"Grumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and I predict that he will get well and be promoted. I think you will receive a letter in a day or two from the surgeon. I prescribe that you and mamma sleep in the morning till you are rested. I won't grumble at taking my coffee alone." Then, to the colored woman and her son: "Don't you worry. We'll see that you are taken ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... to settle the matter," Norgate confessed, "so I suppose I mustn't grumble. Yours ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... discover that no great harm had been done—she had struck fairly stem on to a patch of growing coral, which was better than hard rock—and beyond carrying away a bit of her false keel, and deeply scoring the bow planking, there was nothing else we could see at which to grumble. ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... got no cause to grumble at it," said a fat-faced man in very dirty corduroys. "It's your chice, an' your livin'! You likes the road, an' you makes your grub on it! 'Taint no use you findin' fault with ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... falls short of a thorough appreciation of its mirthful principle. If he emigrate to France, he soon feasts upon frogs as freely and speaks with as accurate an accent as the Parisian, but he cannot quite assume the gay insouciance of the French; if to England, he adores method, learns to grumble and imbibe old ale, yet does not become accustomed to the free, blunt raillery,—the "chaff,"—with which Britons disport themselves; if to China, he lives upon curries and inscribes his name with a camel's-hair pencil, but all Oriental ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... you to talk; you and Theo say the same things. But if you'd to grind away, when the sun's shining and the sea dancing before your eyes, at rubbishy old Latin grammars and arithmetic, and all the rest of it, you'd be the first to grumble. Oh, I wish a hundred times in the day that I was only Ned Dempster, who's out all hours, free as any lark!' ended Alick, with a sudden burst of energy that nearly sent him toppling ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... he to know he had hardly left his lodgings before their hush was interrupted by the grumble of the house telephone? ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... must be told, they were very hungry. So rigorous was the economy in this decayed but honorable house that the wax candles burned to-day in the oratory had scrimped their dinner, unsubstantial as it was wont to be. Think of that, you in fustian jackets who grumble after meat. The door opened, Jacintha reappeared in the light of her candle a moment with a tray in both hands, and, approaching, was lost to view; but a strange and fragrant smell heralded her. All ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... over-preservation of game, and they grumbled about the rabbits. The hunt had its grumble too because some of the finest coverts were closed to the hounds, and because they wanted to know what became of the foxes that formerly lived in those coverts. Here was a beautiful place—a place that one might dream life away in—filled with all ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... God's ways, Robert. How wicked and wrong in us to grumble! I was foolish enough to fret over that mark on the darling's neck, and now the thought of it is my greatest comfort. If it should be God's will that months or years should pass over, before we find ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... and not the hero Wagner intended. Besides, if the loss of his memory leads to the sacrifice of Brunnhilda, afterwards its sudden return, due to another potion, leads immediately to his own death. We must accept these potions as part of the machinery. If we do not grumble at talking dragons, tarnhelms, flying horses and fires and magic swords, we need not boggle at a couple of glasses ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... nigger on his mule got too fur ahead so old doctor couldn't see de light he sho' catch de devil from that old doctor and from old Master, too, less'n he was one of old Missy's house niggers, and then old Master jest grumble ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... of mutual obligation which bound you together. They fancy themselves not only equal to you in rank, but that ignorance and vulgarity give them superior claims to notice. They demand in terms the highest wages, and grumble at doing half the work, in return, which they cheerfully performed at home. They demand to eat at your table, and to sit in your company; and if you refuse to listen to their dishonest and extravagant claims, they tell you that "they are free; that no contract signed in the ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... experienced in war had volunteered to follow Richard Shelton. The service of watching Sir Daniel's movements in the town of Shoreby had from the first been irksome to their temper, and they had of late begun to grumble loudly and threaten to disperse. The prospect of a sharp encounter and possible spoils restored them to good humour, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... can you say that these proofs are not in my hands? Should you, however, desire to buy them, you are at liberty to do so. I give you the first option, and yet you grumble." ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... can kill a craw." "It's a good horse that duz never stumble, And a good wife that duz never grumble." "Neare is my sarke, but nearer is my skin." "It's an ill-made bargain whore beath parties rue." "A curst cow hes short horns." "Wilfull fowkes duz never want weay." "For change of pastures macks fat cawves, it's said, But change of women macks ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... of this composition is, that thoughtless people grumble more than is fair about railroad management in the United States. When we consider that every day and night of the year full fourteen thousand railway-trains of various kinds, freighted with life ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... Lawton. "Are you going my way, Mr. Batholommey? It's queer, Frederik," he added, bidding his host good-bye, "it's queer—deucedly queer how things turn out. There's one thing certain: the old gentleman should have made a will. But it's too late now for us to grumble about that. By the way, what are you going to do with all his relics and family heirlooms, Frederik? Have you thought of it? I supposed, of course, you'd keep everything just as he left it. But from the way you've talked ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... once, though in Rodman's case the reward had not taken exactly the shape he desired. Still, a promotion was a promotion, and where there were so many competitors for each upward step, as there always are on a railroad, it was not for him to grumble at the form ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... the delights of literature:—"These," he says, "are the masters who instruct us without rods and ferules, without hard words and anger, without clothes or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep; if investigating you interrogate them, they conceal nothing; if you mistake them, they never grumble; if you are ignorant, they cannot laugh at you. The library, therefore, of wisdom is more precious than all riches, and nothing that can be wished for is worthy to be compared with it. Whosoever therefore acknowledges himself ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... It took that old box of misfortune thirty-two days to make Port Duluth. Every day we had some breakdown or other. She was like a good many other ships that fly the Red Ensign, worn out. But did I grumble? Not a bit of it. I looked at it as any man will who's got sand in him. It was a fight. There was no fighting in Victoria Street; it was simply riding through life on rubber tyres. Books, art, comfort, philosophy, all these things are well enough; ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... full o' deep ruts, An we mun tak gooid heed lest we stumble; Man is made up of "ifs" and of "buts," It seems pairt ov his natur to grumble. ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... some prefer Oolong. Rifles, pompons, mules, fusileers, etcethry had been lost. But not wan British gin'ral had been captured. Not wan. They were all at breakfast an' th' great heart iv th' British nation was sad. Th' great heart begun to grumble, which is a way th' great heart iv a nation has. It ast what was th' use iv this costly manoover—if they was as manny gin'rals left afther it as befure. While in this mood, it was ilicthryfied be a piece iv startlin' intilligince. Th' whisper ran round, ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... trenchers, cups, and all. You heedless joltheads and unmanner'd slaves! What! do you grumble? I'll ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... American People's Club knows so well how to behave; dispersed quietly, without a grumble, or a recollection of the half value of the tickets lost. Miss Kent's carriage drove rapidly from a side door. In two hours, she was on board the night train ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... burly; he spoke English as well as I did; and there was nothing in his dress which would have made him a fit subject for a picture of rustic life. When he spoke, he was able to talk on subjects unconnected with agricultural pursuits; nor did I hear him grumble about the weather and the crops. It was pleasant to see that his wife was proud of him, and that he was, what all fathers ought to be, his children's best and dearest friend. Why do I dwell on these details, ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... yourselves in this. A stout vigilance for a short time will secure your certain happiness for ever. But every thing depends on your present exertions. Don't complain and take advantage of my absence, and call me a hard master, and grumble that you are placed in the midst of a howling wilderness, without peace or security. Say not, that you are exposed to temptations without any power to resist them. You have some difficulties, it is true; but you have many helps and many comforts to make this house tolerable, even before you get ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... wight Sits up all night Ill-natured jokes devising, And all his wiles Are met with smiles, It's hard, there's no disguising! Oh, don't the days seem lank and long When all goes right and nothing goes wrong, And isn't your life extremely flat With nothing whatever to grumble at! ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... sailor, "if I ever grumble at work, my name's not Jack Pencroft, and if you like, captain, we will make a little America of this island! We will build towns, we will establish railways, start telegraphs, and one fine day, when it is quite changed, quite put in order and quite civilized, we will go and ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... you have proved to me that your friendship was all a pretence; that your private ends were all your object. When you discovered that I could not serve those, you dropped me like a bit of glass you had taken for a diamond. Have you any right to grumble if I give you the discipline of a ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... something, say, a bunch of keys that you had been jingling in your hand. You are to experience some difficulty in finding it again, move about a little to force any one that may be lurking by the garage to retreat around the corner. Grumble a bit and make a little noise; but you are not to overdo it—a couple of minutes at the outside is enough, by that time I shall be under the car seat. You will then run the machine out to the street and stop at the curb, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... used to play at cricket In the bye-streets years ago, With a broomstick for a bat, a coat for wicket? Now the Bobbies hunt them so! The old ladies grumble at their skipping; The old gents object to their tip-cat; So they squat midst slums that shine like dirty dripping, Not knowing what the dickens to be at. And the young Town Children, O my brothers, Do you ask them why they stand Making ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... it, Penhallow. I have personal memories of that young roast pig, I think your man called it a shoat. Your corps must have caught it hard these last days. I suppose we are in for something unusual. You are the only man I know who doesn't grumble. Francis says it's as natural to the beast called an army as barking is to ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... do it," Blondel answered. "And make a note that I assented to your suggestion to take them from the Corraterie and put them on the lower part of the wall. After all, the nights are very bitter now, and there are limits. Do the men grumble much?" ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... them quite contented with their "bourgeoise," against whom Plante had sometimes been inclined to grumble, "because," as he said, "she had him called up too early in the morning." He might have added, because, too, she could not understand the philosophy of his coming in to work in his own garden, under the plea that it was too rainy to work in ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... fertilizers were only crudely applied, if at all; many a humble peasant was content if his bushel of seed brought him three bushels of grain, and was proud if his fatted ox weighed over four hundred pounds, though a modern farmer would grumble at results three ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... primness otherwise possible, she was so neat. Mulholland and I were sitting in the veranda. I glanced up at the thermometer, and it registered a hundred in the shade! Mechanically I pushed the lime- juice towards Mulholland, and pointed to the water-bag. There was nothing else to do except grumble at the drought. Yet there my wife was, a picture of coolness and delight; the intense heat seemed only to make her the more refreshing to the eye. Water was not abundant, but we still felt justified in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... They loved to grumble, those old salts, for as soon as one had shot off his grievance his neighbour would follow with another, each more bitter than ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... hours he may have to spend in the factory. We heard the tale of a munition worker who was complaining in a cafe at having to work so hard. A Poilu who was en permission, and who was sitting at the next table, turned to him saying: "You have no right to grumble. You receive ten to twelve francs a day for making shells and we poor devils get five sous ...
— The White Road to Verdun • Kathleen Burke
... a gang of English workmen, who were repairing the interior of one of the great London churches, one fine summer afternoon in the time of George I. And certainly they had good reason to grumble. Sir James Thornhill, the court painter, whom the King had employed to restore and redecorate the building, had his head so full of his own fine plans and sketches, and of the grand show that the church would make ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... one thing—Or, let me rather say it myself: These poets are turning everything upside down; nobody dares to grumble. An author might owe in unsecured debts his twenty thousand—what of it? He is unable to pay, that is all. What if a business man should act in this manner? What if he were to obtain wine or clothes on false promises of payment? He would simply be arrested for fraud ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... love and attention so coolly. If I only had him back again, how different I would be! He was always so unselfish, and I was so selfish and discontented. I can't think now how I could have been unhappy when I was constantly seeing him. Oh, Hugh! if you could come to me now, I would never grumble again! One touch, one word, one look, if ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... to grumble that she was more interested in her work than she was in him, which was probably true, because her development had been a slow one, and it could not be said that she was greatly in love with anything in the world save ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... of her sight after their first meeting, and the ridiculous excuse she gave to her husband's family was, she feared he would be kidnapped and made a Cossack of! And young Lord Cressett, her husband, began to grumble concerning her intimacy with a man old enough to be her grandfather. As if the age were the injury! He seemed to think it so, and vowed he would shoot the old depredator dead, if he found him on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hoarse and to him unintelligible bellowings, that he was to wait in that narrow damp lobby for the coming of his fellow- Commissioner, the grating on his feelings was even more discordant. He had not pluck enough left to grumble: but he grunted his displeasure. He grunted, however, in vain; for in about a quarter of an hour Alaric was close to him, shoulder to shoulder. He also wore a white jacket, &c., with a nightcap of mud and candle on his head; but somehow he looked as though he had ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... cut out the bowels of any man daring to lift his blade clear of its sheath. Five minutes afterward the fire eaters would be on as good terms as ever, shrugging and grinning at their passengers—particularly Tim, who, shaking his head disgustedly, would grumble: ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... has he taken the step with the knowledge, and therefore with the joint responsibility, of the Chancellor? If the answer is in the negative, it is the "personal regiment" again, and people are angry: if the latter, they may disapprove of the step and grumble at it, but it is covered by the Chancellor's signature and they can raise no constitutional objection. Hence the demand usually made on such occasions for an Act of Parliament once for all defining fully and clearly the Chancellor's responsibilities. ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... to say that I wasent mad with Jim Allcorn, as sum peepul supposed; but it do illustrate the onsertainty of human kalkulashuns in this subloonery world. The disappintments of life are amazin', and if a man wants to fret and grumble at his luck he can find a reesunable oppertunity to do so every day that he lives. Them sort of constitutional grumblers ain't much cumpany to me. I'd rather be Jim Perkins with a bullit hole through me and take my chances. Jim, you know, was shot down at Gains' ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... the food which she had with her. In the fields below the tank were some twenty ploughmen in the service of the Raja of that country, driving their ploughs; and when it got past noon these men began to grumble, because; no one had brought them their dinner; as it got later and later they became more and more violent, and vowed that when anyone did come they would give him a good beating for his laziness. At last one of the maid-servants of the Raja was seen coming ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... acquiesced; "and they are a bit shabby, too. You are going down, Grif. You never used to be shabby. None of us were ever exactly that, though we used to grumble sometimes. We used to grumble, not because other people had things, but because ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in some provinces in France, which are called 'pais d etats', an humble local imitation, or rather mimicry, of the great 'etats', as in Languedoc, Bretagne, etc. They meet, they speak, they grumble, and finally submit ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... the road with rapid strides. Some of the feebler marchers showed signs of weariness and began to grumble at our speed. There was an ironical shout of "Double up in front," whereupon the front fours slowed down ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... of hemlock boughs salved my spirits. A cold spring run came down off the mountain, and beside it, underneath birches and hemlocks, I improvised my hearthstone. In sleeping on the ground it is a great advantage to have a back-log; it braces and supports you, and it is a bedfellow that will not grumble when, in the middle of the night, you crowd sharply up against it. It serves to keep in the warmth, also. A heavy stone or other point DE RÉSISTANCE at your feet is also a help. Or, better still, scoop out a little ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... over the city with the letter-carriers, going up to the top flats of the houses, as the men would have declared me incompetent to judge the extent of their labours had I not trudged every step with them. It was midsummer, and wearier work I never performed. The men would grumble, and then I would think how it would be with them if they had to go home afterwards and write a love-scene. But the love-scenes written in Glasgow, all belonging to The Bertrams, ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... sure," said the kind-hearted lawyer; "why, even your holy namesake, the very pattern of patient resignation, would grumble a bit now and then, when his troubles pinched him in a particularly sore place. So take another glass whilst I proceed with our subject: and so you see, doctor, your debts are paid—that's settled. Hold your tongue, Job; don't ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... shall be the judge of our behaviour,' said Kendal, smiling—he and Forbes were excellent friends. 'Forbes is not in a judicial frame of mind, but we will trust you to be fair. I suppose, Forbes, we may be allowed a grumble or two at Hawes if you shut our mouths on the subject ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... an old soldier, am not apt to grumble at trifles, [illegible word] and blunderbusses! I never before got into such a snarl.—Mounting the ramparts of the enemy was mere child's play to it!" Here he began to take out the contents of the basket, meanwhile keeping up a running commentary, during which his countenance wore an expression ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... do grumble, I know; but I feel sometimes that you must be tired and anxious, placed, as you are, as the only thing instead of a mother to ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... let decent, honest folk marry; but, 'od, lad, I'se plenish your parish wi' bastards, to see what ye'll mak o' that,' and away he went. He read Hooke's Pantheon, and made great use of the heathen deities. He railed sadly at the taxes; some one observed that he need not grumble at them as he had none to pay. 'Hae I no'?' he replied, 'I can neither get a pickle snuff to my neb, nor a pickle tea to my mouth, but they maun tax 't.' His sister and he were on very unfriendly terms. She was ill on one occasion; Miss Ballantyne asked how she ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... good luck," he said to his brother sometimes in moments of expansion; "and then I shall have ten years in which to enjoy myself, and twenty more in which I shall have life enough left to eat good dinners and drink good wine, and grumble about the degeneracy of things in general, after the manner of ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... congratulation that the British prosperous and the British successful, to whom warning after warning has rained in vain from the days of Ruskin, Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, should be called to account at last in their own household. They will grumble, they will be very angry, but in the end, I believe, they will rise to the opportunities of their inconvenience. They will shake off their intellectual lassitude, take over again the public and private affairs they have come to leave so largely in the hands ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... but the spell that all unwittingly she exercises, derives from the profounder depth of which the Eastern poet thought when he said that "We ourselves are Heaven and Hell." . . . Innocent but not ignorant, patient, yet capable of a hearty little grumble at her lot, Pippa is "human to the red-ripe of the heart." She can threaten fictively her holiday, if it should ill-use her by bringing rain to spoil her enjoyment; but even this intimidation is of the very ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... he seldom showed any signs of, except of ill—humors, a good share of which he bestowed on me; though I was pleased to hear him play the flute, on which he was a tolerable musician. This second Egistus was sure to grumble whenever he saw me go into his mistress' apartment, treating me with a degree of disdain which she took care to repay him with interest; seeming pleased to caress me in his presence, on purpose to torment him. This kind of revenge, though ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... brushed the dirt off his knees. "If there's anything that stirs my temper, it's this mumble-grumble, whiffle-and-hint business. Out and open, that's my style." He was reflecting testily on the peculiar reticence of ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... forcing him to carry out his design. And his sister seemed almost hard-hearted to him, as if she were thrusting him away to get rid of him. He did not, indeed, dare to say this openly, but he began to grumble and complain a good deal about it, and Barefoot looked upon this as suppressed grief over parting—the feeling that would gladly take advantage of little obstacles and represent them as hindrances to the fulfilment of a purpose one would gladly ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... enough to examine one of them:—The Heirs of Tranby Chase. It weighed four or five pounds. The publishers would never have had to grumble at its brevity, or have been compelled to use large type and wide margins to "bulk up." It was written in the thin, early Victorian handwriting not often met with in this generation of writers. It subscribed ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... Let em grumble. I allers found out that when a man is gettin up in the world, that, like carrion crows hoverin over a sick animal, grumblers fly about him, lickin their chops and watchin a good opportunity to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... plaster grit fell from the cellar roof and settled thick upon the papers littered over the table. The sergeant halted abruptly with his hand on the cellar door, three or four of the sleepers stirred restlessly, one woke for a minute sufficiently to grumble curses and ask "what the blank was that"; the rest slept on serene and undisturbed. The sergeant stood there until the last sounds of falling rubbish had ceased. "A shell," he said, and drew a deep ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... back of his heart, and is only known to himself, and then but dimly known till the time comes for a return to the Tents of Shem. Englishmen, above all other men, revel in their privilege of being allowed to grumble and 'grouse' over the lives which the Fates have allotted to them. They speak briefly, roughly, and gruffly of the hardships they endure, making but little of them perhaps, and talking as though their lives, as a matter of course, were made ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... grumble at sickness, God won't grant us death," replied Platon, and at once resumed the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Don Quixote," said Carrasco; "but I wish such fault-finders were more lenient and less exacting, and did not pay so much attention to the spots on the bright sun of the work they grumble at; for if aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus, they should remember how long he remained awake to shed the light of his work with as little shade as possible; and perhaps it may be that what they find fault with may be moles, that sometimes heighten the beauty of the face that ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... enough, when I got to the bay, there was the walrus sitting beside its hole, and looking about in all directions as if it were expecting me. It was a giant walrus," said Simek, lowering his remarkably deep voice to a sort of thunderous grumble that filled the hearts of his auditors with awe in spite of themselves, "a—most—awful walrus! It was bigger,"—here he looked pointedly at Okiok—"than—than the very biggest walrus I have ever seen! I have not much courage, ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... boy," answered his father, "it is bet- ter to give warning of a danger that does not exist than overlook one that does. I dare say the sailors will not grumble much, if they don't find a reef where we ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... His housekeeper, Mrs. Finch, always prepared the invalid's dainty little dinners: the excellent beef-tea and soups, the jellies, rusks, and delicate puddings, were all Mrs. Finch's handiwork. Mrs. Pratt's cookery was not to be depended on, and though she pretended to grumble at other folks' interference, she was only too glad to be ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... in black, "why, she will be true to herself. Let Dissenters, whether they be Church of England, as perhaps they may still call themselves, Methodist, or Presbyterian, presume to grumble, and there shall be bruising of lips in pulpits, tying up to whipping-posts, cutting off ears and noses—he! he! the farce of King Log has been acted long enough; the time for Queen Stork's tragedy is drawing nigh;" and the man in black sipped ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... reached our apartments, which contained each a very excellent bed. Wax candles were placed upon the tables: a fire was lighted: coffee brought up; and a talkative, and civil landlord soon convinced us that we had no reason to grumble ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... wrong to grumble to you," she answered. "You have worries enough of your own. I release ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... for you will grumble at a sheet of speculation sent so far: I am here still, as Rob Roy was on Glasgow Bridge, biding tryste; busy extremely, with work that will not profit me at all in some senses; suffering rather in health and nerves; and still with nothing like ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... for all that they cheat themselves by misstatements. He accuses them of being so despotic, that, not content with being masters over their own ways and habits, they would be masters over his also; and grumble because he will not let them. He merely asks the same freedom which they exercise; they, however, propose to regulate his course as well as their own—to cut and clip his mode of life into agreement with their approved pattern; and then charge him with wilfulness and ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... let's—let's grumble! We're both in the dumps, and it's so cheering to grumble and get it off your mind. Go on, you're the eldest—you've the first ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... cloaks and crooked staffs, murmuring their surprise and incredulity at what the angel had said; some pretending to grumble at being awakened from sleep, others anxious to prove the truth of the ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... boy; but his father interrupted him. He knew the unvarying beginning of a long grumble, and dreading the argument, ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... take part in the early stages of a political campaign—who attend caucuses and primaries, who speak of politics to their neighbors, as members and parts of the machine, and regard only those as good and reliable American citizens who take no part whatever, simply reserving the right to grumble after the work has been done by others. Not much can be accomplished in politics without an organization, and the moment an organization is formed, and, you might say, just a little before, leading spirits will be developed. Certain men will take ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... he will not grumble because too much sugar is used in the house. So let him take it then, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... I daresay you'll miss them when you are away, for all your scolding when you are with them. No, no, I don't mean that you are unkind to them, but you do grumble a lot! All the same I won't be unjust, and I know that ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... who are bound not to see a good end! It isn't for them to indulge in those fanciful dreams of becoming primary wives, for there, will come soon a day when the whole lump sum of their allowance will be cut off! They grumble against us for having now reduced the perquisites of the servant-maids, but they don't consider whether they deserve to have so many as three girls ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... quiet and stable home life of an island people, have done more than anything to make the Englishman a deceptive personality to the outside eye. He has for centuries been permitted to grumble. There is no such confirmed grumbler—until he really has something to grumble at, and then no one who grumbles less. There is no such confirmed carper at the condition of his country, yet no one really ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Dunkirk, which, by all the Treaties in existence, ought to need no besieging; but which, in spite of treatyings innumerable, always does?' The High Mightinesses answer nothing articulate, languidly grumble something in OPTATIVE tone;—'meaning assent,' thinks the sanguine mind. 'Dutch hoistable, after all!' thinks he; 'Dutch will co-operate, if they saw example set!' And, in England, the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Campagna generally as an illimitable experience. One's rides certainly give Rome an inordinate scope for the reflective—by which I suppose I mean after all the aesthetic and the "esoteric"—life. To dwell in a city which, much as you grumble at it, is after all very fairly a modern city; with crowds and shops and theatres and cafes and balls and receptions and dinner-parties, and all the modern confusion of social pleasures and pains; to have at your door the good and evil of ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... suppose it means my death," young Calverley assented. "Well! I have feasted with the world and found its viands excellent. The banquet ended, I must not grumble with my host because I find his choice of cordials not altogether to my liking." Thus speaking, he was aware of nothing save that the fiddlers were now about an air to which he had often danced with his ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... I never go home for the holidays that I don't hear father grumble about his poverty. The rents are so slow to come in; the tenants are always wanting drain-pipes and barns and things. Last Christmas his howls were awful. We are positive paupers. Mother has to wait ages for ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... one another's haunches most ferociously. The drivers immediately separate them, for the bite is dangerous to their health, and often attended with serious mischief to the animal bitten. But I have never yet seen a camel kick or attack a man. They invariably grumble and growl, sometimes most piteously, when they are being loaded, as if deprecating the heavy burden about to be placed upon them, and appealing to the mercy of their masters. The merchants pay 13½ Tunisian piastres per cantar for goods now conveyed from Ghadames to Ghat. The ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... off telling me," said Margaret—"it is just what I wish on my own account, and I know it is comfortable to have a good grumble." ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... Another day (on receipt of written orders) he was compelled to visit the line to see if things had been built as reported, or, if it was just optimism again. Half-an-hour later a sentry brought him down the trench at the point of the bayonet for muttering as he rounded the traverse, "Galoot—Gunning—Grumble—Grumpy," in pseudo-Wessex. Naturally, to Native Yorkshire this sounded like ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... had not the least trouble in selling this sketch to the Chronicle-Abstract. The editor probably understood its essential cheapness perfectly well; but he also saw how thoroughly readable it was. He did not grumble at the increased price which Bartley put upon his work; it was still very far from dear; and he liked the young Downeaster's enterprise. He gave him as cordial a welcome as an overworked man may ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... gives him the best of characters. He says the boy is thoroughly to be depended upon, and that his work is well done, even to cleaning the pigs; and, best of all, he is never heard to grumble." ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... the chalk drop. I was conscious that my hands and face were whitened all over; the sponge had rolled away into a corner; and the noise of Nicola's operations was fast getting on my nerves. I had a feeling as though I wanted to fly into a temper and grumble at some one, so I threw down chalk and "Algebra" alike, and began to pace the room. Then suddenly I remembered that to-day we were to go to confession, and that therefore I must refrain from doing anything wrong. Next, with equal suddenness I relapsed into an extraordinarily ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... time emitting a succession of cries more wrathful even than dolorous, though this also they were. But the wail of the sufferer went unheeded, and deservedly; for when the load was complete to the last pound he rose, obedient to signal, and stepped off quietly, evidently at ease. He had had his grumble, and was satisfied. ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... to the cow-house, Emlyn either insisted on playing with the others or pretended to go to sleep; and twitted Patience with being a Puritan. However, the hopes of going into Bristol might be an incentive, though she indulged in a grumble to Rusha, and declared that she liked a jolly chaplain, and this old doctor was not a bit better than ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... leading questions.) This, however, I have corrected in all the copies struck off after the first lot of 2500. I daresay there will be a new edition in the course of nine months or a year, and this I will correct as well as I can. As yet the publishers have kept up type, and grumble dreadfully if I make heavy corrections. I am very far from surprised that "you have not committed yourself to full acceptation" of the evolution of man. Difficulties and objections there undoubtedly are, enough and to spare, to stagger any cautious man ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... not grumble at the hundred guineas being spent upon the dress, or a thousand guineas even, if the money went in due proportion all round to supply the full living wage to each one engaged in its production: and if the wearer interested herself keenly ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter
... advance he did. After he had told us where to find the men, he had good reason to believe that the boats would be sent for them. We did not fall into the trap he set for us. I think it is all right as it is; but whether it is or not, it's no use to grumble about it." ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... is easy to grumble, and especially in a cheerful, open, light, and smiling city, crammed with works Of art, ancient and modern, its architecture a study of all styles, and its foaming beer, said by antiquarians to be a good deal better than the mead ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the Boer camp were not reckoned at more than eighty. The disaffected waverers who, according to circumstances, would follow the majority either to acts of overt resistance to Government and lawless violence, or to grumble and disperse, 'accepting the inevitable,' were reckoned at about eight hundred at the outside. The rest of the camp, variously estimated as containing from sixteen hundred to four thousand in all, but probably never exceeding two thousand five hundred present at one time, were men brought ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... inventory taken and a sequestrator appointed, etc. Bouvard got a bilious attack in consequence. Scarcely had he recovered when he started for Savigny, from which place he returned without having brought the matter nearer to a settlement, and he could only grumble about having gone to the expense of a journey for nothing. Then followed sleepless nights, alternations of rage and hope, of exaltation and despondency. Finally, after the lapse of six months, his lordship Alexandre was appeased, ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... became the jest of the camp; and when later in his career he took over the Aldershot Command, it was laughingly said "he swore himself in"; which doubtless he did in a double sense. Yet men trained in habits so evil when they came into the Scutari Hospital ceased to swear and forgot to grumble. Said "The Lady with the Lamp," "Never came from one of them any word, or any look, which a gentleman would not have used, and the tears came into my eyes as I think how amid scenes of loathsome disease and death, there ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry |
