by the whole scene, followed, without uttering a word. He had not heard our conversation, having walked up and down the court while I was talking of love to my angelic mistress. As I had some doubts of ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... the Galapagos for upwards of two months, sometimes in company with other whalers, but more frequently alone, meeting with fair success. At last many of the men began to grumble at being kept so long at sea; those especially who had before shown a mutinous disposition taking no pains to conceal their discontent, for we had been ten months from the Thames, and according to the articles we were bound to anchor in a civilised port at least once ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... mother, do I bore you? But it is so comfortable to grumble. I know it's selfish. It's a horrid bad habit, and you ought to blow me up for it. But then, mother, take it all round, really I don't grumble ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Holland, and been sheltered in the house of a Van Heemskirk; and from generation to generation the friendship had been continued. So there was much real kindness and very little ceremony between the families; and the elder met his friend Joris with a grumble about having to act as "convoy" for two lasses, when the river mist ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... with the low, soft, throbbing of the strings, then there is the sinister thunderous roll of the double basses; then the old man quietly tells Leonora to hurry on with the digging of the grave, and Leonora replies (against that wondrous phrase of the oboes). After that, the old man continues to grumble; the dull threatening thunder of the basses continues; and Leonora, half terrified, tries to see whether the sleeping prisoner is her husband. Then abruptly her courage rises; her short broken phrases are abandoned; and to a great sweeping melody she declares that, whoever the prisoner may be, she ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... difficulties, he does not hesitate to employ all the means in his power to aid them. In return, the soldier professes for his officer an affection, a devotion, a sort of filial respect. Discipline, he knows, must be severe, and he does not grumble at its penalties. In battle, he does not abandon his chief; he watches over him, will die for his safety, will not let him fall into the hands of the enemy if wounded. At the bivouac he makes the officer's fire, though his own should die for want of fuel; cares for his horse, arranges his furniture; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... in the world, I will ask you to drink the health of one whom on this occasion fortune has not favoured—I mean my cousin, Arthur Wilkinson. The lists as they come down are, I dare say, made out with tolerable fairness. It is not at any rate for me to grumble at them. But of this I am quite sure, that did there exist some infallible test for finding out the best man, no man's name in this year would have been placed before his. He is not so jovial as the rest of us now, because he has partly failed; ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Germany 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 and ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... company to go along with them, I positively refused it, and rose up, for I was sitting on the ground, in order to go to the boat. One or two of the men began to importune me to go; and when I refused, began to grumble, and say they were not under my command, and they would go. "Come, Jack," says one of the men, "will you go with me? I'll go for one." Jack said he would—and then another—and, in a word, they all left me but one, whom I persuaded to stay, ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... larger cities, the more complicated circles of society, which were growing up. It was no longer possible for a man who did not like his tribe to abandon it and wander elsewhere with his family and herds. The land was too fully peopled for that. The dissatisfied could only endure and grumble and rebel. One system of law after another was tried and thrown aside. The class on whom in practice a rule bore most hard, would refuse longer assent to it. There were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... expenditures amounted to three and four francs every day. She had never paid anything, even a trifle on account, to the man from whom she had bought her furniture or to Coupeau's three friends who had done the work in Lantier's room. The tradespeople were beginning to grumble and treated her ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... me," responded George, "it appears to be my vocation, at present, to eat hearty dinners, grumble over my lessons, skate, and now-and-then, by way of a frolic, fall into a pond. You may be thankful if I don't get into all sorts of mischief. You need not expect me to make myself agreeable till I arrive at the 'digging-up' age, that Cornelia ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... without a pudding on Christmas Day in England. The very poorest families manage somehow to have their tree to light on Christmas Eve. Still they were trained to implicit obedience and respect for their mother, and did not dare grumble much openly. ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... regarded the late king's action with little favour. Lincoln, the wisest and most influential of the earls, even found reasons for the grant of Cornwall to Gaveston, and kept in check his son-in-law, Earl Thomas of Lancaster, who was the most disposed to grumble at the elevation of the Gascon favourite. Gilbert of Gloucester was but newly come to his earldom. He was personally attached to the king, his old playmate and uncle, and was not unfriendly to his Gascon brother-in-law. The recent concentration of the great estates in the hands ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... 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 without control, and now, at four and forty, ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... 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 in ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... them. What a punishment for a woman! At length her 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 ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... little later, when the water supply ran low, and when there were so many leaks in the vessels that the pumps were working constantly, they began to grumble. But Columbus, who was a magician at reckoning sea distance, laughed at their alarm and said to them, "Drink all the water you like; we shall reach land in forty-eight hours." Next day no land appeared, but still he spoke confidently and ordered them ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... the open fireplace, and the removal of the cook-stove to a bit of shed just back; and though at first the young mother had fretted at the innovation, she found it so much more cheerful, and such a saving of candles in the long evenings, that she had ceased to grumble. ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... to grumble, so the party set out on the return to their boat. They were highly enthusiastic over the good work done under Clif's leadership, and were proud of his pluck as well as the ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... herself, for I believe half the time she says things on purpose to provoke you. She doesn't seem to get much comfort out of it any way. I never saw such a discontented mortal. Don't you think it is wicked for people to grumble the way she does, Evadne? It is growing on her, too. She finds fault with everything. Even the snow came in for a share of her disapprobation this morning, because it would spoil the skating, as if the Lord had no other plans to further than just to ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... a maiden effort. And as I find—at alas! the cost of decrepitude,—the one thing life teaches us is that many truisms are true. 'Practice makes perfect' is one of them. And faith, when you come to my age, Lord Humphrey, you will not grumble at having to soil your hands occasionally in ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... 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
... they have to cook it. Our troops have hard biscuit, called 'tack;' it is made in squares, and some which was fresh was very good; but it often comes to the regiments with maggots. This is not so much objected to; but when, in addition, it is mouldy, the men grumble. By the side of the fresh tack were some Sandy Hook veteran biscuit, that had been through the Peninsular campaign, and had come last from Harrison's Landing; the outside of the boxes was enough to condemn them, and the commissary was saying ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... fond of cold baths, he ought not to grumble at the English climate for being a cold bath. In these days we are constantly told that we should leave our little special possessions and join in the enjoyment of common social institutions and a common social machinery. I offer the rain ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... would receive about fifteen hundred pounds, including an annuity of seventy pounds a year, grumbled and muttered "a caveat against ostentatious bounty and favor to negroes." But however much the Sir Johns may grumble, we cannot think the less of Johnson for his kindness in remembering a ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... average of "50" in a report. We had to stand back, and see about one quarter of our number march out and away home. We could not complain at this—much as we wanted to go ourselves, since there could be no question that these poor fellows deserved the precedence. We did grumble savagely, however, at Captain Bowes's venality, in selling out chances to moneyed men, since these were invariably those who were best prepared to withstand the hardships of imprisonment, as they were mostly new men, and all had good clothes ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... small arguments ([Greek: logaria]) about these matters to others, to lazy fellows, that they may sit in a corner and receive their sorry pay, or grumble that no one gives them anything; and will you not come forward and make use of what you have learned? For it is not these small arguments that are wanted now; the writings of the Stoics are full of them. What then is the thing which is wanted? A man who shall apply them, one who by ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... given to the copyists." "Well, there can be no harm in that," he would reply. "As a matter of fact, I have ready a tchetvertak [39] or two." "Oh, no, no," the answer would come. "Not a tchetvertak per copyist, but a rouble, is the fee." "What? A rouble per copyist?" "Certainly. What is there to grumble at in that? Of the money the copyists will receive a tchetvertak apiece, and the rest will go to the Government." Upon that the disillusioned suitor would fly out upon the new order of things brought about by the inquiry into illicit fees, and curse both the tchinovniks and their uppish, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... pen and ink there," she said, "and blotting paper. Really your cheque will be a god-send to me. I seem to have had nothing but expenses lately, and Jeanne's guardians are as mean as they can be. They grumble even at allowing me five ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... carry on the increasing business were matters of vital importance to the success of the company. To manage a business with greatest advantage quite as much ready cash is needed as is invested in the plant, otherwise the banker's discount becomes a heavy lien on the profits, and the stockholders grumble at small dividends. ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... the acorns; and such low words I can never put up with, and packs them off immediate. No place can be carried on if the master is to shut up his lips to impudence. And now I have only got three hands left, with work enough for thirty, and them three only stopped on, I do believe, to grumble of me if the Sawyer do ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... the work went well. But soon many of the men grew tired of it and they began to grumble. Why should men of noble birth, they asked, slave like carpenters? And day by day ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... A grumble from the large man, who seemed to have been disturbed in some absorbing calculation he was carrying on, mingled with a few muttered words of forced acknowledgment from the restless old sinner in the chair, made it unnecessary ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... were much amused to read on a board "528 kilos. to St. Petersburg, 470 kilos. to Uleborg." But we were more amazed on our return from a ramble, prepared to grumble that the meal ordered an hour before was not ready, when the host walked into the room, and, making a most polite bow, said ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... 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 ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... and served so well in rehearsals that Pierre could only grumble. One afternoon she superintended the comedy. She found a thousand faults with him, so many, in fact, that Pierre did not understand what it meant, and became possessed with the vague idea that she was hitting him over the groom's shoulder. He ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... black-pudding, a shovel-hatted fuzz-wigged Silenus. Whereas, if you take the real man, the poor fellow's flesh-pots are very scantily furnished with meat. He labours commonly for a wage that a tailor's foreman would despise: he has, too, such claims upon his dismal income as most philosophers would rather grumble to meet; many tithes are levied upon HIS pocket, let it be remembered, by those who grudge him his means of livelihood. He has to dine with the Squire: and his wife must dress neatly; and he must 'look like a gentleman,' as they call it, and bring up six great hungry sons as such. Add to this, if ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and strained all his faculties to listen. For a moment he heard nothing but the hum of the wind and the vibration of the engines transmitted by the mast. Then, faint and intermittent, like the far-off grumble of a gathering thunderstorm, his ear caught a sound that sent ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... what will, attending only to their own affairs; and if the poor devil of a judge does not hear and despatch them, either because it is not in his power, or it happens to be an unseasonable time for giving audience, then they grumble and backbite, gnaw him to the very bones, and even bespatter his whole generation. Ignorant man of business! foolish man of business! be not in such a violent hurry; wait for the proper season and conjuncture, and come not at meals and sleeping-time; for judges are made of flesh and blood, ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... think father ought to grumble," said Rifle, one night when they were going to bed. "Everything else has got on so well. Why, we shall soon ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... 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
... "We must not grumble at fate. Hitherto, Jonas, we have been marvellously preserved. First of all, we two were alone saved from Jotapata; then we, with ten others, alone out of six hundred escaped alive from Jerusalem. We have reason ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... Therefore go, my boy, and Heaven be with you! It is not likely that there will be any more serious fighting this year. Wallenstein lies inactive, negotiating now with Saxony, now with Oxenstiern. What are his aims and plans Heaven only knows; but at any rate we have no right to grumble at the great schemer, for ever since Lutzen he has kept the emperor's best army inactive. Make it a point, Malcolm, to find out, so far as you can, what is the public opinion in Bohemia as to his real intentions. If you can ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... said, half aloud. "I knew she wanted some of us to take a place, and if it wasn't for that proud Kate Haydon, I think I would try it, but I couldn't bear to think of her serving in a grand shop in London, while I was mewed up in a nursery or kitchen here. Mother must grumble a little longer; I daresay I shall hear of a place in a shop before long, and who knows but I may go to London, too;" and Esther went on her way, her mind full of the unknown glories of London, and vain wishes to ...
— Kate's Ordeal • Emma Leslie
... it would!" said Enid laughing. "Much too nice for us. They choose the driest books possible for schools. Patty, why don't you grumble too? It's quite aggravating to see ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... position and natural affiliations; and though no immediate action was taken relative to its ownership till 1839, it remained during the interval in Belgian hands. Matters remained in this ambiguous condition for some time; but though the Dutch might grumble, they could not fight. At length the treaty of 1839 was signed in London, on the 19th of April, according to the terms of which part of the duchy of Luxemburg was retained by the Belgians, and part was ruled by the king of Holland as grand ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... calmness he answered as he leaned against the rudder, "There's nothing to grumble at; Timar knows what to do." With the courage of despair Trikaliss drew his dagger out of his girdle in order to cut the rope himself; but the steersman pointed toward the stern, and what Trikaliss saw there altered ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... the 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, ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... 60 and I am not able to do anything except the school work. Four of the children have had chills and fever, and I have had to rise at night to care for them. I have been trying to do the work of three people and not complain. Still I'd like to grumble a little, if I could find the right one to talk to. I am beginning to feel a little like Josiah Allen's wife, when she said, 'Betsy Bobbet, you're a ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... "Ay, grumble away, old dotard!" the disappointed young sailor muttered to himself, while he reluctantly obeyed the signal; "you are in as great a hurry to get out of your danger as you ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Angel were to ask me, What in the world have you to grumble about? I couldn't tell him. For I never come away from that awful and sacred duty of the confessional without a sense of the deepest humiliation. I never sit in "the box," as the people call the confessional. A slight deafness in one ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... the mother trembles lest it should approach the fire. If it is summer time, it crawls about the yard, in the garden, plucks up the grass between the paving-stones, gazes innocently at the big dogs, the big horses, without fear, plays with the shells, with the flowers, and makes the gardener grumble because he finds sand in the flower-beds and earth in the paths. Everything laughs, and shines and plays around it, like it, even the breath of air and the ray of sun which vie with each other in disporting among the silky ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... "You see, we have to work down in 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 ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... which contained each a very excellent bed. Wax candles were placed upon the tables: a fire was lighted: coffee brought up; and a talkative, and civil landlord soon convinced us that we had no reason to grumble ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Eden" at me; if she chooses to consider herself ill-used, I am treated to a preserved echo of our marriage vows, and the Bishop's address; when she is in the sulks, I get the congratulations in the vestry; and if ever I grumble at the weekly bills, it's drowned in the "Wedding March!" As for your precious bells, I can't dine with a man at the Club without hearing the confounded things pealing out the moment I let myself in. That infernal phonograph, which you seem to fondly imagine will make me burst ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... 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
... grumble about the vanity of all human things, inasmuch as even the noblest works are not eternal but must become sooner or later as though they had never been, we should remember that the world, so far as we can see, was made to enjoy rather than to last. Come-and-go pervades everything ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... people murmured for food, and God sent them manna, which they gathered every day except the Sabbath; but with all God's care and kindness the Israelites continued to grumble whenever any difficulty arose. Journeying forward, they entered another wilderness, called the Desert of Sin, and came to a place named Rephidim, where they found no water. They were very thirsty, and came to Moses murmuring and saying, "Give us water that we may drink." How could Moses do that? ...
— Mother Stories from the Old Testament • Anonymous
... all his sensations; if he eats he rejoices, if he looks at the sky he rejoices. In short, for such a man, the mere process of living is happiness. But it is quite the reverse with the other sort of man; you may plate him with gold, and he will continue to grumble; nothing satisfies him; success in life affords him no pleasure, even if it be perfectly self-evident. The man simply is incapable of experiencing satisfaction; he is incapable, and that is the end ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... drefful hunger, he tink it am a vice, And he gib me for my dinner a little broken rice,— A little broken rice and a bery little fat, And he grumble like de debbil if I eat too ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... that your father knows Lord Grosvenor. As to the Tories, I am still in a rage;[81] they abuse and grumble incessantly ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... the more surprised I am at the crowds of English who resort to this town for the winter: the greatest part of them, it is true, are not invalids, but persons seduced into this nook by its reputation, and arriving too late in the season to leave it. They grumble, and are astonished to find themselves no better off than if they had stayed at home; but they are, it would seem, ashamed to confess how much they have been deceived, and, therefore, remain silent on the subject of climate, content to praise the beauty of the country in fine weather, and ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... nor in the way, but in the amount of both. Or, if one put comparative speed above comparative comfort, he rose before the lark, to be tortured through a summer's day in a basha, or horse vehicle, suitable only for disembodied spirits. My joints ached again at the thought. Clearly, to grumble now was ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... feeling. Already he felt that, if he was not the captor of the town, he was one of its important citizens, and practically the husband of an attractive woman whose father owned sufficient property to be one of those who grumble about taxes. ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... next two years, the persons were few indeed who felt, or had reason to feel, any sort of confidence in the Government; fewest of all among those who were in it. At home, for the most part, young men went to the war, grumbled and died; in England they might grumble or not; no ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... for a moment listening, then hastened on, dropping his cigarette over the banister. He did not see where it fell. He did not care. His only aim was to get out—to get away. He had heard a sound as he came down the stairs that turned his fear to terror—it was the distant grumble of an automobile horn. He locked the door and sped down the bramble-walled path to the runabout. He had left it in the middle of the road, so that as he leaped in and started again it left no swerve of its ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... shown his cousin, but had given him warm friendship; and Blake, who was much the stronger, had now and then stood between the lad and harm. He had done so again in Bertram's greatest need, and now he must not grumble at the consequences. ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... statement, what will be the consequence? Why, people will say, "that's all very well, all very true"—and nobody will take the trouble—the consequence is, that the public will go on, paying through the nose as before—and if so, let it not grumble; as it has no one to thank but itself for it. ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... If you thought your father unreasonable, what should I say? He does not say one thing and do another, your father. And I will tell you something. They will make the gown even handsomer than he ordered it, because he is very rich, and he will grumble and scold, but in the end he will pay, for the honour of the house. Then you will wear the gown, and all Venice will see you in it ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... feeling of honour in these things; but he did not for a moment think that any one acting with him would have dealings with Glump. On the Saturday morning, when the case was still going on, to the great detriment of Baron Grumble's domestic happiness, Glump had not yet been caught. It seemed that the man had no wife, no relative, no friend. The woman at whose house he lodged declared that he often went and came after this fashion. The respect with which Glump's name was mentioned, as ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... slowly in quarantine. The officers of a ship are generally taciturn, surly, and exacting; and the crew are unhappy, discontented, disposed to grumble, and ready to quarrel and fight on the most trivial occasions, and often without any occasion whatever. At the expiration of ten protracted days after we let go our anchor in the outer harbor of Gottenburg, we were again honored with a visit from the health officer. ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... face, but language and voice, an spite of its low grumble, told me the speaker was Kirby. The very coldness of his tone served to send a chill ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... around it, we're in a bad way. The soldiers grumble about the officers, the officers grumble about us, see? And we're damn well ready now to send both Villa and Carranza to hell to have a good time all by themselves.... I guess we're in the same fix as that peon from Tepatitlan who complained ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... theatrical. It is easy to imagine the whole interview: the shrunken face of the Porter beaming all over with an appreciation of the honour paid her, and the Doctor full of benevolence and patronising courtesy, even to the extent of drinking cheap tea without a grumble. After the philosopher takes his leave he will likewise take with him a vivid memory of the beldam's many wrinkles—so many, indeed, that "a picture of old age in the abstract might have been taken from ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... the smallest details how deeply America had committed her conscience to her new undertaking. While in England we grumble about a food-control which is absolutely necessary to our preservation, America is voluntarily restricting herself not for her own sake, but for the sake of the Allies. They say that they are being "Hooverized," ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... isn't fair," the eldest sister said, in a gentler voice. "You know I never blamed you. I only showed you that even a popular actress sometimes remembers that she is a woman. And if she is a woman, you must let her have a grumble occasionally." ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... made his report as cheerful as he could, but he could not make it a particularly brilliant one, although he did his best. He was one of those men who grumble at trifles, but are unusually bright and cheerful in the presence of a great emergency. The sneer had left his face, the cynical accent had disappeared from his voice; he employed all his social gifts, which were naturally great, for the entertainment of his comrades. As they ate boiled eggs ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... your couch of glory slumber comes Bosomed amid the archangelic choir; Not with the grumble of impetuous drums Deepening the chorus of ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... their fire, and nasty curly little veins are spoiling the pallor of your nose; but you have the affection of husband and child, while I have nothing but fees.' What is my destiny? To hear great-grandmothers grumble because I cannot give them back their girlhood for a thousand francs! To devote myself to making other women beloved, while I ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... 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 rumble, grumble and roar, Telling the battle was on once more, And Sheridan twenty ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... as though an old man were mumbling complainingly to himself. She smiled coldly. It was very like Nicky Viner—it was a habit of his to talk to himself, she remembered. And, also, she had never heard Nicky Viner do anything else but grumble and complain. ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard |
