"Complaining" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... weather, we gave it up. Not a bird to be seen—we took our bottles, and throwing our heads back on our shoulders, tried to look through the bottoms of them—they in turn gave out a gurgling sound of complaining emptiness. We fell into a refreshing sleep; the hours passed away unheeded, until we were awakened by the rustling of the reeds bending in the breeze, whispering of the coveted blow. Heavy black clouds were gathering, and soon old Boreas ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... that she could starve if it were required of her, and support her sufferings with fortitude. She believed that she could work,—work from morning till night, from week to week, from month to month, without complaining; but she did not think that she could make herself sweet as a wife should be sweet to a husband with a threadbare coat, or that she could be tender as a mother should be tender while dividing limited bread among her children. To go and die and ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... manifesto, but one manufactured by the old Chroniclers.] No want of complaint, nor of complainants: Town of Thorn, Town of Dantzig, Kulm, all manner of Towns and Baronages, proceeded now to form a BUND, or general Covenant for complaining; to repugn, in hotter and hotter form, against a domineering Ritterdom with back so broken; in fine, to colleague with Poland,—what was most ominous of all. Baronage, Burgherage, they were German mostly ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... order, and are given to a poet with a subject, on which he must write verses ending in the same rhymes, disposed in the same order. Menage gives the following account of the origin of this ridiculous conceit. Dulot, (a poet of the 17th century,) was one day complaining in a large company, that 300 sonnets had been stolen from him. One of the company expressing his astonishment at the number, "Oh," said he, "they are blank sonnets, or rhymes (bouts rimes) of all the sonnets I may have occasion ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... Lady, obliging me and my wife, according to promise, to come and dine with them to-morrow with our neighbours, that I was in pain all the day, and night too after, to know how to order the business of my wife's not going, and by discourse receive fresh instances of Sir J. Minnes's folly in complaining to Sir G. Carteret of Sir W. Batten and me for some family offences, such as my having of a stopcock to keepe the water from them, which vexes me, but it would more but that Sir G. Carteret knows him very well. Thence ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... no doubt. She keeps up the grief, if you can understand it, Dr. West. Not a day passes, but she breaks into lamentations over the loss, complaining loudly and bitterly. Whether her health would not equally have failed at Verner's Pride, I am unable to say. I think ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... little two-story building, with a mossy watering-trough out in front, nestled under the shade of majestic old trees that reared their brown and scarlet crowns proudly into the sky. A long, low porch ran across the front of the structure, and a complaining sign hung out announcing, in dim, weather-flecked letters on a cracked board, that this was the "Tutt House." A gray-headed man, in brown overalls and faded blue jumper, stood on the porch and shook his fist at the stage as ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... a sincere enemy to slavery, who had somehow become imbued with the notion that the Administration was responsible for a prolongation of the war, became restless and complaining. He, at the head of the New York Tribune, gave vent to much criticism, which encouraged those in rebellion, and their friends in the North. He listened to all sorts of pretenders and, finally, was duped into the belief ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... iii. 178), complaining of the high prices of English books, describes 'the excessive artifices made use of to puff up a paper of verses into a pamphlet, a pamphlet into an octavo, and an octavo into a quarto with white-lines, exorbitant margins, &c., to such a degree that the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... anything about that," Bertie answered. "What I am complaining about is your squealing now that you're getting a taste of your own medicine. How many strikes have you won by starving labour into submission? Well, labour's worked out a scheme whereby to starve you into submission. It wants ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... yourself under your feet in your comings and goings. For that is what it comes to. You've got to trample down every particle of your own feelings; for stop you cannot, you must not. I have been young, too—but perhaps you think that I am complaining-eh?" ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... we once witnessed a blunder about as gross. The present Chancellor, in his first electioneering contest with the Lowthers, upon some occasion where he was recriminating upon the other party, and complaining that stratagems, which they might practise with impunity, were denied to him and his, happened to point the moral of his complaint, by alleging the old adage, that one man might steal a horse with more hope of indulgence than another ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... great question. The question that men and women will spend hours over without complaining. The question that occupies all the novel readers and all the playgoers. The question ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... was complaining of the hard Fate and ill Usage true Patriots meet with in the World, from its Neglects, if not from its Oppressions; and you stop my Mouth with Declamations of their Worth and their Influence, and make them the most formidable People in it. Don't you consider how easily ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... Complaining thus-wise, he fell asleep from sheer weariness, and when he awoke it was broad day, calm and bright and cloudless, with the scent of the earth refreshed going up into the heavens, and the birds singing sweetly in the bushes about him: for the dale ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... cents; but most of the labor is performed by the owners of the soil. It is great industry alone, which makes New-England prosperous. The circumstance that with this cheap slave labor, the South is complaining of suffering, while the North is content and prosperous with dear free labor, is a striking fact and deserves a careful and thorough examination. The experience of all ages and nations proves that high wages are the most powerful stimulus to exertion, and the best means of attaching the people ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... just been invented. It will now be possible to wage war without the enemy complaining ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... high rank" has written to Truth, complaining of the naked statues and pictures he saw at Londonderry House, at a sale on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... tough luck, I don't know what is!" Old Man Curry was talking to himself, his voice querulous and complaining. "Tough luck—yes, sir! Tough for you, 'Lisha, and tough for me. Job knew something when he said that man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. Yes, indeed! Here I had you right on edge, and ready to—whoa, ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... complaining of their lot, walking according to their lusts; and their mouth speaks swelling words; having respect to persons, for the ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... madness in Ellen Hartrick's life, when she had fallen in love with handsome Squire O'Shanaghgan; but that quarrel had long been made up. Mrs. O'Shanaghgan had married the owner of O'Shanaghgan Castle, and had rued her brief madness ever since. But her pride had prevented her complaining to her brother George. George still imagined that she kept her passionate love intact for the wild Irishman. Only one thing she had managed ever since their parting, many years ago, and that was, that ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... by violence what had been denied to the claims of equity produced a similar spirit of insubordination in another division of the army. On the night of the 20th of January (1781), about 160 of the Jersey brigade, which was quartered at Pompton, complaining of grievances similar to those of the Pennsylvania line and hoping for equal success, rose in arms, and marched to Chatham with the view of prevailing on some of their comrades stationed there to join them. Their number ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... suddenly taken ill with similar symptoms to those I had experienced on the 19th, and 21st of April; and, as formerly, I attributed the illness entirely to the unwholesome nature of the meat diet. Wylie was ill too, but not to so great a degree; nor was I surprised at his complaining; indeed, it would have been wonderful if he had not, considering the enormous quantity of horse flesh that he daily devoured. After his feasts, he would lie down, and roll and groan, and say he was "mendyt" (ill) and nothing would induce him to ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... their wheels sunk in the ruts up to the nave, loaded with mattresses and eiderdowns, with appliances for eating and sleeping, and sometimes too, with cages in which birds were twittering. On they went, from village to village, seeking an undiscoverable lodging, but not complaining, saying merely: ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... medicine. King Charles I. in 1635 allowed a like privilege to be granted from thenceforth to two Fellows who were to study law. These privileges were not always popular, and we occasionally find the clerical Fellows complaining that while the duties of teaching and catechising were laid on them, a man who had held one of the law or medical fellowships sometimes took orders late in life and then claimed presentation to a College ...
— St. John's College, Cambridge • Robert Forsyth Scott
... fixed upon this day to show Bernard the hermitage; but she was rather put out, when she came down to breakfast, to see that there was a very sulky flush on his cheeks, and that he was complaining of his father to his mother, whilst his father was not ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... complaining whine filled the halls as we ascended the stairs. He was damning the times and the hard hearts of men. As we walked along the hall towards my room, the door of the room next to mine opened and the big man, who signed himself Newman, looked out at us. I had not known before that he occupied ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... walk Among my fellows, and to interchange The influence benign of loving eyes, But now by aged use grown wearisome;— 325 False thought! most false! for how could I endure These crawling centuries of lonely woe Unshamed by weak complaining, but for thee, Loneliest, save me, of all created things, Mild-eyed Astarte, my best comforter,[21] 330 With thy pale smile of ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... the Rhine, and that two extra horses would add greatly to the facility of getting along. Taking a look at the road, I assented, so that we left the inn with the honours of a coach and six. The effect was evident from the start, and after entering Wurtemberg and travelling through it complaining of the dullness of the teams, we left it with eclat, and at the rate of ten miles the hour. The frontier of Baden met us again on the summit of the mountain. Here we got a line and extensive view, that included the lake of Constance in its sweep. The water looked dark ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... And therefore will not pittie my distresse. Suppose that she coulde pittie me, what then? What helpe can be expected at her hands Whose foote is standing on a rowling stone And minde more mutable then fickle windes? Why waile I, then, wheres hope of no redresse? O, yes, complaining makes my greefe seeme lesse. My late ambition hath distaind my faith, My breach of faith occaisioned bloudie warres, Those bloudie warres haue spent my treasur[i]e, And with my treasur[i]e my peoples blood, And with the ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... the women were drawing water in earthen pitchers. Now, as they passed him, their full pitchers poised upon their heads, the gay young Prince flung stones at the earthen vessels, and broke them all. Then the women, drenched with water, went weeping and wailing to the palace, complaining to the King that a mighty young Prince in shining armour, with a parrot on his wrist and a gallant steed beside him, sat by the ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... hearth-rug and shaking his head more in sorrow than in anger). She's no reasonable, ye ken, John; she disna argue fair. I'm no complaining o' her mither, but it's a wee thing hard that the only twa women I've known to be really chatty an' argumentative with should ha' been just like that. An' me that ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... be a happy people, for they have no extremes of good or ill fortune; never marrying, but living in a state much like that fabled by the poets as the primitive condition of mankind. In spite of this, however, they are incessantly complaining; they know that we in this world have bodies, and indeed they know everything else about us, for they move among us whithersoever they will, and can read our thoughts, as well as survey our actions at pleasure. ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... imagination; the man, awkward and ugly, sensitive because of his own self-consciousness, wasting his hours through his own self-contempt which paralysed all effort, still trusting to his idle love of beauty to pull him through to some superior standard, complaining of life, but never trying to get the better of it; then the man who came to Russia at the beginning of the war, still self-centred, always given up to timid self-analysis, but responding now a little to the new scenes, the new temperament, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... tell you that I am no longer the Aramis of former times. Riding on horseback is unpleasant to me; the sea fatigues me. I am a poor, ailing priest, always complaining, always grumbling, and inclined to the austerities which appear to accord with old age,—preliminary parlayings with death. I linger, my dear D'Artagnan, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and mind, I'm speaking as one lady-friend to another when I tell you these things—and that is, that you have a right to do as the other girls in the factory or you'll never get 'long with them. If you don't they'll get down on you, sure's pussy's a cat; and then they'll make it hot for you with complaining to the forelady. And then she'll get down on you after while too, and won't give you no good orders to work on; and—well, it's just this way: ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... high-spirited words, she added importance by an extraordinary act. In the long street where she resided, she enclosed with a partition a part of the house, of a size sufficient for a small chapel, and there erected an altar. Then calling together the plebeian matrons, and complaining of the injurious behaviour of the patrician ladies, she said, "This altar I dedicate to plebeian chastity, and exhort you, that the same degree of emulation which prevails among the men of this state, on the point of valour, may be maintained by the women on the point of chastity; ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... overtake the column. When we caught up, we found the boys gathered around the Commander, doing their best to relieve him of his discomfort, for he had fallen into the water, also, and while he was not complaining, I was sure that his bath had not been any more voluntary than ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... tell that young man a few things. He's forever looking at the thermometer and opening windows. I declare, if I hadn't brought my woolen tights along I'd have frozen to death at breakfast. Everybody's complaining." ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... life. The Ministers, the press, the public, all conspired to vex her, to blame her, to misinterpret her actions, to be unsympathetic and disrespectful in every way. She was "a cruelly misunderstood woman," she told Mr. Martin, complaining to him bitterly of the unjust attacks which were made upon her, and declaring that "the great worry and anxiety and hard work for ten years, alone, unaided, with increasing age and never very strong health" were breaking her down, and "almost drove ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... they liked to Him and for our sakes He yielded all the time. When He was reviled, He reviled not again. When He suffered, He threatened not. No standing up for His rights, no hitting back, no resentment, no complaining! How different from us! When the Father's will and the malice of men pointed to dark Calvary, the Lamb meekly bowed His head in willingness for that too. It was as the Lamb that Isaiah saw Him, when he prophesied, "He is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter, ...
— The Calvary Road • Roy Hession
... his dispute with his brother Ismail, he hastened to Balik, from whence he sent an ambassador to Munsur, Emperor of Bokhara, to whom the family of Ghazni still pretended to owe allegiance, complaining of the indignity which he met with in the appointment of Buktusin to the government of Khorassan, a country so long in possession of his father. It was returned to him for answer that he was already in possession of the territories of Balik, Turmuz, and Herat, which was part ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... thinking it to be the best that they had to give. These, when they had eaten, said that they would not sail any more over the sea; which, when the wise Ulysses heard, he bade their comrades bind them and carry them, sadly complaining, to ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... interview." It was hoped to overcome Chinese finesse with counter finesse, and Sir John Bowring hastened to Shanghai with the object of establishing direct relations with the viceroy of the Two Kiang. After complaining of the want of courtesy evinced by Yeh throughout his correspondence, he expressed the wish to negotiate with any of the other high officials of the empire. The reply of Eleang, who held this post, ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... of a planet named Inra. Don't you think your author ought to brush up on his astronomy? I also noticed some other authors are a little weak on astronomy; not that I'm complaining. The stories are O. K. with me.—Harry Johnson, 237 E. 128th St., New ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... Miss Altifiorla's happiness. She even went across to Cecilia, complaining of the great injustice done to her by the Cathedral clergymen generally. "Men from whom one should expect charity instead of scandal, but that their provincial ignorance is so narrow!" Then she went on to remind Cecilia ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... huge boulder, ruddy with iron ore, bears the uncanny and unspellable name of the "Clockchinnfhaelaidh," or "Stone of Kinfaele." Upon this stone, tradition tells us, Balor, a giant of Tory Island, chopped off the head of an unreasonable person named Mackinfeale, for complaining that Balor, under some prehistoric "Plan of Campaign," had driven away his ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... Englishman or two of this type I am quite prepared to say the story might have been a true one. If he met a lion on the Strand to-day he would take a cab; but if to-morrow, walking in the same place, he met two lions, he would write a letter to the Times complaining of the growing prevalence of lions in the public thoroughfares and placing the blame on the Suffragettes or Lloyd George or the Nonconformists or the increasing discontent of the working classes—that ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... squads, chewing together the cud of discontent, and grumbling at the imagined partiality and injustice of their rulers. These discontents and bickerings too often damped the joy of their prospect of liberation from captivity. The poor privateers' men had most reason for complaining, as they found themselves neglected by one side, and despised ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... very soon get tired of heavy or burnt bread and of spoiled joints of meat: we bear them for a time, or for two, perhaps; but, about the third time, we lament inwardly; about the fifth time, it must be an extraordinary honey-moon that will keep us from complaining: if the like continue for a month or two, we begin to repent, and then adieu to all our anticipated delights. We discover, when it is too late, that we have not got a help-mate, but a burden; and, the fire of love being damped, the unfortunately educated creature, whose parents are ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... had been wrathfully seeking him, and appeared in Luebeck shortly after he reached there, complaining of his ingratitude for the good treatment given him, and threatening the senate of Luebeck with Christian's enmity if they should ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... considered this to be an excessively savage and barbarous proposal, but he answered mildly and said that he would consult with the three hundred. When he had returned into the city he found the men no longer making pretexts or evasions out of respect to him, but openly complaining that any one should force them to fight with Caesar when they were neither able nor willing. Some even whispered with respect to the senatorial men, that they ought to keep them in the city, since Caesar was near. Cato let this pass as if he did not hear it, and indeed he ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... clever of him, and it's not unlikely. The child is getting better, I believe, and there's not near so much crying and complaining.' ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... this was somewhat of a disappointment to me. I had been somehow expecting to find the building standing alone in the middle of a great heath, far from all abodes of men, and with no companions more hilarious than the owls. However, it was no use complaining; the fact was, there was a village, and what was more, a hotel, and to this hotel we were to go to get a guide for the places we were to visit; for it was understood that we were to "do" Melrose, Dryburgh, and Abbotsford, all in one day. There was no time for sentiment; it was a ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... letter from his father contained a revocation of all that had pleased him in the former one. Beecot senior wrote many pages of abuse—he always did babble like a complaining woman when angered. He declined to sanction the marriage and ordered his son at once—underlined—to give up all thought of making Sylvia Norman his wife. It would have been hard enough, wrote Beecot, to have received her as a daughter-in-law even with ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... silence my reproaches they all agreed to say that I spoiled their jollity by wearing the most unseasonable looks that could be put on for such an occasion. I told them I knew no remedy but leaving me behind them; that my looks were suitable to my fortune though not to a feast. Fie, I am got into my complaining humour that tires myself as well as every body else, and which (as you observe) helps not at all; would it would leave me and that I should not always have occasion for it, but that's in nobody's power, and my Lady Talmash, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... on board of the Admiral[1] the day before yesterday. I saw among the fleet an ardour and a desire of doing something, which would soon turn into impatience, if we don't give them a speedy occasion of fighting. The officers cannot contain their soldiers and sailors, who are complaining that they have been these four months running after the British, without getting at them; but I hope they will ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... Murray again called on the governor, who told him that he had received a communication from a certain Senhor Bernado Guedes, acting as British consul at Angostura, up the Orinoco, complaining of outrages inflicted on certain British subjects as well as on himself, and requesting that a man-of-war might be ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... was a shock. Here was a young fellow who began with nothing, and worse than nothing. But instead of whining, instead of quitting, instead of complaining that he had no chance, instead of putting in his time wishing that he was somewhere else, he did his duty where he was. And folks found it out and came to kneel at his feet and ask him for help. And I am not saying, young man, that every ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... to northward, right over the west end of the town. They went well for about sixteen months; and then came the stampede. A joker in the Bellefont Sentinel wrote that the miners up in Eucalyptus were complaining of the 'insufficiency of exits'; and he wasn't far out. Last there were the 'Temperate Airs and Reinvigorating Pine-odours of America's Peerless Sanatorium. Come and behold: Come and be healed!' The promoters billed that last cursed jingle up and down the States till as far south as ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... amendment is an invasion of the sovereignty of the complaining state and her people, not contemplated by the amending clause of the Constitution. The amending power ... is not a substantive power but a precautionary safeguard inserted incidentally to insure the ends set forth in that instrument against errors and oversights committed in its formation. ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... word circle is that the radii are all equal; this equality is a necessary truth. But it is not shown that men could not exist without the imperfections they labor under. Yet this is the argument suggested by these authors while complaining (chap. v. s. 5, sub. 7, div. 7), that Lactantius had not sufficiently answered the Epicurean dilemma; it is the substitute propounded to supply that father's deficiency.—"When, therefore," says the Archbishop, "matter, motion and free-will are constituted, the Deity must necessarily permit corruption ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... release?—there was time yet—he temporised. No living might fall in for years to come. The cousins went on corresponding sadly and fondly: the betrothed woman, hard, jealous, and dissatisfied, complaining bitterly, and with reason, of ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for two hours with short sighs, corrugations of small foreheads, the complaining cries and scratchings of slate pencils over slates, and other signs of minor anguish among the more youthful of the flock; and with more or less whisperings, movements of the lips, and unconscious soliloquy among the older pupils. The master moved slowly up and down the aisle with a word of ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... there were twelve sail of Hollanders at Ternate, who endeavoured to prevent all others from trading. The 11th our old house very narrowly escaped burning, in conscience of a fire very near. The 20th, Mr Jordan had letters from. Mr Ball at Macasser, complaining of violent ill usage from the Hollanders, who had driven him from thence, and stating that they proposed coming with all their force to take possession of Bantam, and to place the king of Motron in the government. The 21st ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... was at that age! I was beginning to enjoy life, and goodness itself seemed full of charms. Probably my character was the same as it is now, for even then I had great self-command, and made a practice of never complaining when my things were taken; even if I was unjustly accused, I preferred to keep silence. There was no merit in this, for I did ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... half apologetically, "always come in; and I believe I heard Mollie complaining of ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Charlemagne at Cologne with the news of the renewal of the war. Whilst all his barons are summoned, the Emperor starts in haste himself for Saxony with ten thousand men. Baldwin was seated in his tower, looking out upon a league of hostile tents, complaining to Sebile, who 'comforts him as a worthy lady,' bidding him trust in his uncle's succour. She is the first to descry the French host and to point it out to her husband. 'Ah, God!' said Charles's nephew, 'fair Father ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... upper floor of her new building is a spacious gymnasium, where her pupils exercise every day under the instruction of a skillful German; and on every Saturday morning they take lessons from the best dancing master in the city. The result is, she has no dull scholars complaining of headaches. All are alike happy in their studies ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... are always complaining that you never have a chance to read, and knowing that you won't get it this summer, if you spend your vacation among people of your own set, I write to ask you to come up here. I admit that I am not wholly disinterested in inviting you. The truth is, Tom and I are invited to spend ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... and started for the door. The rain hit him, as he stepped out, with a wave of cold wet depression, but a cab slid up to the curb before him and he stepped in. Sinking back he tried to relax, to get his stomach to stop complaining, but he couldn't fight the feeling of almost physical illness sweeping over him. He closed his eyes and sank back, trying to drive the ever-plaguing thoughts from his mind, trying to focus on something pleasant, almost hoping that his long-starved conscience might give a final gasp or two and ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... sidelong at his mistress, and started. Motionless and absorbed—fascinated as it were—in contemplation of Walter's portrait, Elinor's face had assumed precisely the expression of which he had just been complaining. Had she practised for whole hours before a mirror, she could not have caught the look so successfully. Had the picture itself been a mirror, it could not have thrown back her present aspect, with stronger and more melancholy truth. She appeared ...
— The Prophetic Pictures (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... brought and did its work promptly. There was a rasping, groaning sound, as if the box were complaining at this rude assault upon its privacy, then, with a hand that trembled a little, Tyke ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... Lily Swain ran down to ask me to go and see Ruth as the swelling on her neck had burst. The swelling turned out to be an abscess, which was discharging freely. She has made very little of what she has suffered, only complaining of pain and of her neck being too tender ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... make all wise sacrifices for the sake of the ill, such as being quiet about the house; never complaining at late or simple meals; setting aside personal plans and comfort in order to assist, if needed, in the care of the ill; looking out for the relief and comfort of the nurse, upon whom the major part of the ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... pains to make known that my plays are built to induce, not voluptuous reverie but intellectual interest, not romantic rhapsody but humane concern. Accordingly, I do not find those critics who are gifted with intellectual appetite and political conscience complaining of want of dramatic power. Rather do they protest, not altogether unjustly, against a few relapses into staginess and caricature which betray the young playwright and the old playgoer in ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... sir. The roses be complaining, and, to make matters worse, Miss Barbara has been watering of them—in ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... found himself not in the pretty bed-chamber, but in a dark place. He could see nothing, but all about him he heard the sound of complaining and weeping. He was much bewildered, but in ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... every vain complaining, cease, my friend, Since thou art yet not numbered with the dead But turn thy thoughts unto thy destined end, Behold thy Fates spin out the vital thread, And often as thy mind to Hell be led, To contemplate the doleful gloom aglow, There will forthwith possess thee such a dread, ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... her aunt, though she had favored the Frenchman's suit, allowed it. Yet there had often been fierce quarrels between the old and young lady, and if the padrona had had reason to clip the wild falcon's wings and teach her what is fitting for noble ladies, the signorina would have been justified in complaining of many an exaction, by which the padrona had spoiled her pleasure in life. I am sorry to destroy the confidence of your youth, but whoever grows grey, with his eyes open, will meet persons who rejoice, nay to whom it is a necessity to injure others. Yet it is a consolation, that no one ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... which the Gitanos have hitherto given that a partial reformation has been effected in their habits, is the relinquishment, in a great degree, of that wandering life of which the ancient laws were continually complaining, and which was the cause of infinite evils, and tended not a little to ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... and went out very early in the morning,' replied Vea. 'The servants were often complaining of the state of his boots; so, in case they would find him out, he used to leave them in the garden and go without his stockings. And do you know, sir, he was telling me such a sad story about that poor woman, and the reason why he helped her. She has ...
— Bluff Crag - or, A Good Word Costs Nothing • Mrs. George Cupples
... scandalised my judges by such an exhibition of hardihood. Now I recognise my fault, and will repair it. Furthermore, sir, far from feeling angry with the president for the judgment he to-day passes against me, far from complaining of the prosecutor who has demanded it, I thank them both most humbly, for my salvation ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... EDWARD CLIFFORD—Your sympathising letter of 24th gives me some relief in my rather distressed condition. I try my best to carry, without much complaining and in a practical way, for my poor soul's sanctification, the long-foreseen miseries of the disease, which, after all, is a providential agent to detach the heart from all earthly affection, and prompts much the desire of a Christian soul ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Palalogus, which is reported to haue had her dowry out of the Popes treasury, because the Moscouite had promised to conforme himselfe vnto the Romish Church. This Sophia being a woman of a princely and aspiring minde, and often complaining that she was married vnto the Tartars vassal, at length by her instant intreatie and continual perswasions, and by a notable stratageme she cast off that slauish yoke very much vnbeseeming so mighty a prince. For whereas the Tartarian ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... right; I have no objection, if Mrs. Blyth hasn't." Here Zack came in with his boxing-gloves fitted on. "How are you, Blyth? These are the pills for that sluggish old liver of yours that you're always complaining of. Put 'em on. Stand with your left leg forward—keep your right leg easily bent—and ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... the question at issue was one of peaceful and abstruse theology. His disappointment, however, did not refer, as people perhaps might have imagined, to the treatment his thesis on the Papal primacy had met with, or to any embarrassment occasioned him on that account. On the contrary, while complaining of the unworthy character of the disputation, he excepted that particular thesis. He alluded rather to the superficiality and want of interest with which such important questions as justification by faith, and the sinfulness attaching even to the ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... and even crude, determined to operate behind the scenes, deferring to the Virginians whom Adams called "the most spirited and consistent of any delegation". They were successful, for Caesar Rodney of Delaware was soon complaining that "the Bostonians who have been condemned by many for their violence are moderate men when compared to Virginia, South Carolina, and Rhode Island". The union of New England and the southern colonies quickly produced the ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... forming and settling their plans, Cethegus was incessantly complaining of the want of spirit in his associates; observing, that they wasted excellent opportunities through hesitation and delay;[211] that, in such an enterprise, there was need, not of deliberation, but of action; and that he himself, if a few would support him, would storm ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... wrath of the son of Peleus was not thus to be appeased. He replied to Ulysses in a long speech, recounting his services during the war, and bitterly complaining of the ingratitude and ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... my dear Clarinda, for your letter; and am vexed that you are complaining. I have not caught you so far wrong as in your idea, that the commerce you have with one friend hurts you, if you cannot tell every tittle of it to another. Why have so injurious a suspicion of a good God, Clarinda, as to think that Friendship and Love, on the sacred ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... had almost abdicated on the double addition to her charge, and had only been bribed to stay by an ill-spared increase in wages, and a share in an underling, who was also to help Charlotte in her housemaid's department. Nevertheless, the nurse was always complaining; the children, though healthy, always crying, and their father always certain it was somebody's fault. Nor did the family expenses diminish, retrench his own indulgences as he might. It was the mistress's eye that was wanting, and Isabel did not know how to use ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... than a few seconds at each picture, and kept chattering the whole time, till at last they grew annoyed, and Aunt Anne told him they would do the rest by themselves. But it took some time to get rid of him, and then he went sulkily, complaining that they had not given him enough, though Barbara felt sure he had really got twice as much as ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... thinking to encrease the Joys of Life, Marries a Beautiful young Buxom Wife; But soon he finds himself grow cloy'd and weak, Nor can he give her half those Joys she'd take, He now Consumptive, Pale and Meagre grows, While she complaining to her Parents goes; Says she can't Love him, such a one as he. And now desires she may live sep'rately. The poor fond Parents to him trudge in haste, And reprimand him soundly for what's past. He knows no Cause—Nor ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... that the king is represented as the party complaining in the first instance; it is his question (v. 4) which draws forth from Daniel his practical proof of the vanity of idols, inanimate or animate, culminating in the triumphant exclamation at the end of v. 27. And ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... before breakfast was over found ourselves surrounded by a perfect flotilla of boats, though none of them dared approach very near until the health-officer had come alongside and pronounced us free from infection. At this moment all are complaining much of the heat, which since yesterday has been very great, and is caused by the wind called 'Este,' blowing direct from the African deserts. It was 79 deg. in the coolest place on board, and 84 deg. on shore in the shade, in the middle of ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... that no one has ever yet heard the crow utter a complaining or a disconsolate note. He is always cheery, he is always self-possessed, he is a great success. Nothing in Bermuda made me feel so much at home as a flock of half a dozen of our crows which I saw and heard there. ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... to be silent, in the king's name, and then, as he appeared to be the complaining party of the dispute, I required the foreign gentleman to state to me what was the trouble. He then repeated his accusations against the innkeeper, Hauck, saying that Hauck, or, rather, another ...
— He Walked Around the Horses • Henry Beam Piper
... had to do was very light compared with that of the Oxen, they creaked and groaned at every turn. The poor Oxen, pulling with all their might to draw the wagon through the deep mud, had their ears filled with the loud complaining of the Wheels. And this, you may well know, made their work so much the harder ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop
... up, to vary with the varying fashion, they toil in season and out of season. Day after day you will see them at their work-tables, their machines, their lap-boards; ripping, stitching, turning, altering, furbishing; complaining often of sideache, of backache, of headache, of aching all over; denying themselves outdoor air and exercise and reading-time,—and all because they consider dressing fashionably an essential of life. With them, what costs only time, health, ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... that your letter was presented unto me, was I talking of you, by reason that three honest poor women were come to me, and were complaining their great infirmity, and were showing unto me the great assaults of the enemy, and I was opening the cause and commodities thereof, whereby all our eyes wept at once; and I was praying unto God that ye and some others ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... They were forlorn, So were the cowering inmates whom they held; A thriftless tribe, to shifts and leanness born, Ever complaining: infancy or eld Alike. But there was rent, or long ago Those cottage ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... body-guard, and trolled out, as he mounted the staircase, "We watch to save the Empire!" His poor mother, hearing him, used to think "How gay Philippe is to-night!" and then she would creep up and kiss him, without complaining of the fetid odors of the punch, and the brandy, and ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... a groom who, knowing the Marquis well, recognised him—'Come in poor beast (said he); times are changed with you since you carried a noble Marquis, but you shall always be treated well here for his sake.' Drumakiln ran in to his father-in-law, complaining that his servant insulted him. Polmaise made no answer, but turning on his heel, rang the bell for the servant, saying, 'That ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... guest of the Prussian king, is not grander than when he ascended the throne of France. There is a grandeur in misfortune when that misfortune is borne by a noble heart, with the strength of will to endure, and endure without complaining or breaking. Perhaps I slip easily into this train of remarks, for it is my peculiar office to speak of that chastening with which a gracious Providence visits men on this earth, and by which He prepares them for heaven hereafter; ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... for him the nickname of Cejas (Eyebrows), by which he was known to his intimates. He spent most of his time strumming on a wretched old cracked guitar, and singing amorous ballads in a lugubrious, whining falsetto, which reminded me not a little of that hungry, complaining gull I had met at the estancia in Durazno. For, though poor Epifanio had an absorbing passion for music, Nature had unkindly withheld from him the power to express it in a manner pleasing to others. I must, however, in justice to him, allow that he gave a preference ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... their inmost thoughts, the Chinese bear their terrible hardships and privations with a splendid heroism, with little complaining, with no widespread outbreaks of robbery, and with no pillaging of rice-shops and public granaries by organized mobs ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... on yourself. When you play with the others you seem always on the lookout to find fault with them; how can you suppose they will enjoy a game with a little tale-bearer? Miss Clifford and nurse and I have kept an account of the tales you have carried to us, complaining of the others, and our lists added together make 352 complaints ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... to complaining of direct denial of promotion opportunity, so-called "vertical mobility," some black officers alleged that their chances of promotion had been systematically reduced by the services when they failed to provide Negroes with "horizontal mobility," that is, with a wide variety of assignments ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... saying "* * * where Congress has provided for judicial review after the regulations or orders have been made effective it has all that due process under the war emergency requires."[113] But where, after consideration of charges brought against an employer by a complaining union, the National Labor Relations Board undertook to void an agreement between an employer and another independent union, the latter was entitled to notice and an opportunity to participate in the proceedings.[114] Although a taxpayer ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... the household, contributed its quota to the fetid atmosphere of the staircase, and the ceiling was covered with fantastic arabesques traced by candle-smoke—such arabesques! On pulling a greasy acorn tassel attached to the bell-rope, a little bell jangled feebly somewhere within, complaining of the fissure in ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... our Ursula," came the complaining cry. It was all over. She must open the door. She heard the screech of the bucket downstairs dragged across the flagstones as the woman washed the kitchen floor. And the children were prowling in the ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... been, the fact is certain, we have been excessively cautious of giving offence by complaining of grievances.——And it is as certain, that American governors, and their friends, and all the crown officers, have availed themselves of this disposition in the people.—They have prevailed on us to consent to many things, which were grossly injurious to us, and to surrender ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... way,' as Moore called it, 'It's rather long.' Cooper turned round on him and said sharply, 'That's a short criticism.'" This banker-poet could be severe on his English friends too, as it appears "Lady Holland was always lamenting that she had nothing to do. One day, complaining worse than ever that she did not know 'what to be at,'" said Rogers, "I could not resist recommending her to try a novelty—try and do a ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... full of splutter-docks, the yellow masts of vessels rising above the woods, the flat fields of corn everywhere bounded by forest, and the small white houses of the better farmers, and at last entered the murmurous, complaining woods, he saw but one ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... not looked on a picture of suffering and oppression, but of insulted pride and rebellion. Instead of compunction, she awakened admiration, instead of pity, respect. For the moment she represented, not a multitude of complaining slaves, but a ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... myself in an absent-minded manner, neither hurrying myself nor the reverse. I made my toilette, shaved myself, and combed my hair; putting on mechanically a laced shirt and my holiday suit without saying a word, and without Messer-Grande—who did not let me escape his sight for an instant—complaining that I was dressing myself as if I were going ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... is remarkable for the beauty of its plumage, having a glossy green back and rose-coloured breast. Bates found one seated alone on a branch, at no great elevation, uttering at intervals, in a complaining tone, its usual cry of "quaqua." It appeared to be a dull, inactive bird, and even when approached seemed very unwilling ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... said Denham that same night. "He's actually had the impudence to send a message to the Colonel complaining of his quarters and saying that he claims to be treated as ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... the church (not remarkable for veracity) complaining that a tradesman of his parish had called him a liar, Macklin asked him what reply he made him. "I told him," says he, "that a lie was amongst the things I dared not commit."—"And why, doctor," replied Macklin, "did you give ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... will better please an employer than that of having all of the winter clothing spun and woven on the place. By having a room devoted to that purpose, under charge of some one of the old women, where those who may be complaining a little, or convalescent after sickness, may be employed in some light work, and where all of the women may be sent in wet weather, more than enough of both cotton and woolen yarn can be spun for the supply of ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... and it was settled then and there that the maiden should have her own way. And yet the brothers of Queen Althea kept on muttering and complaining. ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... Between the lines We gather that. The brass he shines Without complaining, and the food He gets to eat is very crude. And yet he laughs at all his chores. He says the maid who scrubs our floors Will have to quit when he returns Unless a better way she learns. "I've got it on the fairer sex," Says he, "since I ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... Officers and men knew Richard Cleave, and several hailed him. "Where in hell are we going, Cleave? Old Jack likes you! Tell him, won't you, that it's damned hard on the horses, and we haven't much to eat ourselves? Tell him even the guns are complaining! Tell him—Yes, sir! Get up there, Selim! Pull, Flora, pull!—Whoa!—Damnation! Come lay a hand to this gun, boys! Where's Hetterich! Hetterich, this damned ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... could have given you that love, Rosalind, if you had cared enough in return to trust yourself to me, but I will not persuade you against your will. I have an uphill fight before me, and I want a wife who will help me by her faith, not drag me back by her complaining. I was right in believing that such a poor thing as my love could have no power with you ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... (which is an act of prudence), "nor to act unjustly" (which is an act of justice), "that he is ready to do favors" (which is an act of charity), "that he gives his services readily" (which is an act of liberality), that "he is truthful" (which is an act of truthfulness), and that "he is not given to complaining" (which is an act of patience). Therefore magnanimity is not a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... into the garden hall where several members of the company were already waiting for the rehearsal to begin. They sat about on chairs in little groups laughing, joking, telling tales, and complaining while the tuning of the orchestra furnished an accompaniment ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... will. He knew that the son of the grand sachem of the Wampanoags could do anything that any other Indian had done. And so he passed the long, cold winter, bravely and without complaining. ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... caught up to them again, he overlooked his little party with the eye of a commander. It was not a hopeful view: three wretched, half-fed beasts he had, complaining at the very start under their loads; and for his aids an injured boy and a sick girl; with one first-class weapon and a toy among the three of them. This was all he had with which to meet and overcome Grylls's strong and well-provided party. ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... has it, the young student "came pricking on hastily, complaining that they went at such a pace as gave him little chance of keeping up with them. One of the party made answer that the blame lay with the horse of Don Miguel de Cervantes, whose trot was of the speediest. He had hardly pronounced ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... reached him from his native place, complaining that a certain lukewarmness was beginning to manifest itself among the ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... a beautiful fern grew in a deep vale, nodding in the breeze. One day it fell, complaining as it sank away that no one would remember its grace and beauty. The other day a geologist went out with his hammer in the interest of his science. He struck a rock; and there in the seam lay the form of a ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... time, the farm steward came to Mochuda complaining that, though the crop was dead ripe, a sufficient number of harvesters could not be found. Mochuda answered: "Go in peace, dear brother, and God will send you satisfactory reapers." This promise was fulfilled, ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... Mr. Heathcote, as I grow older. That's about it. And the beast I'm on is not much good." Now Mr. Bates was always complaining of his horse, and yet was allowed to choose any on the run ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... it, at the same time, an extraordinary instance of the imperfectibility of Nature as regards the human infant; for her mind wanders to what she has observed in her childhood with puppies and kittens, who, except when rudely torn from their nurse, seldom give utterance to any complaining. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... when Mrs. Todd risked her life in our sportive company. She made it clear to us that she went protesting. She began her pleasantries by complaining that my doors were trivial. Straightening her hat, she remarked that the John Quincy Burtons' car top never took a ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... sweetheart was frying ham and eggs. I thought I might snatch a kiss. Above the noise of the sizzling frying-pan and the crackling wood, I plainly heard the voice of my—well, let us say it—bride, weeping and complaining to an old house servant: 'It's a shame and a sin to enter matrimony with a lie. I can't wed this Michael: not because he is ugly; that doesn't matter in a man, but he comes too late! My heart belongs to poor Joseph, the woodcutter, and I'd sooner be ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... against our holidays so well as against the Jewish or popish days, then doth he condemn those, no less these. But the Apostle's reasons agree to our holidays for, 1. According to that reason, Gal. iv. 3, they bring us under a yoke of bondage. Augustine,(188) complaining of some ceremonies wherewith the church in his time was burdened, thought it altogether best that they should be cut off, Etiamsi fidei non videantur adversari, quia religionem quam Christus liberam esse ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... blew in South Harvey to welcome in the new year, the midnight sky was blazoned with the great torches from the smelter chimneys, and the pumps in the oil wells kept up their dolorous whining and complaining, like great insects battening upon an abandoned world. In South Harvey the lights of the saloons and the side of the dragon's spawn glowed and beckoned men to death. Money tinkled over the bars, and whispered as it was crumpled in the claws of the dragon. For money the scurrying human ants hurried ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... put his foot on the first step; it creaked with a noise comparable to the report of a pistol in the dead silence. But there was no responsive sound to show that anyone had been alarmed by this explosion. Impelled by nervous curiosity, and growing careless, he climbed the reverberating, complaining stairs, and, entering the corridor, stood exactly in front of the closed door of the sick-room, and listened again, and heard naught. His heart was obstreperously beating. Part of the household slept; the other part watched; and he was between the two, like a thief, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... avowedly dissolved for their contumacy, are called together to receive your submission. Your ministerial directors blustered like tragic tyrants here; and then went mumping with a sore leg in America, canting, and whining, and complaining of faction, which represented them as friends to a revenue from the colonies. I hope nobody in this House will hereafter have the impudence to defend American taxes in the name of ministry. The moment they do, with this letter of attorney in my hand, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... corresponding defect in every object toward which it is turned. This defect in character is more generally the result of vicious or improper habits of mind, than any constitutional idiosyncrasy. It is the result of the indulgence of gloomy thoughts, morbid fancies, inordinate ambition, habitual melancholy, a complaining, fault-finding disposition. It is generally early acquired, not in childhood, but in youth. Childhood is too buoyant, fresh, and free for such indulgences. Early youth—when its passions are developing, when the soul's bubbling springs are opening fresh and warm, when young hopes put out, ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... church, not remarkably for veracity, complaining that a tradesman of his parish had called him a liar, Macklin asked him what reply he made him. "I told him," said he, "that a lie was among the things I dared not commit." "And why, doctor," replied Macklin, "did you give the rascal so mean an ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... raise her head again. She, poor woman, was thinking of her vain sacrifices for him, the debts she had paid for him, her future liabilities, and her lost reputation. Instead of complaining, she recalled for him the first days of their love, when she used to go every night to meet him in the barn, so that her husband on one occasion, fancying it was a thief, fired a pistol-shot through the window. The bullet was in the wall still. "From the moment I first knew ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... of his own strength and has no reliance on his own judgment. Men obey a general impulse, they bow before an external necessity, whether for resistance or action. Individuality is dead; there is a want of inward and personal energy in man; and that is what people feel and mean when they go about complaining ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... ran past, grumbling as he went, turning a wicked and resentful eye on the placid gentleman in green who sat on the ground, but who felt for his long dirk as he saw the fury on the brute's face and the foam on the tusks. But the pig thought discretion was best, and hurried on complaining. More than one troop of deer flew past, the does gathered round their lord to protect him, all swerving together like a string of geese as they turned the corner of the shelter and caught sight of Ralph; but the beaters were coming out now, whistling and talking as they came, and gathering ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... neck from his free-lunch counter as a tabby plucks a strange kitten from her nest, and cast him asphaltward. This seems low enough. But after that he acquired a pair of cloth top, button Congress gaiters and wrote complaining letters to the newspapers. And then he fought the attendant at the Municipal Lodging House who tried to give him a bath. When Murray first saw him he was holding the hand of an Italian woman who sold apples and garlic on Essex ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... says, 'While I held my sins my bones waxed old through my daily complaining;' and the next moment—'I said I will confess my sins unto the Lord, and so thou forgavest the wickedness of ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... to patriotism, we can have no patriotic sentiments in our schoolbooks, no patriotic emblems in our schools, because in Ireland everything patriotic is rebellious.' These were the words uttered in my hearing, not by a complaining demagogue, but by a desponding statesman. They seemed to me ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... the "hard work" done in the Pieterse family might be regarded as a negligible quantity. There was the necessary housework, and the usual complaining—or boasting, if you will—but this was ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... the existence of those bodily conditions which produce general excitability and chronic derangement. A full development of this portion of the brain indicates that the person is naturally dependent, inferior, and subservient to stronger characters. Such a one is fearful, fretful, complaining, irritable, dejected, morose, and, sooner or later, becomes a fit subject for chronic disease.[5] The ultimate result of excessive fear, excitability, and irritability, is functional or organic derangement,—the morbid ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... that at first I was myself carried away by the general enthusiasm. On the morning when the murder was made known in London, there was the fullest meeting of amateurs that I have ever known since the days of Williams; old bed-ridden connoisseurs, who had got into a peevish way of sneering and complaining "that there was nothing doing," now hobbled down to our club-room: such hilarity, such benign expression of general satisfaction, I have rarely witnessed. On every side you saw people shaking hands, congratulating each other, ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... road. Under Elizabeth as under her predecessors the terrible measures of repression, whose uselessness More had in vain pointed out, went pitilessly on. We find the magistrates of Somersetshire capturing a gang of a hundred at a stroke, hanging fifty at once on the gallows, and complaining bitterly to the Council of the necessity for waiting till the Assizes before they could enjoy the spectacle of the fifty others hanging beside them. But the Government were dealing with the difficulty in a wiser and more effectual ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... some severe remarks with regard to the use of slang terms generally, by policemen, and to caution them against addressing persons in any such jargon. The lesson was a timely one, and we hope that it may prove effective, since we frequently hear perplexed inquirers complaining that their education has been neglected so far as slang is concerned, and lamenting that, when young, they had not devoted themselves rather to the study of the Thieves' Dictionary than to that of the polite but comparatively ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various
... tree near him lay another still figure, in hunting shirt and leggings, with his face upturned to the sky. One of the hunters had been shot through the heart, and had died instantly and without noise. Three others had been wounded, but they were not complaining. ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler |
