"Grumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lincoln," was Dan's dry answer. "Up at smithy, it's none so bad neither—yet. Just a touch of thunder we had this morning,—a bit of a grumble i' th' distance like: but I've known worser storms a deal. Ay, I ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt
... he says, "are the masters who instruct us without rods and ferules, without hard words and anger, without clothes or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep; if investigating you interrogate them, they conceal nothing; if you mistake them, they never grumble; if you are ignorant, they cannot laugh at you. The library, therefore, of wisdom is more precious than all riches, and nothing that can be wished for is worthy to be compared with it. Whosoever therefore acknowledges himself to be a zealous follower of truth, of ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... all these 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 ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... 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 ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... changed his tactics. He discovered at his banker's one day a keen, communicative, wiry, shrewd, etc., etc., enterprising, etc., 'made a hundred thousand dollars' sort of a little man, named Briggs, who was traveling in order to travel, and grumble. Mr. Shodd 'came the ignorant game' over this Briggs; pumped him, without obtaining any information, and finally turned the conversation on artists, denouncing the entire body as a set of the keenest swindlers, and citing the instance of one he knew who had a painting ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... sort of a life record is it? Suppose in after years Katy is asked, 'Who was your father?' and is obliged to answer, 'Joe Dupont, the clown.' But I ought not to grumble. But for you I should have died a terrible death, and Katy would be fatherless, so I have much to ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... no use to grumble about this state of things unless one is prepared to indicate some sort of practical remedy. And I believe—and I venture to make the statement because I am wholly independent of all sorts of medical schools, ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... to grumble about all these animals and said they made the house untidy. And one day when an old lady with rheumatism came to see the Doctor, she sat on the hedgehog who was sleeping on the sofa and never came to see him any more, but drove every Saturday all the way to Oxenthorpe, ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... 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 ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... Jonny Broth, it's a pity I knaw For thart one o'th' best drivers at iver I saw, An' nobody can grumble at wat tha hes dun, If this bus driven wearisome race it is run; For who cud grumble ha fine wur thur cloth, To ride up to ...
— Th' History o' Haworth Railway - fra' th' beginnin' to th' end, wi' an ackaant o' th' oppnin' serrimony • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... the boy; but his father interrupted him. He knew the unvarying beginning of a long grumble, and dreading the ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the dish of fillets we had for dinner last night was not made from the under cut of one sirloin. It was by borrowing a little from the upper part that I managed to fill the dish, and I'm sure that any one who may have got one of the uppercut fillets had no cause to grumble. The Filetto di Bue which we had for lunch to-day was the residue of the upper cut, and, admirable as is a slice of cold beef taken from this part of the joint, I think it is an excellent variation to make a hot dish of it sometimes. On the score of ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... out, there were not eight blue skies in as many midsummer weeks, saving, sometimes, early in the morning; when, looking out to sea, the water and the firmament were one world of deep and brilliant blue. At other times, there were clouds and haze enough to make an Englishman grumble in his own climate. ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... was wanting in comfort. But towards morning a violent storm of rain, accompanied with thunder and lightning, came on, which disturbed the rest of all who were exposed to it. Yet in spite of the inconvenience arising from the shower, I cannot say that I felt disposed to grumble at the interruption, for it appeared that what I had before considered as superlatively sublime, still wanted this to render it complete. The flashes of lightning vied in brilliancy with the flames which burst from the roofs of burning houses, whilst the thunder ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... Nugent was appointed Commander-in-Chief in Bengal, and their voyage from Portsmouth to Calcutta occupied exactly six months, yet there are people who grumble at the mails now taking eighteen days to traverse the distance between ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... had been wonderfully favoured in the matter of weather so far, we had no right to grumble if we were now treated to a few of the inconveniences of such a voyage as ours. Though still making very good way, we were not getting on so fast as we had been, our low canvas, and the heavy sea (for a craft of our size) which began to get up, not permitting ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... 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 ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... 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
... have no captain here. We are not at sea, and we will all be equal. What we do will be for our own safety. I intend to keep my watch, and do my share of the work; so you needn't grumble, Cyd." ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... you must not," said her mamma; and her papa added, "I won't hear of it." So Amelia went up-stairs to grumble to Nurse; but Nurse only said, "Now, my dear Miss Amelia, do go quietly to bed, like a dear love. The field is all wet with dew. Besides, it's a moonlight night, and who knows what's abroad? You might see the fairies—bless us and sain us!—and ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... had been willing to work. 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?" he ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... accustomed to grumble over the increase in the cost of living. But the enhancement of price in the necessities of physical life is nothing compared to the increase in the cost of the ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... actually succeeded in carrying the West with them. At the pinch the majority of the Westerners remained loyal to the idea of national unity; but there was a very strong separatist party, and there were very many men who, though not separatists, were disposed to grumble loudly about the shortcomings of the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... whispered. 'Perhaps when the doctor goes you'll see him;' which did Bridget far more good than if she had overheard, as she luckily did not, Rough's remark to Alie: 'I don't think she's any right to grumble when ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... tempest. After this its power gradually diminishes in the same way as it increased—the peals become less loud and less frequent, the lightning feebler and less brilliant, until at length it seems to take another course, and after a few exhausted volleys it dies away with a hoarse grumble in ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... to be sure, there was my old aunt; and she would have helped us, but she could not, for the old woman is bed-ridden; so she did nothing but occupy our best room, and grumble from morning till night: heaven knows, poor old soul, that she had no great reason to be very happy; for you know, sir, that it frets the temper to be sick; and that it is worse still to be sick and ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... porter, which he seldom exceeded. If he had friends with him, they paid for what they drank. This pot of porter per diem was the only demand made upon my mother for permission to remain separate, and she did not grumble at it. His tobacco he found himself out of the tobacco money allowed at the hospital. He had received some pay, which, contrary to his former custom, he had laid by in the charge of one of the lieutenants of the hospital, for at that time ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... twin-daughters was the crown of their bliss. They never regretted the fact that no son was born to them to inherit the stately acres of Meredith Manor; they were the last sort of people to grumble. Mrs. Cardew inherited the Meredith property in her own right, and eventually it would be divided ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... 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
... love," he said; "and the next time Mr. Morley asks us I will go without a grumble, and make myself as agreeable ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... 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 he had worn them all his life. ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... the Colonel lost no time in getting a cart, and having seen every thing packed up and on their way to his house, he proceeded to his own store, chuckling within himself that now at least he had made a bargain at which even his wife couldn't grumble. In due time he was seated at the dinner-table, when lifting his eyes, he observed a cloud upon his wife's brow. 'Well, my dear?' said he, inquiringly. 'Well?' repeated his wife; 'it is not well, Mr. W.; I am vexed beyond endurance. You know C——, the auctioneer?' 'Certainly,' ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... and myself; but sometimes Mr Fraser took Senhor Silva's place; and he was, I must say, the best shot of the party. We had been unsuccessful, however, on several occasions, and though there was no famine in the camp, we had very little meat fit to eat; while our black attendants were beginning to grumble greatly at being placed on short commons. This made us more than ever anxious to get some game. We had scoured the country towards the south for some distance, and falling in with no animals, we were induced to proceed further off than usual. The country over which we were passing was a fine undulating ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... before which the tents go down; it was the exhilarating "assembly," which goes to the heart as wine and stirs the blood like the kisses of a beautiful woman. Who that has heard it calling to him above the grumble of great guns can forget the wild intoxication ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... necklaces of large pearls clasped round the throat. She had a narrow forehead, sensual lips, fleshy cheeks, large eyes, short sight. Her short sight extended to her mind. Beyond a burst of merriment now and then, almost as ponderous as her anger, she lived in a sort of taciturn grumble and a grumbling silence. Words escaped from her which had to be guessed at. She was a mixture of a good woman and a mischievous devil. She liked surprises, which is extremely woman-like. Anne was ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... the 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 ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... Richard awoke, And seeing that the sun had broke, These troubled words to Kitty spoke "Alas, my love, 'tis broad day light, "How can I now effect my flight?" "All will go well," rejoined the sire, "I will not grumble, my just ire "Were useless here; you have committed "A wrong of which to be acquitted, "Richard, there is one only way, "My child you wed without delay. "She's well brought up, young, full of health "If fortune has ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... substantial night's rest. For the first time since breaking camp, on the night of March 28th, we unpacked our blankets and made a bed. It was after sunrise when we awoke. Far to the right we could hear the low grumble of artillery, sounding like the roar of distant thunder. Since four o'clock in the morning a great battle had been raging in front of Petersburg, from the Appomattox on the right, to ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... poison; therefore, though I see thee, I am not afraid of thee; though I feel thee, I am not daunted; for thou hast lost thy sting in the side of the Lord Jesus; through Him I overcome thee, and set foot upon thee. Also, O Satan! though I hear thee grumble, and make a hellish noise, and though thou threaten me very highly, yet my soul shall triumph over thee, so long as Christ is alive and can be heard in Heaven; so long as He hath broken thy head, and won the field of thee; so long as thou are in prison, and canst ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... his comrades, who had had by far the harder part of the task, were ready to drop with fatigue. It was now eight o'clock in the evening, and they had worked since six in the morning, and had scarcely had time to swallow their scant rations. Some of them began to grumble, and the engineer had to coax and threaten them to induce them to persevere for another hour. The moon was just rising behind the mountain ridges, and the beautiful valley lay, with its green fields, sprouting ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... of") Jebel Malh ("Mount Pleasant"?), which the broad-speaking Bedawin lengthen to Malayh. Our camel-men had halted exactly between two waters, and equally distant from both, so as to force upon us the hire of extra animals. We did not grumble, however, as we were anxious to inspect the Afrn ("furnaces") said to be found upon the upper heights of the Shrr—of these apocryphal features more hereafter. Fresh difficulties! The Jerfn-Huwaytt tribe, that owns the country south of the Surr, could not ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... all in, but as farmers always grumble about something, they are now growling about the lightness of the crop. All the young part of our household are wrapt up in uncertainty concerning the Queen's illness—for—if her Majesty parts cable, there ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... wonder why food at country hotels in England is so bad? At Retby Lady Theodosia won't touch anything unless it is absolutely perfect. She sent a dish away yesterday just because a whiff of some flavouring she does not like came to her, but at the "Red Lion" she did not grumble at all; it must be for the same reason that wetting their feet doesn't give French people cold if it is at a national sport, that made her put up with the lunch because it was English and had always been ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... here tell me about the desert, sir, I don't think we shall; but there, I'm not going to grumble, sir. An hour's ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... and a merry time we had of it. Our first day's run was to a place called Schenectady, and here the officers found an empty house, and berthed us all together, fastening the doors. This did not suit our notions of a land cruise, and we began to grumble. There was a regular hard horse of a boatswain's-mate with us, of the name of McNally. This man had been in the service a long time, and was a thorough man-of-war's man. Fie had collected twenty-four of ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... and prayed him to put a stop to this state of violence. 'What do you suppose,' said he to me, 'those fellows can do with all their outbreaks? Why, if my blackamoor John were to pull the nose of the most formidable amongst them, the poor devil durst not even grumble. Have I not forced them to give up what they called their commune, for the whole duration of my life?' I held my tongue," adds Guibert; "many folks besides me warned him of his danger; but he would not ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... battles, I should not mind," said the boy; "it is peaceful soldiering that I have seen too much of. But don't you bother my father, Julius, I won't grumble any more; I made ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... (the lower jaw of which he moves by a particular contrivance), with which he holds a spirited kind of dialogue. In the course of it, the little virago is so impertinent, that at last he thrusts her into his pocket; from whence she seems, to those present, to grumble, and complain of her hard treatment. Some time ago, the Baron, who was then at the court of Bareith, being in company with the Prince de Deux Ponts, and other noblemen, amused them with this scene. An Irish officer, who was then present, was so firmly persuaded that the Baron's ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... had to create new mortgages and borrow many millions; but a large part of the expenditure for improvement has come directly from earnings. The Underwood administration has been conservative in paying dividends and the stockholders grumble. But the Erie is at last coming into its own. Instead of being a speculative football and a hopelessly bankrupt road, as it was for nearly forty years, it is now in the forefront of the great trunk ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... a bad job, but it cannot be helped, Master Geoffrey. I owned a third of her, and two traders at Bricklesey own the other shares. Still I have no cause to grumble. I have laid by more than enough in the last four years to buy a share in another boat as good as she was. You see, a trader ain't like a smack. A trader's got only hull and sails, while a smack has got ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... 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, ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... getting excited from the effects of the wine; "it is more than I can bear to think of that man. It exasperates me! it drives me mad! You should have heard him saying: 'Beggarly workmen! rascally workmen! they grumble that they have no food in their bellies; well, then, we'll give them bayonets to stop their hunger.'(11) And there's the children in his factory—you should see them, poor little creatures!—working as long as the men—wasting away, and dying by the dozen—what ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... to do so. Now Simms, listen to what I say, and you others also. I am not going to repeat this. We're the same as ship-wrecked men, and I am in command of this boat. Whatever I say goes, and I've handled worse fellows than you are many a time. Grumble all you please; I don't mind that, but if you try mutiny, or fail to jump at my orders, I'll show you some sea discipline you will not forget very soon. ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... is really 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 as a thoroughly ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... 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
... coming. The servants too were collected, some without the door and others of more authority within it, to hear and see what all this could mean. I likewise was one of the company.—'Here! here! Mr. Rector,' bawled the Squire, 'we ha' brought you your due. I'll warrant, for once, you sha'n't grumble that we do not pay you ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... land bills were all bad. Every step taken has been bad. And yet to them old England is of all countries in the world the best to live in, and is not at all the less comfortable because of the changes that have been made. These people are ready to grumble at every boon conferred on them, and yet to enjoy every boon. They know, too, their privileges, and, after a fashion, understand their position. It is picturesque, and it pleases them. To have been ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... allows herself to be ordered about by any one. She likes to order other people about instead, and she likes the other people to be very pleased when she orders them about, and not to go slowly and look disagreeable and grumble. She likes a new frock every Sunday, and a birthday every month; and she always drinks milk for supper. It is supper time now," added the little ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... were no branches low down, he had to hug the trunk with arms and legs as a boy climbs. His lasso hampered his progress. When the slow ascent was accomplished up to the first branch, Kitty leaped back into her first perch. Strange to say Jones did not grumble; none of his characteristic impatience manifested itself. I supposed with him all the exasperating waits, vexatious obstacles, were little things preliminary to the real work, to which he had now come. He was calm and deliberate, and slid down the pine, walked back to the leaning tree, ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... feel de 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 debil if I eat too much of dat; When I neber ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... up 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 ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... wife, "but then see how little on the other hand is required to make them miserable! Let the sun hide his head for a day, and they grumble!" ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... 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 ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... she made serious objection on the score of health and on that of gas bills. Godwin quietly asserted that work he must, and that if necessary he would buy candles out of his pocket-money. He had unexpectedly become more grave, more restrained; he even ceased to grumble about going to church, having found that service time could be utilised for committing to memory lists of dates and the like, jotted down on a slip of paper. When the time for the examination drew near, he at length told his mother to what end he had been labouring, and ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... about to withdraw, but the emperor detained him. "Tell me, first, Duroc, whether they were very angry with me? Did old Lannes grumble? Did Talleyrand comment ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... 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
... crossed his arms before his face, and went. Eudemius lay and waited, watching the wan lightning at play in the lowering sky, listening to the far-off grumble of the thunder. Scents from the garden drifted to him on the warm sickly breeze; once a bat flapped past the window. His eyes grew heavy ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... grumble, grumble! Dawdling duffer, he sprawls across the well in one of his infernal aesthetic attitudes, picks the best swim, and girds at us who have to handle the poles. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 6, 1891 • Various
... 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
... "Wir mussen durchhalten!" (We must hold out!) "No sacrifice should be too great for the Fatherland, no privation, too arduous to be endured if one but has the spirit to conquer." He paid particular attention to the rapidly increasing number of people who grumble incessantly over the shortage of food. The good man was clearly losing patience with those ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... pitch dark now 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 ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... it is my fault, dear. When I lost my money I got disheartened, and little by little I lost control. One day I was told that as I paid for nothing I had no right to grumble. Your mother said, in reply to some question about me, that I was "merely an expense." I believe the phrase was considered very clever, it went the round of society, and eventually was put into a play. And that is why I told you that money is everything, that it ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... jeep, listening to the engine grumble protest until it settled to a flat, banging roar. He swerved out of the driveway with a screaming of tires. Reaching the long ribbon of concrete that led out into the desert, he settled down hard on the accelerator, indifferent to the whining ...
— Sound of Terror • Don Berry
... 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 ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... biting east-wind, were to the English fancy a far more fearful prospect than eternal flames. The notion of these flames arose in Italy, where heat is no luxury, and shadows are lurked in, and breezes prayed for. In England the sun, even at its strongest, is a weak vessel. True, we grumble whenever its radiance is a trifle less watery than usual. But that is precisely because we are a people whose nature the sun has not mellowed—a dour people, like all northerners, ever ready to make the worst of things. Inwardly, we love the sun, and long for it to come nearer ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... an' a good job for her, too. It's an awful queer world! Not that I could make a better one! I allers say, when folks grumble, 'Now if you was given the materials, could you turn out a better world than this is? And when it come to that, what if you hed to furnish your own materials, same as the Lord did! I guess you'd be ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... soldiers in Mafeking 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 ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... the men, sturdy and dark-browed, steps forward, clears his throat, and with a half-surly inclination of the head begins, "Mr. Grandon," and then something intangible awes him a trifle. They may grumble among themselves, and lately they have found it easy to complain to Mr. Wilmarth, but the unconscious air of authority, the superior breeding, and fine, questioning eyes disconcert the man, who pulls himself together with the certainty that this ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... made my way ahead with considerable trouble to a spot six hundred feet higher, where I halted for a while on a rocky island fairly clear of snow. As coolie after coolie arrived, breathing convulsively, he dropped his load and sat quietly by the side of it. There was not a grumble, not a word of reproach for the hard work they were made to endure. Sleet was falling, and the wet and cold increased the discomfort. There was now a very steep pull before us. To the left, we had a glacier beginning in a precipitous fall of ice, about one hundred feet in height. Like ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... if I have no troubles to confide?" said Mr Wentworth; "a man and a boy are very different things. Come, aunt Dora, I'll see you safe to your inn. What should I have to grumble about? I have plenty to do, and it is Easter; and few men can have everything their ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... 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 ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... desire for a change, of whatever nature. Besides, except for the heat, flies, septic sores, the khamseen, bad water, dysentery, vaccination, inoculations many and various, digging holes, and a depressing sameness about the scenery, we had, according to some, little to grumble at. ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... to grumble, declaring that the whole river has gone to the bad; that the fish are smaller and fewer in numbers than of yore,—but is this borne out by facts? The year 1896 was no doubt rather a failure as regards the may-fly; but as I glance over the pages of the game-book ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... that, it may be poisoned." Of course we had to be careful of spies, but I stuck the bottles in my pack when the officer wasn't looking. Well, we marched to the depot and were soon packed into the small uncomfortable coaches. We started to kick and grumble, but Rust said: "You are lucky to have coaches at all. Last time I went up I rode in a cattle-car," and he pointed out a lot of cars on which was painted "Capacity, so many horses, so many men." After that we hadn't anything more ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... mountain, and beside it, underneath birches and hemlocks, I improvised my hearthstone. In sleeping on the ground it is a great advantage to have a back-log; it braces and supports you, and it is a bedfellow that will not grumble when, in the middle of the night, you crowd sharply up against it. It serves to keep in the warmth, also. A heavy stone or other point DE RÉSISTANCE at your feet is also a help. Or, better still, scoop out a little place ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... his habit either to laugh or to grumble at Karl Steinmetz's somewhat subtle precautions. The word "danger" invariably made him laugh, with a ring in his voice which seemed ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... 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 ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... Senor Don Quixote," said Carrasco; "but I wish such fault-finders were more lenient and less exacting, and did not pay so much attention to the spots on the bright sun of the work they grumble at; for if aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus, they should remember how long he remained awake to shed the light of his work with as little shade as possible; and perhaps it may be that what they find fault with ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... American People's Club knows so well how to behave; dispersed quietly, without a grumble, or a recollection of the half value of the tickets lost. Miss Kent's carriage drove rapidly from a side door. In two hours, she was on board the ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... later, Grant," he used to say apologetically; "but as it's for our own convenience we ought not to grumble." ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... sentimental about your birdhouses. And you dislike your job. You like the country merely because it is a symbol of a holiday. It is freedom from an irksome task. It means a closing of your desk. But if you had to live in the country, you would grumble in a month's time. Even a bullfrog—and he is brought up to ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... 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 ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... most energetic support of the Pekin government in money and men could have enabled him to hold his own; and as he did nothing but report victories in order to gain a hearing for his policy, he could not grumble when he was not sent the material aid of which he stood most in need. His unreasonable action had done much to unite all foreign nations against China. French, American and Spanish subjects had been the victims of Chinese ignorance and cruelty, as ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... that he would break his promise and write to her once at least. He knew her too well not to measure the extent of her sufferings, and common humanity would have justified him. But his ship might have sunk with all on board for any sign he gave. Others had ceased to grumble at his silence; ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... good schools, and the society of boys superior to himself, had made a gentleman of Jem, and the contrast between his looks and ways, and manners, and those of my uncle's clerks were not favourable to the latter. How proud my father was of him! With me he was in a most irritable mood; and one grumble to which I heard him give utterance, that it was very inconvenient to have to pay this money just at the most expensive period of Jem's education, went heavily into the scale for running away. And that ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was even then forming myself, though all unconsciously. You know my poor father could not afford to send me to the university. I used to grumble in my ignorance at not having completed my education. That was the folly of youth, Salisbury; my university was Piccadilly. There I began to study the great science ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... Hopkins, thou naughty hussy, wilt thou grumble at tarrying with me to care for thine own dear sister and brother? ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... besides donkeys, working on the roads at one time. Unaccustomed to public improvements of this nature, and, no doubt, failing to see their advantages in a country practically without vehicles, the people have sometimes ventured to grumble at the rather arbitrary proceeding of making them work for nothing, and board themselves; and it has been found expedient to make them believe that they were doing the preliminary grading for a railway that was shortly coming to make them all prosperous and happy; ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... got, with long cloaks and crooked staffs, murmuring their surprise and incredulity at what the angel had said; some pretending to grumble at being awakened from sleep, others anxious to prove the ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... if to remove all doubt as to the purely spiritual character of this inactivity, our friend can be seen, without a complaint, struggling every day to earn the dollar. He will not grumble about rising at five to go fishing or cycling. He will, after his hard day's work, sit till twelve at the theatre or dance till two in the morning. He will spend his energy in any direction save in that which leads ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... the restoration of 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
... herself sinking lower and lower. Her parents were now both dead, and she had no one in whom to confide her suspicions or fears. Besides, day after day, Ralph went out in the morning after his cafe-au-lait, and only returned at eight o'clock to eat the dinner which she prepared—alas! often to grumble at it. Slowly—ah! so very slowly—the hideousness and mockery of her marriage ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... limited the webs woven in looms to a particular size. He also prohibited the introduction of foreign manufactures into France. The French vine-growers, finding that under this system they could no longer exchange their wine for foreign goods, began to grumble. "It was then," said his Lordship, "that Colbert, having asked a merchant what he should do, he (the merchant), with great justice and great sagacity, said, 'Laissez faire et laissez passer'—do not interfere as to the size and mode of your manufactures, do not interfere with the entrance ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 24. Saturday, April 13. 1850 • Various
... off 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 ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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. They do not look with an evil ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... black face that will induce me to give you anything but a good kicking?" "Patience and policy, messmate," I said. "Where is your philosophy? Let your steward give them a few biscuits and a dram, and get rid of them." To this proposal, after a grumble, ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... this is all 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 he ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... there was a restless fidgeting which caused him to move aimlessly about the room and showed itself now and then in a slight tremulousness of the voice and hands, but his eyes wore that steely glitter, which those at his side had noticed when the rumble and grumble told ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... demanded some return. Then, Bertram had never been jealous of the favor 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 Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... from the south-east, and very nearly blow me and my possessions out of the drawing-room. Still, it would be the height of ingratitude to quarrel with such a healthy, refreshing gale, and I try to avoid the remorse which I am assured will overtake me in the hot season if I grumble now. Of course it is hot in the sun, but ladies need seldom or never expose themselves to it. The gentlemen are armed, when they go out, with white umbrellas, and keep as much as possible out of the fierce heat. At night it is quite cold, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... of meddling Mrs. Grundy. The world might be more profitably engaged in mending its own tortuous and mendacious ways, and allowing poor solitary wretches to fondle their whims and caprices. If Mrs. Gerome does not choose to receive visitors, what right has the public to grumble, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... similarly placed whose eyes held so assiduously, and without ever a wandering flutter, to the face of the man who was paying. But Freddie never noticed her. He chewed savagely at his cigar, looking about the while for things to grumble at or to curse. Rod? He is still writing indifferent plays with varying success. He long since wearied of Constance Francklyn, but she clings to him and, as she is a steady moneymaker, ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... I have known him for some 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 ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... it is to examine all the stores of corn collected for public distribution[584] or otherwise, to leave to each family sufficient for its needs, and to purchase the remainder from the owners at a fair market price. Co-operate with these orders of ours cheerfully, and do not grumble at them. Complain not that your freedom is interfered with. There is no free-trade in crime[585]. If you work with us you will earn good renown for yourselves; if against us, the King's reputation will gain by your loss. It is ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... clumsily Ivan set about untying the knot, it had to come undone at last. Besides, the bystanders were beginning to grumble, and their muttering disturbed the reverie into which the young aide-de-camp had fallen. He raised his head, which had been sunk on his breast, and cast a last look towards the window; then with a peremptory sign; and in a voice ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... The sun shone in on the left through the high windows, imparting to the vapor opaline tints—the palest rose and tender blue, fading into soft grays. When the women began to grumble the boy Charles went from one window to the other, drawing down the heavy linen shades. Then he crossed to the other side, the shady side, and opened the blinds. There was a general exclamation of joy—a formidable ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... have had such a long spell of fine clear weather without especially low temperatures that one can scarcely grumble at the change which we found on waking this morning, when the canopy of stratus cloud spread over us and the wind came in those fitful gusts which promise a gale. All day the wind force has been slowly increasing, whilst the temperature has risen to -15 deg., but there ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... glorious 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
... 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
... very fashionable hours, and always waited dinner for himself till nine o'clock, there was still plenty of time; so, with a loud grumble about the trouble, he seized a large basket in his hand, and set off at a rapid pace towards the fairy Teach-all's garden. It was very seldom that Snap-'em-up ventured to think of foraging in this direction, as he never once succeeded in carrying off a single ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... soon as his hunger was appeased, started to grumble and cry that he wanted a new ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... order with a grumble, looked from his unreliable horse to the frosty roadway, and was about to shake his head in definite negation when Max cajoled him with a more ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... a rough one," continued Carrie; "very rough indeed; but I don't grumble. I was brought up to it, and use is half the battle, as perhaps you don't know, but you ought. You'll get accustomed to doing without your eight pounds after a bit, and never give it ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... 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 his ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... 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 ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... music—alas, fallaciously cool—was borne to us through the dense screen of waving foliage. Lady Meadowcroft was so delighted at having got clear away from those murderous and saintly Tibetans that for a while she almost forgot to grumble. She even condescended to admire the deep-cleft ravine in which we bivouacked for the night, and to admit that the orchids which hung from the tall trees were as fine as any at her florist's in Piccadilly. "Though how they can ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... 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 Gods are Athirst • Anatole France |
