|
|
|
More "Grumbling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Marquess of Carabas was sitting in his library, and sighing, in the fulness of his ennui, as he looked on his large library table, once triply covered with official communications, now thinly besprinkled with a stray parliamentary paper or two, his steward's accounts, and a few letters from some grumbling tenants, Mr. Vivian ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... as quiet as possible, picking my teeth with the point of my knife, for the steaks were rather tough, you may guess. The little bears, playful like, were running about round me, while the old bear was grumbling away outside, thinking maybe that his wife had taken a drop too much, and couldn't get up. All of a sudden I heard a great hullabaloo, and several shots were fired, and down came the old bear as dead as a door nail ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... column seven hundred strong, which was held in readiness to move at any moment. The officers were unknown to me, but they seemed pleasant, genial fellows, and in a short time I felt quite at home with them. The younger ones were grumbling because San Martin did not at once attack the enemy, saying that Canterac would slip away to the mountains ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... no doubt that these races place their "good sense" in a very different line from the Irish; that they are, also, much more given to criticism, what they call "grumbling," ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... streams. There was a camp for them. A lakeside hotel had been designed and stakes were driven in the ground where its foundation would eventually be poured. There were infant big-mouthed bass in the lake and fingerling trout in many of the streams. A huge Wild Life Control trailer-truck went grumbling about such trails as were practical, attending to these matters. Yesterday Lockley had seen it gleaming in bright sunshine as it moved toward Boulder Lake on the ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... property men, stage-hands, electricians, prompters, call-boys, box-office staff, general staff, dressers, commissionaires, programme-girls, cleaners, actors, actresses, understudies, to say nothing of Rose Euclid at a purely nominal salary of a hundred pounds a week. The tenants of the bars were grumbling, but happily he was ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... And my aunt, grumbling at the whole matter, and especially at her share in it, found an additional cause of grumbling in that, she said, I had looked twenty per cent. better ever since this foolish thing got possession of my head. "I am wondering," ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... read as a rule, ready to go to all lengths (even to trickery) if he found an insulting article, to prevent it reaching Georges. After a week he recovered his equanimity. The boy was right. His action had given the yelping curs food for a moment's reflection.—And, though Christophe went on grumbling at the young lunatic who had made him waste eight working days, he said to himself that, after all, he had no right to lecture him. He remembered a certain day, not so very long ago, when he himself had fought a duel for Olivier's ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... oppressive. The German element prevails strongly throughout Yankee-land: perhaps this accounts for the natives' dread of fresh air. Your only chance of escaping from semi-suffocation is to secure a seat next to a window, and keep it open, hardening your heart against all the grumbling of your neighbors, who run through a whole gamut of complaints, in the hope of softening or shaming the Hyperborean. Sometimes you will have to encounter menaces; but, in such a cause, it is surely worth while to ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... took him again, grumbling at the innate and incurable handlessness of men. Could I see Irma? Certainly not. What would I be doing, disturbing the poor thing? Very likely she was asleep. Oh, I had promised to go, had I? Well, she had nothing to do with that. But Irma would be expecting me! Oh, as to that, lad, lad, do not ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... the recovery of the stray sheep nor at the finding of the lost coin; friends had rejoiced with the finder in each case. But the father's happiness at the return of the prodigal was interrupted by the grumbling protest of the elder son. He, on approaching the house, had observed the evidences of festal joy; and, instead of entering as was his right, had inquired of one of the servants as to the cause of the unusual rejoicing. On learning that his brother ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... Frank, grumbling with some reason; for Mat was a surly old fellow, who tied a most indefensible neckcloth, and always contrived to have a great patch on his boots,—besides, he called Frank "Master," and obstinately refused to trot ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... spirit shown in every part of their country. Their lamentations, which plentifully deceived the outside ear, were just English grumbles, for if in truth England had been decadent there could have been no such universal display for them to be praising now. But all this democratic grumbling and habit of "going as you please" serve a deep purpose. Autocracy, censorship, compulsion destroy humor in a nation's blood and elasticity in its fibre; they cut at the very mainsprings of national vitality. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... wasn't. But we were well-trained girls in those days, and rarely thought of grumbling at anything our teachers did. We might not like them, but I don't ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... aside for further consideration, and goes on drawing. All and everyone of them either demand impossibilities or merely write to abuse the poor Clerk for some fancied dereliction of duty. One wants rain, another growls because there has been too much wet. This one is grumbling at the fogs, this other at the sunshine; this one suggests snow for a change, and this other begs for a thunderstorm to ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... Space it will, you may Sing it with what Tune you think fit, either higher low, (as to the pitch of your Voice) but with this caution, that you reckon how many Notes you have above or below it, that your Voice in its pitch may be so managed as to reach them both without Squeaking or Grumbling, or any harsh ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... any notice, he finished reading the papers, and then rose and walked about the room. After a while he seemed as if by accident to perceive Gotzkowsky's presence, and stopped short. "Have you come back already?" he asked in a sullen, grumbling tone. "I know very well that you have returned to beg for all sorts of useless trash; I can't bear such eternal begging and whining—a pitiful rabble that is all the ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... finished at last," said the prince, laying aside his pen. "My adagio is finished, and I think Quanta will have no excuse for grumbling to-day; he must be contented with his pupil. This adagio is good; I feel it; I know it; and if the Bendas assume their usual artist airs, I will tell them—; no, I will tell them nothing," said the prince, smiling. "It is useless to ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... last moment, that she thought at least her family name might have been given to the child; and Lord Hartledon interposed, and said, give it. Lord and Lady Hartledon, and Mr. Carr, were the sponsors: and it would afford food for weeks of grumbling to the old dowager. Hilarity reigned, and toasts were given to the new heir of Hartledon; and the only one who seemed not to enter into the spirit of the thing, but on the contrary to be subdued, absent, nervous, was ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... break himself of the habit. He had very seldom gone ashore, and when he did so, never went alone, and always returned at an early hour, and without having taken more than he would have done in the ordinary way on board. He had not, however, given up his habit of grumbling, and his messmates were so accustomed to his taking a somber view of everything that his prognostication as to the nature of their work up the river had ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... some grumbling at the Cherbourg visit[42] is in fact a good feeling, but it is not over-wise. Two things are to be done—(1) To make every reasonable exertion to remain on personal good terms with the Emperor—which can be done. One party in England says it is with ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... moved by a common instinct of caution, the Indians fell silent, and during the crossing there was no sound but the grumbling of the clumsy sweeps in the thole-pins, and ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... grumbling in a cloud, Before the dreadful break: If here it fall, The subtle flame will lick up all my blood, And, in a moment, turn my heart ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... preaching a great thanksgiving sermon, and all the senior officers were among his congregation, there was what responsible officials called 'excessive stealing in every part of the Towne.' Had this stealing really been very 'excessive' no doubt it would have allayed the grumbling in the camp. But, as a matter of fact, there was so little to steal that the looters began to suspect collusion between their leaders and the French. Another fancied wrong exasperated the Provincials ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... as you've taken it into your head," said Grandet, pushing her by the shoulders; "but don't set things on fire." So saying, the miser went down-stairs, grumbling indistinct sentences. ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... work. I think she must have paid these people for the chance of reclaiming one whom they had represented as at least a great liar. Whether my wages were to be paid to them, or even what they were to be, I never heard. I made up my mind at once that the best thing would be to do the work without grumbling, and do it as well as I could, for that would be doing no harm to anyone, but the contrary, while it would give me the better chance of making my escape. But though I was determined to get away the first opportunity, and was miserable ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... should dig a hole and bury, not only Tammas, but the whole main building. You can see with what finesse I carried off the shocking event, when I tell you that the Hon. Cy went home chuckling over a funny story, instead of grumbling at the new ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... of the gate several times, but failing to arouse any one, shouldered his pack and went off grumbling. Then Joyce climbed down and walked slowly up the gravelled path to the house. Cousin Kate had just come back from Tours in the pony cart, and was waiting in the door to see if Gabriel had all the bundles that she had brought ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... little grumbling beyond the open window, Thad and Hugh heard the soft pad of shoes scraping against the boards. Nick had started to enter. The yawning aperture, and the apparent lack of any signs of danger lured him on. Ah! if he had only dimly suspected ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... much of sharp misery, that he was not affected by paltry vexations; and he seemed to think that everybody ought to be as much hardened to those vexations as himself. He was angry with Boswell for complaining of a head-ache, with Mrs. Thrale for grumbling about the dust on the road, or the smell of the kitchen. These were, in his phrase, "foppish lamentations," which people ought to be ashamed to utter in a world so full of sin and sorrow. Goldsmith crying because the Good-natured ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... rascally boys set a match to a whole pack and flung 'em right under Andrew Jackson's feet! Of course I couldn't manage him after that. I 'clare to gracious! it's a sin and a shame the way the boys in this town do carry on Christmas times and, indeed, every other time!" Wilson hobbled out, grumbling audibly. ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... was summoned to the ladies' bower just as the drawbridge was lowered to permit the departure of Robert Sadler. Ungraciously he obeyed; and just as ungraciously he continued his grumbling in her ladyship's presence. "I did dream of serpents last night," he began, "and that ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... business or pleasure called them abroad in rainy {71} weather, and who did not own carriages, might hire one of the eight hundred two-horsed hackney carriages; jolting, uncomfortable machines, with perforated tin sashes instead of window-glasses, and grumbling, ever-dissatisfied drivers. There were very few sedan chairs; these were still a comparative novelty for general use, and their bearers were much abused for their drunkenness, clumsiness, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... sunk a few feet below the paved foot path that stretches to the doors of the dwellings, there are sudden grumbling movements among the retainers of the patrician families, as they steer their gorgeous gondolas from side to side, to avoid humiliating contact with that slow procession of barges bringing produce from the island gardens of Mazzorbo, there are other ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... taking down the shutters from the shop front at No. 19 in the Konigstrasse. She went about her work languidly enough, but there was a tinge of dusky red on her cheeks and her eyes were brightened by some suppressed excitement. Old Mother Holf, leaning against the counter, was grumbling angrily because Bauer did not come. Now it was not likely that Bauer would come just yet, for he was still in the infirmary attached to the police-cells, where a couple of doctors were very busy setting him on his legs again. The old woman knew ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... talking, that tries our courage and shows what we are made of. It requires no courage to give up what we care little or nothing about. Be as brave as you know how to be over this disappointment, my boy, and don't add to your mother's troubles by grumbling and complaining. We feel terribly any pain that this loss may bring to you children, and to know you are fretting and grumbling will make it a ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... the end of the path, however, when the father began to change his attitude; he stood up, dropped his "dibbler," scraped his foot on his spade, and, grumbling to himself, went after her. She did not see or hear him till he ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... hour was at the Corner. Tying his horse to a tree, he went to the house that was the known meeting place. There were lights in the window and boisterous noises issuing forth. At the door he stopped and listened; rough voices were grumbling; there was an occasional curse, a laugh, then a woman speaking shrilly; a minute's silence, during which the sweet song of a night bird was heard in the dark bushes by the stream, whereupon a ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... to your letter. As for your being even with me, I have spoken to that already. So now, my dearly beloved, let us proceed to the next. You are always grumbling that you han't letters fast enough; "surely we shall have your tenth;" and yet, before you end your letter, you own you have my eleventh.—And why did not MD go into the country with the Bishop of Clogher? faith, such a journey would have done you good; Stella should have rode, and Dingley ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... from the beginnings of things self- constituted judges of the two Marstons, were not the less critical of the daughter, that the father had been taken from her. There was grumbling in the shop every time she ran up to see Letty, every one regarding her and speaking of her as a servant neglecting her duty. Yet all knew well enough that she was co- proprietor of business and stock, and the elder ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... mean," returned Billy. "Can't say the de Vignes have put themselves out at all over her. There's Rose flirts all day long with your brother, and Lady Grace grumbling continually about the folly of undertaking other people's responsibilities. She swears she must get back at the end of next week for their precious house-party. And the Colonel fumes and says the same. I told him I shouldn't go ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... patiently tutored his big chum in order that he might contrive to scrape through his lessons. It was Bob who did the work and Van who serenely accepted the fruits of it—accepted it but too frequently with scant thanks and even with grumbling. Bob, however, doggedly kept at his self-imposed task. To-day's Latin translation was but an illustration of the daily program; Bob did the pioneering and Van came upon the field when the path was cleared of difficulties. ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... "walls have ears. Come down to the nearest house of call, and talk it out like men, instead of grumbling ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... some little grumbling, gave me my letters. But what did it matter?—I looked at all the envelopes, and saw that no one of them had been addressed by the little hand which I so much wish I could see here now, turning over the pages of the Vecellio. I pushed the whole bundle of letters away: they had no ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... off after his men, while Ralph joined his, to hear them grumbling and muttering together, he being the burden ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... Yelled Red, throwing a sombrero at the grumbling unfortunate. "Yu ask Buck where yore ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... haughtie Protector, haue we Beauford The imperious Churchman; Somerset, Buckingham, And grumbling Yorke: and not the least of these, But can doe more ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... have an idea, too, that she won't like me. She looks too great and stately a lady, if you understand, to take a fancy to a flippant person like me, and she would have liked you. But, there, it's no good grumbling at my ill-luck; I must go and face her, I suppose, and make the best of ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... Racksole, and they both looked at Prince Eugen. The latter's face was flushed, and Racksole observed that the left pupil was more dilated than the right. The man started, muttered odd, fragmentary scraps of sentences, now grumbling, ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... I gets more coppers now than I used to, and I can get summats to eat, and take browns enough home besides to keep her from grumbling. It's a good ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... but he knew it was never safe to antagonise his daughter and so he called rather mildly up-stairs, "Hi, there Joan, you ain't sick are you?" but Joanna did not answer and he mounted the stairs slowly grumbling about the young folk who would never go to bed at night and never get up till mid-day, and then he stopped in the middle of Joanna's open door. The bed was made and the room was in its usual spotless order, but there was no sign of its owner. And then he noticed a note pinned ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... whether the English would accept the pact. But, as soon as it was known in Scotland that the Covenant had been adopted by the English and that the swearing in England had begun, the Scots did their part. There was some little grumbling at first over the verbal changes that had been made by the English in the text of the Covenant; but this ceased, and it was even agreed that the changes were for the better. Accordingly, on the 13th of October, 1643, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... A little mild grumbling might well be permitted to a man with his record; few merchant captains had done finer service in the war, and the decoration on his breast testified to his cool handling of his ship in the "narrow squeaks" ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... at Christmas time," said one of the dealers to his porters, who, stout, strong men as they were, showed a disposition to grumble at their task. Encouraged by large promises, they shouldered sullenly the Nuernberg stove, grumbling again at its preposterous weight, but little dreaming that they carried within it a small, panting, trembling boy; for August began to tremble now that he was about to see the ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... tears at once. One day I was obliged to try "Monsieur Lerondeau," and he was so hurt that I had to retract on the spot. However, he now refrains from grumbling at his orderly, and screaming too loudly during the dressing of his wound, for he knows that the day I say to him "Be quiet, Monsiuer"—just Monsiuer—our ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... fledgelings awkwardly fell out of the nest and rolled down the steep. Then he hastily and anxiously flew after it, bustling and croaking as though he were grumbling; he would take it cautiously and clumsily in his talons and carry it, a frightened flustered atom, back to the nest. There he would smooth its feathers with his great beak for a long time, strutting round it, standing high on his legs, and ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... we bring to tea: "Just like a man!" Heedless of every propriety: "Just like a man!" Grumbling at money she spends for spats And filmy dresses and gloves and hats, Yet wanting her stylishly garbed, and ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... didn't grumble, and he didn't go away. No, Sir, Mr. Coon just stuck to his home and did the best he could to find enough to eat. He kept himself as neat as ever and was always cheerful. Whenever he met one of his grumbling ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... they got to the school-house it was not so easy to persuade the rest. At length, however, Johnny Meline signed it, and then Harry Weathervane, and then the rest, one after another, with some grumbling, wrote their names. All subscribed to it excepting Pewee and Ben Berry and Riley. They declared they never would sign it. They didn't want to be kept in at recess and after school like convicts. ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... chocolate, which found a ready home. Girls are not the only ones who like chocs., judging by the amount that disappears here. Sorry my last letter was censored. I am ignorant of what information I could have given; possibly I had a grumbling mood on and was somewhat sarcastic about the many defects and inconsiderations ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... Grumbling unintelligible things, my guardian sampled his Chablis; and I, crumbling bread, lazily wishing I could get a front view of the girl in rose-color, filled ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... of money regarded simply as money. K. is bosh; I have no use for him; but we must do what we can with the fellow meanwhile; he is good-humoured and honest, but inefficient, idle himself, the cause of idleness in others, grumbling, a self-excuser—all the faults in a bundle. He owes us thirty weeks' service—the wretched Paul about half as much. Henry is almost the only one of our employes who has ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... traps, grumbling various sarcasms, the last mutterings of a departed storm, for already I realised that I had taken out my own mortification upon him, and I was stricken with remorse. And yet, so contrarily are we made, I continued to be unkind while in my heart I was asking pardon of ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... brain, whose story fills the centuries with its glory, Moulding Gaul and Carthaginian into one all-conquering band, With his tusked monsters grumbling, 'mid the alien snow-drifts stumbling, Then, an avalanche of ruin, thundering from that frozen land Into vales their sons declare are Sunny as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... lip was curled. She did not deign to answer the complaint. Silly old fool; always grumbling! Let her wait. Let her wait and see what happened! Sally was less excited, and less clumsy, to-night. She was warmer, too; and that gave her more assurance. Once her mother had fallen asleep, as she knew from the loud breathing, she became ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... my coming here may be of more use than simply hiding from Sam Haines," he cried, as he ran with all speed toward the spot where the goods had been left. "I have been grumbling because Stephen brought an axe instead of a hatchet, but now I should be able to do very little ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... cannot afford to maintain you in your present extravagance. [He goes to a flight of steps leading to the stalls and sits down disconsolately on the top step. A fashionably dressed lady comes through the curtains and contemplates him with patient obstinacy. He continues, grumbling.] An English clergyman's daughter should be able to live quite respectably and comfortably on an allowance of L150 a year, wrung with great difficulty from ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... fortifications. The great mess-pot, partly filled with pork and beans, was bubbling over the fire; Zeke, shifting his position from time to time to avoid the smoke which the wind, as if it had a spite against him, blew in his face, was sourly contemplating his charge and his lot, bent on grumbling to the others with even greater gusto than he had complained to himself. His comrades carefully put away their intrenching tools, for they were held responsible for them, and then gathered about the fire, ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... or tool used by a workman; he should then look round and find a chair, or some other article, which he should pretend requires repairing; he should then act the workman, by taking off his coat, rolling up his sleeves, and commencing work, often dropping his tools and grumbling about them the whole ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... broke up, having reached a termination of general dissatisfaction common to such conclaves. Maria went to bed grumbling. Matilda was ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... confesses to a partiality for the bagpipe on the ground that your true Briton "loves a grumbling noise," and he favours organs and the popular oratorios. But his "top talent is a ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... discomfort, as did also the stay of the Countess d'Agoult, who, having come on a visit to her daughter and son-in-law, attached herself to our party for the time being. By way of filling up the house, Karl Ritter also came after much grumbling and sulking, and once again proved himself to ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... Saturday had passed that Jeanne understood all that the payment of these fees meant. At the table that night there were two empty places, a man's and a woman's. She asked her neighbor, an elderly Abbe, who had lived well all his life until he came to the Rue Charonne and was forever grumbling at the extortion practiced, what had become ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... ugly again as Knoll opened his eyes and looked up. He shook off the clouds of slumber as he felt Muller's hand on his shoulder and raised himself to a sitting position, grumbling: "Can't I have any rest? Are they going to question me again? I'm getting tired of this. I've said everything I ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... an adventure well known at Dijon, which happened at the time I was in command there, and was worth being written down. There was a sergeant of justice named Franc-Taupin, who was an old lump of mischief, always grumbling, always fighting; stiff and starchy, and never comforting those he was leading to the hulks, with little jokes by the way; and in short, he was just the man to find lice in bald heads, and bad behaviour in the Almighty. This said ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... ferry a traveller at that hour. With their hands thrust deep into their nether pockets, they moved reluctantly about, scanning the stranger from head to foot. "Couldn't stop this side till morning?" enquired one of them, in a grumbling tone. "I must cross to-night," replied the stranger, in a decided voice. "Cross to-night, eh? Well, it's a long pull across there now," muttered the man, blowing the ashes from his pipe and still affecting an air of indifference. ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... of "loss of time," "thankless task," "inefficiency," and the like. Now, I think that is grumbling without cause. Take my own case, for example. I have no problems of dramatic art to wrestle with, only the problem of coal consumption. But it is ultimately the same thing, i.e., energy. My friend ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... across the old woman's trail, who, after having left the count at the postern gate, must have crossed the plain to reach the mountain. Sperver rode behind me now, whistling rather contemptuously, and I could hear him now and then grumbling— ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... her, knowing himself bound to make the journey agreeable to her; he was constantly kind to Bertha, and in the pleasure of her revival submitted to a wonderful amount of history and science. All his grumbling was reserved for the private ear of Phoebe, whose privilege it always was to be his murmuring block, and who was only too thankful to keep to herself his discontents whenever his route was not chosen (and often when it was), his disgusts ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... are ruined, is a fact so generally acknowledged, that the very loudness and frequency of the complaint has been made a reason for disregarding or undervaluing the grounds of it. That the West Indians are always grumbling is an observation often heard; and, no doubt, it is very true that they are so. But let any one who thinks that the extent and clamor of the complaint exceeds the magnitude of the distress which has called it forth, go to the West Indies and judge for himself. Let him see with his own eyes the ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... the goblin, severely, accidentally swinging his pincushion against Bartlemy's legs at the same time, and pricking him most atrociously. "You are everlastingly growling and grumbling, instead of working at your trade like an honest tailor, and richly deserve to be thwacked with the yardstick every morning by way of breakfast; but never mind, I choose to help you; so say ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... abruptly on his heel, and grumbling as he sauntered towards an orange-colored cabriolet, on which was emblazoned an enormous coat-of-arms, surmounted by a baron's crest. A servant in green livery, ridiculously laced with gold, was standing beside the horse, and did not ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... They have toiled in daily pain and sorrow throughout a long life to attain at last, if possible, to the coveted condition. Some have pursued it in eager intensity, dancing and singing as they went. Others have rushed after it in mad determination, cursing and grumbling as they ran. Many have sought it in rapt contemplation of the Sublime and Beautiful. Thousands have grubbed and grovelled for it in the gratification or the drowning of the senses, while not a few have sought and found it in simple, ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... of his position, and only occasionally grumbling at the caprice of Dame Fortune, who seems entirely to have forgotten him, it is with a lively sensation of joy that D'Artagnan, one evening when on guard at the Palais Royal, hears himself summoned to the presence of Mazarine. It is at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... later the two hundred survivors of this number returning from their "Veteran furlough," without a band and with their tattered colors carefully cased, came off a transport at the same place, without uttering a word other than a little grumbling at the trouble of disposing of some baggage, marched swiftly and silently up the bank, and disappeared before any one fairly realized that they were there. So much had Time ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... with a companion. A bed on the floor in a public sleeping-room! Think of that; a public sleeping-room!—men, women, and children, only divided by a paltry curtain. Oh, ye gods! think of the snoring, squalling, grumbling, puffing; think of the kicking, elbowing, and crowding; the suffocating heat, the mosquitoes, with their infernal buzzing—and you will form some idea of the misery I endured the first night of ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... sit trembling in their twilight. "O sons of Adam, the sun still shines, and a spell of fair weather never did no harm, as we heard tell on; but don't you think a drop of rain to-night would favour the roots? You'll excuse a farmer's grumbling." ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... appearance. It seemed so painfully absurd that forty muscular men should be ironed and guarded for no better purpose than the cracking of a cartload of quartz-pebbles. In the meantime the air was heavy with angry glances shot from one to the other, and the passage of the parson was hailed by a grumbling undertone of blasphemy. It was considered fashionable to grunt when the hammer came in contact with the stone, and under cover of this mock exclamation of fatigue, it was convenient to launch an oath. A fanciful visitor, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... could see (indeed, he saw more than I could, for while to me the breakers were only streaks of light, he spoke as if he was close to them on the wet weedy rocks), or I came on him lying by the edge, listening to the grumbling of the breakers and the cries ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... garb of a citizen. Secondly, that to be a good soldier a man should be able to go at least forty-eight hours without eating, drinking, or sleeping, and then endure guard-duty all night in a drenching rain, without grumbling or fault-finding. Thirdly, I think I have discovered that the martial road to glory 'is ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... Vespasian. Thou wilt see all these things, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring, feasting, trafficking, cultivating the ground, flattering, obstinately arrogant, suspecting, plotting, wishing for some to die, grumbling about the present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring consulship, kingly power. Well, then, that life of these people no longer exists at all. Again, remove to the times of Trajan. Again, all is the same. Their life too is gone. In like manner view also the other epochs of ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... his surname in capitals—was probably the most competent Head Gardener of his age, or of any other age: he supplied the household with fruit and vegetables without grumbling or making excuses. When asked to furnish flowers at short notice for a dinner-party he made no difficulty, but just produced them. Neither did he complain about the weather; wet or dry, it was always exactly what his garden needed. All weather to him was Fine Weather. He believed in ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... "We will not go home without some booty, or there will be grumbling among the wives; but for your sake we will go south yet, for you are bound for London, as ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... and thither all about the wood, tearing her dress, and hurting her pretty white hands with the thorns and brambles, but she could find nothing good to eat, and at last she had to go back sorrowfully to Fanfaronade. When he saw that she came empty-handed he got up and left her, grumbling to himself. ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... and forwards, and, as Dick Sand remarked, always like an uneasy dog seeking a scent. The dog's ways had visibly changed since the "Pilgrim's" shipwreck had cast it on this sea-coast. It seemed agitated, and almost incessantly it kept up a dull grumbling, rather lamentable than furious. That was remarked by all, though no ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... Cibot, be careful never to contradict the invalid. You must be prepared to be very patient with him, for he will find everything irritating and wearisome, even your services; nothing will please him; you must expect grumbling—" ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... party of the Blues, she ordered that the governor, while he still held office, should be crucified in the place where the two offenders had been executed, although he had committed no crime. The Emperor, pretending that he bitterly lamented his loss, remained at home, grumbling and threatening all kinds of vengeance upon the perpetrators of the deed. He did nothing, however; but, without scruple, appropriated the property of the dead man to his own use. Theodora likewise devoted her attention to punishing ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... to see what effect his words have). And he's been grumbling all morning about the way things is going on in this house. Bread and things wasted and ...
— The Drone - A Play in Three Acts • Rutherford Mayne
... as some folks be," "The devil take his wisdom!" said The Doctor, looking somewhat grim, "What, woman! should I know of him?" And, grumbling, he ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... said, to secure every job he could, then divide and scatter his men so as to keep everything going, but at a slow, provoking rate, that wore out every one's patience save his own. He was used to the annual fault- finding and grumbling of the busy season, and bore it as he would a northeast storm as a disagreeable necessity, and quite prided himself on the good-natured equanimity with which he could stand his customers' scoldings; and the latter had become so accustomed to being put off that they endured it also as ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... said, so seldom saw a strange face near their home that this knock at the door quite took away their breath. When it came, Fritz and Franz were sitting over the fire munching their last piece of black bread, and grumbling to each other as was their custom, while Hans, seated on the bed beside his mother, was telling her about what he saw and what he fancied when he was in the forest. Fritz was the first to recover himself, and he growled out, in his usual surly ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... the Holy Name was filled as full as it could hold, and those outside were grumbling at their hard case in being cut off from so much solemnity or jollification, according to their opinion of the ceremony inside. But it came to pass that the lot of these outsiders proved, from the ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... an old woman, and what do you think? She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink; Victuals and drink were the chief of her diet, Yet this grumbling old ...
— Harry's Ladder to Learning - Horn-Book, Picture-Book, Nursery Songs, Nursery Tales, - Harry's Simple Stories, Country Walks • Anonymous
... wooded copse. The moonlight filtered down through the trees, working silvery patterns upon the pathway. The silence, heavy and scented, was broken only by the far-away wheepling of a wakeful whaup and the grumbling of the burn near by, which bickered and hurried to be out in the open again on its way to ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... often used now for decoration, like the Spanish cork bark. Some were talking already of the 'grit' work and looking forward to it, that is, to mowing and haymaking, which mean better wages. The farmers were grumbling that their oats were cuckoo oats, not sown till the cuckoo cried, and not likely to come to much. So, indeed, it fell out, for the oats looked very thin and spindly when the nuts turned rosy again. ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... husband muttered behind her retreating back. "Can't think, though, why you don't leave the girls alone. However they start it always ends that way. You and I have seen quite a number take to the streets, and you don't do much to prevent them short of grumbling at them." ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... but will keep on until I pocket all the stakes." [428] Then without delay Gawain orders a rug to be thrown down and spread before him. There was no snivelling or attempt to run away when the squires heard this command, but without grumbling or complaint they execute what he commands. They bring the rug and spread it out in the place indicated; then he who had sent for it takes his seat upon it and gives orders to be armed by the young men who were standing unarmed before him. There were two of them, ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... You get up grumbling, execrating the sacrament of marriage. There is not the slightest merit in your heroism; it wasn't you, but your wife, that got up. Caroline gets you everything you want with provoking promptitude; she foresees everything, she gives you a muffler in winter, a blue-striped cambric ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... and indomitable will stood him in good stead, and helped him cheerfully in this emergency. He ate his scant meals, and otherwise took care of the functions of his weak human nature, when and where he could, without grumbling, and at times earned even the praise of his driver by his ability to "rough it." Which "roughing it," by the way, meant the ability of the passengers to accept the incompetency of the Company. It is true there were times when he regretted that he had ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... whose fate I must Sigh at; Alaq, that such frolic should now be so quiet! What spirits were his! what wit and what whim! Now breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb; Now wrangling and grumbling to keep up the ball; Now teasing and vexing, yet laughing at all. In short, so provoking a devil was Dick, That we wish'd him full ten times a day at old Nick, But, missing his mirth and agreeable vein, As often we wish'd to ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... classes we have are the privileged class who merely ride in automobiles and the oppressed class who ride and have to pay for them, too. Lately the latter class has begun to feel itself abused and has been grumbling a little, but we overlook it. No appeal to prejudice and jealousy can move us. Of course, I don't think that an automobile owner should be expected to leave his wife at home in order to accommodate his neighbors, and there may be some just complaint when an owner ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... Saints are always grumbling because the world will not take them at their own estimate; so they cry out upon this place and upon that, saying it does not know the things belonging to its peace and that it will be too late soon and that people ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... soothingly, "a great many things are uncomfortable; there is a good deal of unnecessary irritation growing out of new and unexpected conditions. But we are getting along better than we are willing to admit. We are all fond of grumbling." ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... of hundred years, or so," There had been no peace in the world below; The witches still grumbling, "It is n't fair; Come, give us a taste of the upper air! We've had enough of your sulphur springs, And the evil odor that round them clings; We long for a drink that is cool and nice, Great buckets of water with Wenham ice; We've served you well up-stairs, you ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... rather from the point of view of the Russian recoiling from a despotism compared to which Democracy seems to be no government at all, than from the point of view of the American or Englishman who is free enough already to begin grumbling over Democracy as 'the tyranny of the majority' and 'the coming slavery.'"[1085] If Kropotkin is a "Democrat," then Ravachol, Vaillant, Henry, Pallas, and ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... destroy the efficiency of the army, by preventing young men from reaching the higher grades. "At first," says an officer of some distinction in the British navy, in speaking of promotions in that arm of service, "it certainly looks very hard to see old stagers grumbling away their existence in disappointed hopes; yet there can be little doubt that the navy, and, of course, the country at large, are essentially better served by the present system of employing active, young, and cheerful-minded officers, than they ever could be by any imaginable system by seniority. ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... rabbit skin back. The stranger tripped and fell. Chotanka rubbed himself with the gum, and ran on until he reached the goal. There was a great shout that echoed over the earth, but in the heavens there was muttering and grumbling. The referee declared that the winner would live to a good old age, and Zig-Zag Fire promised to come at his call. He was ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... agree with St. Aldegonde," said Lothair, grumbling to himself, "that if one is to meet that Duke of Brecon every day at luncheon, for my part I had ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... feet and listened intently. From out that advancing mass of brown dust sounds could be heard. At first they were just a confused murmur, a sort of deep grumbling very far away; but now and again came a sharper sound, half like the crack of a pistol and half like two flat ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... colored folk gathered around the fire, grumbling at the unseasonable coldness of the weather, and predicting a hail-storm, and telling each other that they never "'sperienced" such weather this time o' year, 'cept 'twas that spring Old Marse died—when no ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... democratic and sanguinary nature, regretted deeply his absent revolver, but drew up to his leader prepared to die by his side. That calm centurion felt no such serious misgivings. He knew that there had been dire grumbling among the shearers in consequence of the weather. He knew that there were malcontents among them. He was prepared for some sort of demand on their part, and had concluded to make certain concessions of a moderate degree. So looking cheerfully at the men, he quietly awaited the deputation. ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... became more uncomfortable; the people were so uncivil they would hardly give us cold water without grumbling. The second night we witnessed one of the most dreadful storms we ever remember to have seen. Violent gusts of wind shook our desolate abode, while the rain poured down in torrents and found entrance in ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... the Kentish leas, And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay, And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees That round and round the linden blossoms play; And sweet the heifer breathing in the stall, And the green bursting figs that hang ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... exploration, his book becomes more interesting. He shows himself a thoroughly good-humored, observant, and intelligent traveller. If, in the earlier pages of his journal, he is indiscreetly communicative as to the good cheer he enjoyed, in the later ones he does not waste time in grumbling at discomforts and lenten fare. He observes minutely and describes well all that he sees along the great river,—the people, the productions, the scenery, and the vegetation. He gives us a lively impression of the capabilities of the country, and of the results which are to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... though he did not see her; stood at the rear of the garage kicking at the tires of a car, his back to her. Over and over he was grumbling, "If I just knew one girl like that—— Like a picture. Like—like a silver vase on a ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... essential working parties. Over and over again men had to work throughout the cooler hours of the twenty-four, and pick up what rest they might in the heat and glare, amid the dust and flies, of midday. But if there was much sickness there was no grumbling, and the energy and thoroughness with which all duties were performed will remain for all time a lasting credit to the men of the Regiment. The average age of the Company Commanders was one and twenty, yet the C. O. told me that never was a Colonel ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... started downward, slowly at first, but as the incantation increased in rapidity, with greater speed. At the end of the line Tarzan could still hear the grumbling of the disgruntled priest. The man's voice rose louder and louder. A priestess near him spoke in sharp tones of rebuke. The knife was quite near to Tarzan's breast now, but it halted for an instant as the high priestess raised her eyes to shoot her swift displeasure ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... hope! To-night I heard Grimsby and Hattersley grumbling together about the inhospitality of their host. They did not know I was near, for I happened to be standing behind the curtain in the bow of the window, watching the moon rising over the clump of tall dark ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... speed and less good-will, obeyed the Doctor's behest, grumbling loud at the capricious and uncertain ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... done it. She would have remained my class then, would have married my class, and her children would have been my class. I didn't want that. Everything's got to be paid for. I got what I asked for; I'm not grumbling at the price. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... always grumbling. As a fact, people put themselves out in the most flattering manner to be kind to me; I suppose I am as comfortable here as I should be in any place ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... adept To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled, And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled; And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered, You heard as if an army muttered; And the muttering grew to a grumbling; And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling; And out of the houses the rats came tumbling. 110 Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats, Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, Fathers, mothers, uncles, ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... of the best clad of the other men took boar spears, and so they were ready for a start, for all the world like the chapmen they pretended to be. They put me into the litter they had ready then, and four of the men were told off to bear me, grumbling. It was only a length of sacking made fast to two stout poles, and when they had hoisted me to their shoulders a blanket was thrown over me, and a roll of cloth from one of the bales set under my head, so that I might seem to be in ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... the un-upholstered privacy of a box-car on his journey west from Albuquerque, awakened to realize that his conveyance was no longer an integral part of the local freight which had stopped at the town of Antelope, and which was now rumbling and grumbling across the Arizona mesas. He was mildly irritated by a management that gave its passengers such negligent service. He complained to himself as he rolled and corded his blankets. However, he would disembark and leave the car to ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... matter it is to try and resist, I had ample opportunity of experiencing when I ventured some time ago to criticize the celebrated first volume of Bishop Colenso.[49] The echoes of the storm which was then raised I still, from time to time, hear grumbling round me. That storm arose out of a misunderstanding almost inevitable. It is a result of no little culture to attain to a clear perception that science and religion are two wholly different things. The multitude will forever confuse them; but happily ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... about whom more poetical nonsense has been written. He has been extolled to the skies as patient, long-suffering, the friend of man, and what not. In reality he is a grumbling, discontented, morose brute, working only under compulsion and continual protest, and all writers who know anything of him agree in the above estimate of his disposition. The camel is nowhere found in ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... wife doth return it, Grumbling, as she shows the dish, Chervil, basil, chives, and burnet Feed, instead ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... help tonight, George. You pitched in so gladly, while the others were surly and grumbling. It was very noticeable, and I appreciate it. You're a good kid. Wish I had one just ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... force upon suitable occasions is also calculated to have some effect at this early period, as it serves to keep quiet the dissatisfied and grumbling ones, of whom there are always some, as well as to infuse a feeling of fear into outside enemies who might be inclined to trouble the settlement, either because they do not regard it in an auspicious light or because they wish to satisfy a desire for revenge which they have harbored for a ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... best of his position, and only occasionally grumbling at the caprice of Dame Fortune, who seems entirely to have forgotten him, it is with a lively sensation of joy that D'Artagnan, one evening when on guard at the Palais Royal, hears himself summoned to the presence of Mazarine. It ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... the Herald, the Tribune, and the Sun, all passed in review. The World seemed to please Sojourner more than any other journal. She said she liked the wit of the World's reporter; all the little texts running through the speeches, such as "Sojourner on Popping Up," "No Grumbling," "Digging Stumps," "Biz," to show what is coming, so that one can get ready to cry or laugh, as the case may be—a kind of sign-board, a milestone, to tell where we are going, and how fast we go. The readers then call her attention to the solid columns of the other papers, and the versification ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... no other reply than a deepening of her colour. She must, however, have found words to utter when, later, the gallant knight begged her seriously to remain at Windeck as his wife—for ere nightfall the old Dean, grumbling and somewhat reluctant, was called upon to consent to his niece's betrothal. This he did at length, when Imma had joined her entreaties ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... Grace, and hurried down the road, leaving Bridget to proceed with much grumbling to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... was bitter cold, windy, and frosty; the town had not yet awakened, but an indefinable stir already preluded the noise and business of the day. The ghouls had come later than usual, and they seemed more than usually eager to be gone. Fettes, sick with sleep, lighted them upstairs. He heard their grumbling Irish voices through a dream; and as they stripped the sack from their sad merchandise he leaned dozing, with his shoulder propped against the wall; he had to shake himself to find the men their money. As he did so his eyes lighted on the dead face. He started; he took two ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... indeed, that one day, while Madam Clot, a neighbor of ours, was gone to church, I made water in her kettle: the remembrance even now makes me smile, for Madame Clot (though, if you please, a good sort of creature) was one of the most tedious grumbling old women I ever knew. Thus have I given a brief, but faithful, history of ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... pass matters had now come to, there was no alternative but Anarchy or that. Puritan England might accept it or not; but Puritan England was, in real truth, saved from suicide thereby!—I believe the Puritan People did, in an inarticulate, grumbling, yet on the whole grateful and real way, accept this anomalous act of Oliver's; at least, he and they together made it good, and always better to the last. But in their Parliamentary articulate way, they had their difficulties, and never knew fully what ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... taunts to feare us, We have no grumbling at our purse expence: We seeke no misers favour to forbeare us, We use no houshold wranglings and offence: We have no cocke ...
— The Bride • Samuel Rowlands et al
... and sore-footed, they fall behind and lose sight of their guide; when, stumbling and grumbling, and fighting each other, they plunge headlong ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... of hers, a patient, one-eyed little cobbler followed her about, mending shoes for white men, doing the old woman's cooking, and bearing all her abuse without grumbling. Strange to relate, a battered Bible was seldom out of his sight; and whenever he had leisure, and his mistress' back was turned, he was forever poring over it. This pious propensity used to enrage the old crone past belief; and oftentimes she boxed his ears with the book, and tried to burn it. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... we are interesting ourselves in these greenies' welfare, our popularity will take a jump upward. Every one of you can either give me your promise tonight to help or keep away from me the rest of the year. Think it over. Don't promise and then go to grumbling behind my back about it. If you do, I'll be sure ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... taking on their early morning garb of pink and violet, the eastward fronts of the snow-sifted peaks and domes far to the north and south were lighting up with wondrous hues of gold and crimson; the stars aloft were paling and the moon was sinking low, and still big 705 stood hissing and grumbling placidly on the long siding, and the green lights back at the caboose blinked sleepily against the dawn. Two glimmering threads of light in rigid right lines, converging far beyond the rear of the train, stretched eastward from their feet until lost in the shadows of ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... world. His fame soon spread from among his fellow-rebels on the benches, and began to reach the ushers and monitors of this great Ayrshire academy. This arose in part from his lax views about religion; for at this time that old war of the creeds and confessors, which is always grumbling from end to end of our poor Scotland, brisked up in these parts into a hot and virulent skirmish; and Burns found himself identified with the opposition party, - a clique of roaring lawyers and ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to rally round him a strong phalanx of Tories. Under the plea of ill health, he withdrew from court, seldom came to the Council over which it was his duty to preside, passed much time in the country, and took scarcely any part in public affairs except by grumbling and sneering at all the acts of the government, and by doing jobs and getting places for his personal retainers. [70] In consequence of this defection, Halifax became prime minister, as far any minister could, in that reign, be called prime minister. An immense load of business ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... as did also the stay of the Countess d'Agoult, who, having come on a visit to her daughter and son-in-law, attached herself to our party for the time being. By way of filling up the house, Karl Ritter also came after much grumbling and sulking, and once again proved himself to be ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... Jimmy lay down again grumbling, but was soon asleep, and on comparing notes with the doctor I found I was so near my time for taking my turn at watching and keeping up the fire that ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... Thamar went off grumbling, and soon returned, followed by a very tall old man, whose majestic aspect inspired reverence. A long white beard fell down over his breast, and on either side of his brow two huge protuberances caught and retained the light. They looked like ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... class which has the most knowledge gets the most power? I suppose philosophers, like my friend Dr. Riccabocca, think they have the most knowledge. And pray, in what age have philosophers governed the world? Are they not always grumbling that nobody attends ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... these sturdy young Americans that made them desperately unwilling to confess defeat. It was the "die-in-the-last-ditch" spirit that has made America great. Even Bill, although he relieved himself sometimes by grumbling, would not really have given up the search and when the pinch came he dug and hunted as eagerly as ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... fastest, with the beaver man grumbling, we all headed across the plateau for the place of the smoke. Sunday was turning out ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... the bill-book and hastily examined the contents. His brow relaxed and he was grumbling something about a reward when Billie reappeared, ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... convinced Maria of her part in the undertaking, and with more or less good-natured grumbling, she proceeded to enlighten the girls in the ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... various occupants. All this on a pad, in one of the hangars, with no one else near, as the Sergeant thought. In Hangar Four were two Bleriots all in trim order. The Sergeant stared at one of them, grumbling ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... taking the Hudson, Trenton Falls, and Niagara on our way; act in Montreal and Quebec for a short time, and then adjourn, I hope, to Newport in Rhode Island, to rest and recruit till we begin our autumnal work.... And now I have done grumbling at "the state of life into which it has pleased God to call me." My dear H——, I began this letter yesterday, and am this moment returned from a long visit to Dr. Channing.... The outward man of the eloquent preacher and teacher is rather insignificant, and produces ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the command, to couple with it the monstrous stipulation that he was not to ask for any money for the war. And this, though it was clear to all men that the want of money and the consequent desertion of the Imperial standard by whole companies of grumbling barbarians, had been one main cause of the amazing success of Totila. Thus crippled by his master, and having his own spirit broken by Imperial ingratitude and domestic unhappiness, Belisarius, in the whole course of his second command in Italy, which lasted for five ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... Anchor of Salvation during the holy communion. Scarcely had the priest disappeared from the altar when the maiden expressed a desire for returning home, to the great surprise and displeasure of her good aunt, who believed her niece to be as pious and devoted to praying as a nun, at least. Grumbling and crossing herself, the good old lady rose. "The good Lord will forgive me, Aunt Isabel, since He must know the hearts of girls better than you do," Maria Clara might have said to check the ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... of your own accord. You're only a stone in the house, you're not a bit like a slave except when you count up your daily allowance of bread: you count the crumbs when you do that, though, and whenever the tiniest bit happens to fall upon the floor, the very walls get tired of listening to your grumbling and boiling over with temper, as you do all day long—now, when we want to use that chair you've found time to dust it off and rub up the polish —you may thank the lady that I don't give you ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... neck, so that he could send a look of inquiry back over his shoulder. When he discovered that the supposed kidnapper was only his chum, who seemed to be doubled up with merriment, Larry came to a full stop. Then he started to slowly retrace his trail, shaking his head and grumbling to himself. ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... will be glad, if he does come," asserted Rosemary. "They think Mr. Hildreth ought to have another man all the time—Warren was grumbling because he had to go after the bolt this afternoon; he said it would ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... monarch. Meantime, the doors of the great duke's apartments in the same palace would be beleaguered by an army of courtiers, envoys, and contractors, who had paid solid gold for admission, and who were often sent away grumbling and despairing without entering ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Chicago ball grounds have waited and watched for that same hit, and how often, oh, how often, they have been regaled with that same play—a pop-up to the infield. It is time, long, long ago, that James Ryan was relegated to the bench or the turnstile—for good. Decker is his superior in everything but grumbling."—Chicago Journal. New York, April 2.—A. G. Spalding absolutely denied to-day the truth of the published reports that he had jestingly offered the franchise of the Chicago club to Anson for $150,000, and that ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... that as it might, some failure in rations and water made the crew surly and ready to break out into open grumbling upon any pretense, so that, when they encountered a fierce squall, and sprung a leak, it was almost impossible to keep them at the pumps, until terror of their own lives forced them ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... I stumbled in a hole, and tripped, And came a heavy, headlong spill; And she, ere I'd the wit to rise, Was o'er the hill, and out of sight: And, sore and shaken with the tumbling, And sicker at my foot for stumbling, I cursed my luck, and went on, grumbling, The way her flying ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... hear the first man grumbling to himself, and beating listlessly on the walls somewhere. Then a voice called something unintelligible from the direction of the stairs; the beating ceased, and footsteps went across the floor ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... I am to get back to my little Cap, for I know very well, reader, just as well as if you had told me, that you have been grumbling for some time for the want of Cap. But I could not help it, for, to tell the truth, I was pining after her myself, which was the reason that I could not do half justice to the scenes of the ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... when his wages ran out. So far from becoming freer-handed again with his wife and children, he grudged every coin that he was obliged to expend on them. Pennyloaf's submissiveness encouraged him in this habit; where other wives would have 'made a row,' she yielded at once to his grumbling and made shift with the paltriest allowance. You should have seen the kind of diet on which she habitually lived. Like all the women of her class, utterly ignorant and helpless in the matter of preparing food, she abandoned ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... constant attention to detail in the army, the smartness of the men, and the good turn-out of the horses and limbers, have a great moral effect upon every department of the service. The men were always grumbling about polishing buttons and chains, but I told them that the impression of efficiency it gave one made it quite worth while. A Division that could turn out such a fine looking Train as we had could always be depended upon to ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... cliff, and close to the sea, was a tavern, at the sign of the Cock. Here cool drink was to be had; here the horses might rest-for the drivers had been grumbling bitterly at the heavy load added to the car over the deep sand—and here there was a level plot, under the shade of a spreading sycamore, which had often before now served as a floor for ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... disappeared before Solon returned to the boat, grumbling at the weather, the mud, and, above all, at the rheumatism that forbade him to remain out in the wet ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... the big idea in keeping us—" he was beginning in a grumbling tone, when he saw Larry just beyond her. His complaint broke off in mid-breath; he stopped short and his dark face twitched ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... of this kind ever happened, and when one dreary night after grumbling at the servants, cursing his fate and abusing everybody and everything, he put on his hat and went out saying he had "better have married Lena [the other woman] after all," for in that case he would have had "some sort ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... two, three times," Mrs. Ducharme said, in a hoarse, grumbling tone; "but you'se always out. This time I was a-going to wait if I'd ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... and grumbling, the two paid their fare and that of the third, who was still dazed. In return the conductor gave them slips. Then he picked his lantern from the overhead rack whither he had tossed it, slung it on his left arm, and sauntered ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... the time. What with walking on the verdant shores of the bay within which nestles the little town, exploring the thick woods which make it look like a nest embowered amongst thick foliage, admiring the villas, each provided with a little bathing house, and moving about and grumbling, at last ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... on grumbling, but they covered their food, since they must do so or lose it. And they had to admit that there was much less sickness from ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... excluded. This mixture of the talents and knowledge of both sexes must be advantageous to the interests of society, by increasing domestic happiness.—Private virtues are public benefits: if each bee were content in his cell, there could be no grumbling hive; and if each cell were complete, the whole fabric ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... those brilliant days in early May when only gardeners, grumbling, talk or think of rain. A few fleecy white clouds seemed painted. So motionless were they, on the sky, reproducing the Hurlingham colours far above the ground. A gentle breeze coming up from the river brought with it the odour of lilac and ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... 'History of the English People,' states that: 'While England was thrilling with the triumph over the Armada, its Queen was coolly grumbling over the cost and making her profit out of the spoiled provisions she had ordered for the fleet ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... no self-denial, no brains, no character, is required to set up in the grumbling business; but those who are moved by a genuine desire to do good have little time for ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... retreat, And arbours shade them from the summer heat: Others, again, a pert and lively crew, Some rough and thoughtless stranger plac'd in view, With frolic quaint their antic jests expose, And tease the grumbling rustic as he goes; 140 Nor rest with this, but many a passing fray Tradition treasures for a future day: "'Twas here the gather'd swains for vengeance fought, And here we earn'd the conquest dearly bought: Here have we fled ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... to the pitch of your Voice) but with this caution, that you reckon how many Notes you have above or below it, that your Voice in its pitch may be so managed as to reach them both without Squeaking or Grumbling, or any harsh or rough ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... back upon you, only yourself," Polly replied; "but it's frightful to hear the way you're always a-grumbling;—as if other people hadn't had their ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... his position on the top of the porch of Saint Mark's, Saint Theodore climbed to the top of his column, where his crocodile was grumbling with ill-humour, and Saint George went to squat in the depths of his columned niche in the great window ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... of the definitive treaty of peace with Great Britain (March 25th, 1802) sufficed to drown the muttered discontent of the old republican party under the paeans of a nation's joy. The jubilation was natural. While Londoners were grumbling at the sacrifices which Addington's timidity had entailed, all France rang with praises of the diplomatic skill which could rescue several islands from England's grip and yet assure French supremacy on the Continent. The event seemed to call for some sign of the nation's thankfulness ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com
|
|
|
