"Grumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... A grumble from the large man, who seemed to have been disturbed in some absorbing calculation he was carrying on, mingled with a few muttered words of forced acknowledgment from the restless old sinner in the chair, made it unnecessary for me to reply, even if the last ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... compelled to look in the direction of Weimar; and when it was a question of taking sides, where was the force that could hope to make headway against the combined strength of Goethe and Schiller? The odds were too great; there was nothing to do but to grumble a little and then—acquiesce in the new leadership. As for the Dioscuri, they had the wisdom to see that one sharp campaign was enough; that for the rest they could further the good cause much more effectively by admirable ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... have almost a walk over. Still, though it was certain that we should have a hard time whenever war came, we have been hoping for years that England would at last interfere to obtain redress for us, and we must not grumble now that what we have been so long expecting has at last come to pass. I believe there will be some stern fighting. The Boers are no cowards; courage is, indeed, as far as I know, the only virtue they possess. In the ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... been watching while she and Swan made that stretcher and carried her dad away out of his reach. He would not shoot her,—he would not dare. Nor would he dare come to the cabin and finish the job he had begun. But he had managed to kill Frank—poor old Frank, who would never grumble and argue ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... that I am called up not to grumble, but to say that the establishment of "The Atlantic Monthly" was an era in literature. I say it cheerfully. I believe, nevertheless, it was not the first era of the sort. The sanguine generations have been indulging in them all along, and as "eras" they are apt to flat out, or, as ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... he will not grumble because too much sugar is used in the house. So let him take it ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... luxury, and answered earnestly that she liked it better every day. "You must come and see me," said the curly-haired little girl, whose name was Arline Thayer. "We recite Livy in the same section, so we have something in common to grumble about. Isn't the lesson for ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... times came to all the little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows. Every one began to grumble. Mr. Bear grumbled. Mr. Fox grumbled. Mr. Rabbit grumbled. Mr. Jay grumbled. Mr. Squirrel grumbled. Even Mr. Chuck grumbled. And one and all they began to blame Old Mother Nature. Then they began to quarrel among themselves and ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... a square offer, and you can't grumble much because Probyn hired your men. Cartner is hard and I allow he'd like to break you, but I haven't known ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... Hoot-Toot. "Eames 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
... climb the other tree. As there were no branches low down, he had to hug the trunk with arms and legs as a boy climbs. His lasso hampered his progress. When the slow ascent was accomplished up to the first branch, Kitty leaped back into her first perch. Strange to say Jones did not grumble; none of his characteristic impatience manifested itself. I supposed with him all the exasperating waits, vexatious obstacles, were little things preliminary to the real work, to which he had now come. He was calm and deliberate, and slid down the pine, walked back ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... lad,' he said, 'and 'tis for that I like thee. And if thou hast a chief place in thy heart for me, I cannot grumble if thou find a little room there even for our enemies. Would I could set thy soul at ease, and do all that thou askest. In the first flush of wrath, when he was taken plotting against our lives, it seemed a little thing enough to take his evil life. But now these morning airs ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... that 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 perfectly to my taste, would have been still more ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... of the tank and sat down by the well to eat some of 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 along, carrying their food in ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... higher, where I halted for a while on a rocky island fairly clear of snow. As coolie after coolie arrived, breathing convulsively, he dropped his load and sat quietly by the side of it. There was not a grumble, not a word of reproach for the hard work they were made to endure. Sleet was falling, and the wet and cold increased the discomfort. There was now a very steep pull before us. To the left, we had a glacier beginning in a precipitous fall of ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... grumble, declaring that the whole river has gone to the bad; that the fish are smaller and fewer in numbers than of yore,—but is this borne out by facts? The year 1896 was no doubt rather a failure as regards the ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... on account of them. Their bliss infected every body in the car, and in spite of the weariness of our journey, and the vexation of the misadventures which had succeeded one another unsparingly ever since we left home, we found ourselves far on the way to Genoa before we thought to grumble at the distance. There was with us, besides the bridal party, a lady travelling from Bologna to Turin, who had learned English in London, and spoke it much better than most Londoners. It is surprising how thoroughly Italians master a language so alien ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... small savings. Since the ruin of St. Domingo and the pillaging of grocers' shops colonial products are dear; the carpenter, the mason, the locksmith, the market-porter, no longer has his early cup of coffee,[2521] while they grumble every morning at the thought of their patriotism being rewarded by an increase ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the removal of the cook-stove to a bit of shed just back; and though at first the young mother had fretted at the innovation, she found it so much more cheerful, and such a saving of candles in the long evenings, that she had ceased to grumble. ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... earth in the cardroom and introduced to her. Ida did not wait for him to ask her to dance but calmly ran her pencil through three names on the programme and bestowed the vacancies thus created on him in such a way that he could not refuse them. Dermot, however, did not grumble. She was Noreen's friend; if not the rose, she ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... are quite right," he answers, somewhat to Eleanor's surprise. "It is foolish, and unnecessary. Now you won't grumble, my pet, if I go for a long day's sport to-morrow. It will do me all the good in the world, some excitement and exercise. I have been getting dreadfully ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... issued,) an order came from Beaufort that we should be ready in the evening to unload a steamboat's cargo of boards, being some of those captured by them a few weeks since, and now assigned for their use. I wondered if the men would grumble at the night-work; but the steamboat arrived by seven, and it was bright moonlight when they went at it. Never have I beheld such a jolly scene of labor. Tugging these wet and heavy boards over a bridge of boats ashore, then across the slimy beach at low tide, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... you to prevent him from wandering far afield. At the objections stage, as at every other step in the selling process, you should dominate the other man. Tactfully keep him concentrated on the subject and on your application. If he starts to grumble that some man he has engaged previously was "no good," you can smile and reply, "You would not give me credit for anybody else's fine work, and of course you do not blame me for ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... an act of the most unpardonable folly, while the senior seemed to insist that the wasting of so much good liquor was a felony of equally culpable dye; and it is probable he had the better side of the argument, since he continued to grumble for a long time even after he ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... throne of God. Christ's promise to bring rest to those who come to him has been fulfilled in many a school chapel. Those of us who have had to pass through the valley of sorrow and temptation and loneliness—and who has not?—know that this is no mean claim. Boys, even men, often grumble at what they really value. To do so is our national defect, misleading to the onlooker. The truth is, we are so fearful of being accused of casting our pearls before swine, that we often pretend, even to ourselves, that what we ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... father replied, 'that's about the size of it; and I'm glad if you understand it. The members of the bar here grumble because you charge too little for your professional services, and I'm willing to do my share toward educating you in the ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... crumbs of consolation for those who laugh at fate, and look good-humouredly for them; life's only evil to him who wears it awkwardly, and philosophic resignation works as many miracles as Harlequin; grumble, and you go to the dogs in a wretched style; make mots on your own misery, and you've no idea how pleasant a trajet even drifting ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... self-control, thought, effort to fulfil that aspiration even in part. For to be discontented with the divine discontent, and to be ashamed with the noble shame, is the very germ and first upgrowth of all virtue. Men begin at first, as boys begin when they grumble at their school and their schoolmasters, to lay the blame on others; to be discontented with their circumstances—the things which stand around them; and to cry, "Oh that I had this!" "Oh that I had that!" But by that way no deliverance ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... 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
... way until he has cooled down a bit, and cook him decent dinners in the meanwhile. I've spoken to him very strongly about you, and I don't think he'll dare to push matters to extremities, although he may grumble a bit. If he catches you, and you find his temper particularly bad, just mention the dog Gelert to him. I told him the story this morning and it produced a great impression on ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... Lord willed it so, I do not grumble, your Excellency. That's what you should have said, or something in this spirit. Governors, my dear, are very fond ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... Chapman, clinking the five shillings in his pocket, "I aren't one to grumble at fate, nor ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... walked on, George said to Katherine, "There are two passengers who won't grumble any, ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... and Mrs. Turpin held him in reverence on that account. No matter for his little weaknesses—of which evil tongues, said Mrs. Turpin, of course made the most. He might be irregular in payment; he might come home 'at all hours,' and make unnecessary noise in going upstairs; he might at times grumble when his chop was ill-cooked; and, to tell the truth, he might occasionally be 'a little too free' with the young ladies—that is to say, with Mabel and Lily Turpin; but all these things were forgiven him because he was 'a real gentleman,' and spent ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... this exploration of a vaster spiritual America! Pobloff trembled. He was so transported by the idea, that his capacious frame and large head became enveloped in a sort of magnetic halo. He diffused enthusiasm as a swan sheds water; and his men did not grumble at the numerous extra rehearsals, for they realized that their chief might ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... 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 trying to keep her bushes ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... leave the small arguments ([Greek: logaria]) about these matters to others, to lazy fellows, that they may sit in a corner and receive their sorry pay, or grumble that no one gives them anything; and will you not come forward and make use of what you have learned? For it is not these small arguments that are wanted now; the writings of the Stoics are full of them. What then is the thing which is wanted? A man who shall apply them, one ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... learning. Some people go through life with their eyes shut, and then grumble there is nothing to see in it! Well—you want that Arab buried? What a fancy! Look you, then; stay by him, since you are so fond of him, and I will go and send some men to you with a stretcher to ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... Effects' had no more part in the show than a new boy his first day at school. But two years in Canada and one run home will make him free of the Brotherhood in Canada as it does anywhere else. He may grumble at certain aspects of the life, lament certain richnesses only to be found in England, but as surely as he grumbles so surely he returns to the big skies, and the big chances. The failures are those who complain that the land ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... Karl! Let me not hear a snarl, Or a growl, or a grumble come out of your heads; To work now, instanter! Trot, gallop, and canter, And finish this job ere ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... your father knows Lord Grosvenor. As to the Tories, I am still in a rage;[81] they abuse and grumble incessantly ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... the girl laughing with him. "You ought to know, and if you are satisfied I must be. If these stores will carry us through the time until we start for civilization I won't grumble." ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... him. "To my mind, Paul, when a person has done what he believes is for the best and because he thinks it is right, he has no cause to grumble or to be unhappy," he observed in his quiet way. "Don't you fear, all will turn ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... bad as that, Maria," and Mr. Rose smiled pleasantly at her. "We're not much behind time, and we won't grumble ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... from the South at break of day, Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay, The affrighted air with a shudder bore, Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door, The terrible grumble and rumble and roar, Telling the battle was on once more, And Sheridan twenty miles away. And wider still those billows of war Thundered along the horizon's bar, And louder yet into Winchester rolled The ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... 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
... wounded on the parliamentary side was the City's old friend Skippon, "shot under the arme six inches into his flesh." The pain of having his wound dressed caused him to groan. "Though I groane, I grumble not," said he to the by-standers, and asked for a chaplain to come ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... very splendid new kind called the "Jewess" a compact little plant with a store of rich purple- red blossoms. Logan murmured as he took up the pot in which it was planted "Less than the best will never serve ye, Miss Daisy" but he did not grumble about it after all, and Daisy ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Sol, "he wouldn't do it, an' the men would grumble, too. We've got to be the outside ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... 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
... our paper, and so we stand there and grumble. Now and then one of us stumps up the narrow hallway to the second story where the Democrat makes its lair, and looks on with an abused air while two young lady compositors claw around the bottom of the boxes for enough type ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... regions of the earth. Perhaps once in two or three years there comes a day when there is no fog, no wind, and a high temperature in the coast district. Then follows hot weather, perhaps up in the eighties, and Californians grumble, swelter and rustle for summer clothes. These rare hot days are the only times when one sees women in light dresses on the streets ...
— The City That Was - A Requiem of Old San Francisco • Will Irwin
... the exact spot where he wanted Jasper Jay to station himself. And since it happened that there was a puddle of water there, it was only to be expected that Jasper Jay should begin to grumble. ...
— The Tale of Jasper Jay - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the puppet satisfied his hunger than he began to cry and to grumble because he wanted a pair ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... Abingdon's tears, and listen to Canon Wrottesley reading aloud, and you have had to be hearty to carol-singers and to waft holly-berries in the faces of mothers. Why don't you throw something at me when I come to your room in the middle of the night as cross as a bear with a sore head, and begin to grumble ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... emphasized by piecemeal destruction, went on till sickness and the lateness of the season put the English in a sorry fix. The sack of the city had yielded much less than that of San Domingo; and the men, who were all volunteers, to be paid out of plunder, began to grumble at their ill-success. Many had been wounded, several killed—big, faithful Tom Moone among them. A hundred died. More were ill. Two councils of war were held, one naval, the other military. The military officers agreed to give up all their own shares to ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... /n./ Designed by Bjarne Stroustrup of AT&T Bell Labs as a successor to {C}. Now one of the {languages of choice}, although many hackers still grumble that it is the successor to either Algol 68 or {Ada} (depending on generation), and a prime example of {second-system effect}. Almost anything that can be done in any language can be done in C, but it requires a {language lawyer} to know what is and what is not legal— ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... was. At length he found one—a meek young man from Trumbull County—who agreed to pay for his board in praying. For a while all went smoothly, but the boarding-master furnished his table so poorly that the boarders began to grumble and to leave, and the other morning the praying boarder actually "struck!" Something like the following ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... the court officer, "they do nothing but grumble and grumble at being kept away from their business but when they get chosen on a case, they realize it does not do any good so they settle down to do what is right." The country man may not have much to do and may look ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... Ham was quite as much of a luxury as candy, for we had started with but three or four, and only used them on special days. As for the canned peaches, they were the only ones we had. The supper was a memorable one; not a grumble was heard from anybody, indeed they all praised it, and the only drawback, from my point of view, was that the scouting party did not return early enough to taste it in its prime. The Major threatened to expel the member who had smuggled in the candy as all the ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... hunting as he is. When wandering apprentices came into his yard he shot at them—sometimes only into the air in order to frighten them. He had a violent temper too, and especially when he had been drinking. Well, I suppose Beipst grumbled one day—he likes to grumble, you know—and so the farmer snatched up his rifle and fired at him. Beipst, you know, used to ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... would be too hard on you to have to face 'em. Best not to try. We had our go and missed; p'raps we'd better take what they give us and not grumble." ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... over the long ridges that lay stretched in rows before him, he was vexed, and began to grumble, and say, "The harvest would be backward, and all things would go wrong." At the mere thought of which he frowned more and more, and uttered words of complaint against the heavens, because there was no rain; against the earth, because ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... men pole frantically onward, and so the day passes. By mid-afternoon their labors cease, and we come to anchor at the bank, having achieved seventeen miles in nine hours! Let those of us to whom lightning-express-trains have been slow grumble hereafter at their fifty miles ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... grumble,' she said to Gillian; 'but I shall feel so lost without you and Val. It is so unhomish, and there's that dreadful German Fraulein, who was not at ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... asked himself, and we have got seven, to say nothing of their horses," grumbled Castell, watching their approach from an upper window. "Well, we must make the best of it. Peter, go, see that man and beast are fed, and fully, that they may not grumble at our hospitality. The guard can eat in the little hall with our own folk. Margaret, put on your richest robe and your jewels, those which you wore when I took you to that city feast last summer. We will show these fine, ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... satisfied, felt obliged to desist. "Startin' airly," was his only grumble. Had he known what possibilities for that day had lodged themselves in Kate's mind, he would not have been able to slip Spider Legs' bridle over his ears. But his business being only to get up the horse, he discharged it with shaky ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... things themselves were to himself of so very little value! Living alone at Scumberg's was not a pleasant life. Even going out in his brougham at nights was not very pleasant to him. He could do as he liked at Como, and people wouldn't grumble;—but what was there even at Como that he really liked to do? He had a half worn out taste for scenery which he had no longer energy to gratify by variation. It had been the resolution of his life to live without control, and now, at four and forty, he found that ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... soul took the sous in the basket to be the gift of the brothers, and, as her portion is not always the same from day to day, but depends on what they can spare from the store set apart for almsgiving, she would not notice the diminished cakes and milk, save perhaps to grumble a little at the increase of the beggars who trespassed thus on her pension." There was silence among us for a moment, then St Aubyn's boy spoke. "Father," he asked, tremulously, "shall I not see that good Gluck again and tell the monks ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... paying returns for our investments. But that food will not always last; it is gradually exhausted, and we fail to feed them again, or in that proportion their necessities require. They languish and die; a disease seizes them, and we complain and grumble at the dispensations ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... regarded his mental powers, his intuition, judgment and quickness as something almost supernatural. His great flanking movement at the Second Manassas, and his arrival in time to save the army at Antietam, inspired them with awe for a man who could do such things. They had long since ceased to grumble when he undertook one of his tremendous marches, and they never asked why they were sent to do a thing—they had absolute confidence in the one who sent them to ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... kind called the "Jewess"—a compact little plant with a store of rich purple-red blossoms. Logan murmured as he took up the pot in which it was planted—"Less than the best will never serve ye, Miss Daisy"—but he did not grumble about it after all, and ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... island of Newfoundland. There is no chart for icebergs, and "growlers" are formidable opponents to encounter at any time. Therefore it behoves us to possess our souls in patience, and only to indulge at intervals in the right to grumble which is by virtue of tradition ours. We have already been here a day and a half, and we know not how much longer it will be before the curtain rises and the first act ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... ferulas, 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 ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... within another hour must be screened from view after some fashion, therefore it was useless to grumble, or say this or that movement was impossible; but rather I should do the best I might, and trust to the chapter of accidents that I did not lead my companion into what would prove to ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... asked to sit for their portraits to Phillips. Though Byron was willing, and even thought it an honour, Southey pretended to grumble. To Miss Barker he wrote ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... 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
... as a natural consequence of the higher cost of living, and, under the guidance of a native demagogue, the working classes, for the first time in Philippine history, collectively began to grumble at the idea of labour-pay having a limit. It was one of the abuses of that liberty of speech suddenly acquired under the new dominion. On February 2, 1902, this person organized the malcontents under the title of a "Labour Union," of which he became the first president. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... I am becoming a little rusty and disposed to grumble, as I grow old; but there is a good deal in modern government which seems to me very rude and absurd. There comes a clamour, partly reasonable; power is deaf to it, overlooks it, says there is no such thing; then great clamour; after a time, ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... or "redheads," who sing their sweet, merry tunes all summer, and if they do take a cherry or two the farmer should not grumble. They destroy many bugs and caterpillars and eat weed-seeds that might trouble the fruit-grower more than the missing cherries. The yellow warbler, sometimes called the wild canary, flits through bush and tree and trills its gay notes in town ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... Hancock declares, you are out of your compass, To encroach on his art by writing of bombast; And has taken just now a firm resolution To answer your style without circumlocution. Lady Betty[2] presents you her service most humble, And is not afraid your worship will grumble, That she make of your verses a hoop for Miss Tam.[3] Which is all at ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... disease, when we are compelled to give up the ideal of radical cure, our best advice to syphilitic patients, as to those with old tuberculosis, is that after they have had two years of good treatment, they should submit to examination once or twice a year, and not grumble if they are called upon to carry life insurance in the form of occasional short courses of treatment for the rest ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... punch. The fiddler-improvisator disappears, reappears, and with crumbs on his breast and pan-gravy and punch on his breath remounts his seat; and the couples are again on the floor. The departing thunders grumble as they go, the rain falls more and more sparingly, and now it is a waltz, and now a quadrille, and now it's a reel again, with Miss Sallie or Louise or Laura or Lucille or Miss Flora "a-comin' down ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... ardour had the effect of awakening the doctor, who immediately began to grumble at his patient's admitting visitors without permission. By the time he had examined Eustace's wounds and pronounced him to be progressing favourably, the whole Castle was up and awake, and Arthur, against his will, was sent down to attend on Sir ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... began the boy; but his father interrupted him. He knew the unvarying beginning of a long grumble, and dreading ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... taking care not to let the heat be too fierce at first. As this is the most common method of baking, and the first that a settler sees practised, it is as well they should be made familiar with it beforehand. At first I was inclined to grumble and rebel against the expediency of bake-pans or bake-kettles; but as cooking-stoves, iron ovens, and even brick and clay-built ovens, will not start up at your bidding in the bush, these substitutes are valuable, and perform a number of uses. I have eaten excellent light bread, baked on ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... about a month's time you should grumble and fall out with me for not writing, you will certainly be in some degree justified; for I think it must be near upon three weeks since I wrote to you, which is a sin and a shame. To say that I have not had ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... flush and the ecstasy fleet Of the fellow who rides a toboggan! FISH SMART's on the job in the ice-covered fens, And at Hampstead and Highgate they're "sleighing." There is plenty of stuff for pictorial pens, And boyhood at snowballs is playing. To sit by the fire and to grumble and croak At "young fools," I presume is improper, Yet (chuckle!) the Skater sometimes has a "soak," The Sleigher sometimes comes ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 10, 1891 • Various
... must out, there were not eight blue skies in as many midsummer weeks, saving, sometimes, early in the morning; when, looking out to sea, the water and the firmament were one world of deep and brilliant blue. At other times, there were clouds and haze enough to make an Englishman grumble in ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... palpably dissatisfied, Ingred and Hereward would have been hardly human if they had not raised some personal grievances of their own to grumble at, and matters would often have been dismal enough at the bungalow but for Mrs. Saxon's happy capacity for looking on the bright side of things. The whole household centered round "Mother." She was a woman in a thousand. ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... on horseback began to grumble; for by police regulation they were not allowed to pass the hindmost of the cyclists; and they were kept back by my presence from following up their special champions. 'Give it up, Fraeulein, give it up!' they cried. 'You're beaten. Let us pass and get forward.' But at the ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... the car almost lost to sight in the crush; but Mr. van Buren, who is like a great, handsome Viking, pushed the people aside, and said things to them in Dutch which made some laugh and others grumble. ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... the suggestion; then he said: "By Jove, yes. This would be a good time to work that valerian dodge. And it would mean that we should have to use our bicycles again for the good of the home. The more we can say that we've used them for it, the less any one can grumble about them." ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... broke his heart. He was steel and butter. His friend, the honorable Frank Winchester, was or seemed all steel. He was one of those sanguine spirits that don't admit into their minds the notion of ultimate failure. He was supported, too, by a natural and indomitable gayety. Whatever most men grumble or whine at he took as practical jokes played by Fortune partly to try his good humor, but more to ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... grumble because the land does not pay. Now for the fault. It is quite evident it is not the land, therefore, it must be the fault of the man. Very well, get the land from these landed proprietors, by sale preferred, and let it out to men, not by 1000 acres, as no man can farm well ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... Will. "I will never grumble on that subject again." There was a gentleness in his tone which came from the unutterable contentment of perceiving—what Dorothea was hardly conscious of—that she was travelling into the remoteness of pure pity and loyalty towards her husband. Will was ready to adore her pity and ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... may think what it likes, and wish what it likes," Malinche said, quietly. "I am sure that Cortez will not go down to the coast; and what he wills, he does. The others may grumble, but Cortez leads them like tame deer. When he is well enough to speak to them, they will listen and obey him. His thoughts, ill as he is, are all of a ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... on through the woods to Grandpa Grumble's house; for, sure enough, Bunny and Susan had gone to bed and turned out ...
— Snubby Nose and Tippy Toes • Laura Rountree Smith
... river Charentonne until the long—and when you are looking out for the hotel—seemingly endless street of Bernay is reached. After the wonderful combination of charms that are flaunted by Beaumont-le-Roger it is possible to grumble at the plainer features of Bernay, but there is really no reason to hurry out of the town for there is much quaint architecture to be seen, and near the Hotel du Lion d'Or there is a house built right over the street ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... he had neither Mambrino's helmet nor beadle's cloak, and perhaps his bashfulness in the presence of strangers arose from a consciousness that his head-gear and robes were not in keeping with his station. But he did not fail to grumble at his "dash;" indeed, he must be more than African who shall say, "Hold! enough." He vouchsafed a small return in fowls and "beneficent manioc," and sent with us three slaves, to serve, not as guides, but as a basis for ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... he struck out into the world for himself; he obtained a situation in a mercantile house in Toronto, and I hear bids fair to make a successful business man. George Washington has not entirely ceased to grumble and look sulky; but there has been a wonderful change in one respect, for there is now no harder working youth in the neighborhood; he likes farming, and early and late may be found at his work. I don't know but Nathan may have ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... I am; but—but you don't understand, and perhaps it's better you should not. I'll try not to grumble." ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... o' course not. I ain't one o' them blokes as grumble cause a feller's 'ungry. Wot d'yer say to a bit o' cold meat and some tea ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... thronged every winter afternoon with people promenading or sitting under the snow-powdered trees in an arctic fairyland, while the mercury in the thermometer is at a very low ebb indeed. It is fashionable in Russia to grumble at the cold, but unfashionable to convert the grumbling into action. On the contrary, they really enjoy sitting for five hours at a stretch, in a temperature of 25 degrees below zero, to watch the fascinating ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... South at break of day, Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay, The affrighted air with a shudder bore, Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door, The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar, Telling the battle was on once more, And ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... are," interrupted Eric, "Mae is jolly. Do stop your reasoning about her. If you are bound to be a potato yourself to help save the masses from starvation, don't grumble because she grew a flower. Come, let ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... deliberately bite 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 Touaricks ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... naturally sad, had, dark presentiments. In veiled words he announced catastrophes. His timorous phrases came through the flowers, and irritated M. Schmoll, who began to grumble and to prophesy. He explained that Christian nations were incapable, alone and by themselves, of throwing off barbarism, and that without the Jews and the Arabs Europe would be to-day, as in the time of the Crusades, sunk in ignorance, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... on, after reading a little further. "'I oughtn't to grumble. Uncle Rimbolt is the kindest of protectors, and lets me have far too many nice things. Aunt has a far better idea of what a captain's daughter should be. She doesn't spoil me. She's like a sort of animated extinguisher, and whenever I flicker ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... to give all the good things they make to those who do nothing, and that they should be very thankful to God and to the idlers for being allowed to have even the very worst food to eat and the rags, and broken boots to wear. He also tells them that they mustn't grumble, or be discontented because they're poor in this world, but that they must wait till they're dead, and then God will reward them by letting them go to a place ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... she should become a first-rate singer. The pupil was apt, the master was exceedingly skilful; and, accordingly, Mrs. Walker's progress was very remarkable: although, for her part, honest Mrs. Crump, who used to attend her daughter's lessons, would grumble not a little at the new system, and the endless exercises which she, Morgiana, was made to go through. It was very different in HER time, she said. Incledon knew no music, and who could sing so well now? Give her a good English ballad: it was a thousand times sweeter ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not sorry for one," quoth Mr. Jack, "I'm stiff all over. No one can stand such work long. Won't the shearers growl! No shearing to-day, and perhaps none tomorrow either." Truth to tell, Mr Bowles' sentiments are not confined to his ingenuous bosom. Some of the shearers grumble at being stopped "just as a man was earning a few shillings." Those who are in top pace and condition don't like it. But to many of the rank and file—working up to and a little beyond their strength—with whom swelled wrists and other protests of nature are becoming apparent, it is ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... cotton sleeves well tucked up above the dimpled elbows, and giggling over some private jokes of their own, whenever Miss Sally's back was turned for a moment. And old Jemima, stolid in temper and solid in bulk, kept up a long and subdued grumble, while she stirred the stock-pot methodically ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... to serve the purposes of his revenge, some of the boldest and the most 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 they joyfully ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Still I must not grumble. I'm delighted you have had such a glorious time; when one's friends are enjoying themselves, it's next best to doing the same oneself. What ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... middle of the road. His horse stood still; but after remaining patiently for some time, and not observing any disposition in the rider to get up and proceed further, he took him by the collar and shook him. This had little or no effect, for the farmer only gave a grumble of dissatisfaction at having his repose disturbed. The animal was not to be put off with any such evasion, and so applied his mouth to one of his master's coat laps, and after several attempts, by dragging at it, to raise him upon his feet, the ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie
... All sailors grumble, you know, Miss Arbuckle, and our boys imitate their elders in this respect. They will growl for a while, but just as soon as they work the ship with skill and promptness, we shall put into Brest, and make our trip down the Rhine. I think we shall not be at sea beyond ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... that men are never so much disposed to grumble and mutiny as when least employed. Hence an old captain, when there was nothing else to do, would issue the order to ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... "he thinks the mandarins' ball was fun enough to last me a good while. It really was very good-natured of him to take me to it, so I mustn't grumble." ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... of a ship builder, and had a launch and a yacht of his own. He was liked by all his associates in spite of his tendency to grumble at trifles. However, if he complained at small things, he met large troubles with a smile on his bright face. He now seized Teddy about the waist and waltzed around ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... make him angry to keep his mind off the score," said Pickings, feebly to himself. He added aloud, "Stop kicking about your old sixth hole! You've had the darndest luck I ever saw, and yet you grumble." ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... a world at all, has ever been fond of singing the praises of the good old times. It would seem a general rule, that so soon as we get beyond a certain age, whatever that may be, we acquire a high opinion of the past, and grumble at every thing new under the sun. One cause of this may be, that distance lends enchantment to the view, and that the history of the past, like a landscape travelled over, loses in review all the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... Afanasiitch waked him, told him to light a candle. Vassilissa went to the window and sat down in silence. While Onisim was busy getting a light in the anteroom, Pyetushkov stood motionless at the other window, staring into the street. Onisim came in, with the candle in his hands, was beginning to grumble ... Ivan Afanasiitch turned quickly round: 'Go along,' ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... no come-by-chance from him. He's got money, that I knaw, but ban't gwaine to pass our way, for he tawld me so in as many words. Sarah Watson will reap what he's sawed; an' who shall grumble? He 'm a just man, though not of ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... troops who were on the good going. El Burj proved to be a most desolate spot, but it was at all events near wells; and we were so glad to hear that we were not to march straight on next day, that we didn't grumble much about ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... jerking out aimless remarks. When he wanted a still quieter 'confab' with his maturing novel, their voices and footsteps echoed too clearly in the verandahs and the scantily furnished rooms. But did he venture to grumble at these minor drawbacks, Lance would declare he was demoralised by floating loose in an Earthly Paradise and becoming a ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... struggling upwards, And it needeth that its motions be checked by the silvered cork of Propriety: He that can afford the price, his be the precious treasure, Let him drink deeply of its sweetness, nor grumble if it tasteth of ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... the old tower, I stole along the wall to that door, intending to listen if aught were stirring within, or on the stairs, or in the rooms above. And I had just got my fingers on the rounded pillar of the doorway, and the thunder was just dying to a grumble, when a hand seized the back of my neck as in a vice, and something hard, and round, and cold pressed itself insistingly into my right temple. It was all done in the half of a second; but I knew, just as clearly ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... be sure, there was my old aunt; and she would have helped us, but she could not, for the old woman is bed-ridden; so she did nothing but occupy our best room, and grumble from morning till night: heaven knows, poor old soul, that she had no great reason to be very happy; for you know, sir, that it frets the temper to be sick; and that it is worse still to ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the spring, when they say the English come in by Gibraltar. They go first to the fair in Seville, and afterwards they come to have a look at our Cathedral. Besides, in milder weather the people come from Madrid, and although they grumble, the flies crowd to see the giants and the big bell, then I have to hurry with the tickets; one day, Gabriel, I took eighty duros. I remember it was at the last 'Corpus'; Mariquita had to sew up the pockets of my cassock, for they tore with the ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... about the 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
... sensual lips, fleshy cheeks, large eyes, short sight. Her short sight extended to her mind. Beyond a burst of merriment now and then, almost as ponderous as her anger, she lived in a sort of taciturn grumble and a grumbling silence. Words escaped from her which had to be guessed at. She was a mixture of a good woman and a mischievous devil. She liked surprises, which is extremely woman-like. Anne was a pattern—just sketched roughly—of ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... a life it is detestable, though were it for a short time only there would be nothing to grumble about. We are fairly fed; we have each a patch of ground, where we can grow vegetables. The twelve men in these huts can visit and talk to each other. When that is said all is said. Oh, by the way, we are also permitted to make anything we like! that is, we can ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... Esau! for a mess; Thou shouldst have gotten more, or eaten less; Now thou hast swilled thy pottage, thy demands Are idle; Israel says the bargain stands. Such, landlords! was your appetite for war, And gorged with blood, you grumble at a scar! What! would they spread their earthquake even o'er cash? And when land crumbles, bid firm paper crash?[335] So rent may rise, bid Bank and Nation fall, 640 And found on 'Change a Fundling Hospital? Lo, Mother Church, while all religion ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... again started off for a last long wearisome tramp, the men, who had not been out of their clothes for a week, being now ready to drop from sleeplessness and exhaustion. But valiantly they held on. Not a word, not a grumble. All had confidence in General Yule and his officers, who shared with the men every hardship and every fatigue; each realised his individual duty to make the very best of a very bad job, and pluckily kept heart till the last moment. Torrents of rain fell, making ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... tell you, with pleasure," Arnold answered. "You see, she is left absolutely alone in the world. I do not grumble at the charge of her, for when I was nearly starving she was kind to me, and we passed our darkest days together. On the other hand, I know that she feels it keenly, and I think it is only right to try and find out if she has no relatives ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... marked increase—and, furthermore, the task of keeping the water-barrels filled became one of serious magnitude. But bracing himself to meet his growing burdens, he toiled away cheerfully, resisting every temptation to grumble, his clear tuneful whistling of the sacred airs in vogue at Calumet making Baptiste, who had a quick ear for music, so familiar with "Rock of Ages," "Abide with Me," "Nearer, my God, to Thee," and other melodies, which have surely strayed down to us from heaven, ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... quarantine. The officers of a ship are generally taciturn, surly, and exacting; and the crew are unhappy, discontented, disposed to grumble, and ready to quarrel and fight on the most trivial occasions, and often without any occasion whatever. At the expiration of ten protracted days after we let go our anchor in the outer harbor of Gottenburg, we were again honored with a visit from the health officer. ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... and conscious that my former wish had been a foolish one. I inquired for the Polytechnic candidate, but he was gone, like the Greek and Roman gods; and from that time I've been the happiest of men. I am a happy director: none of my company ever grumble, nor my public either, for they are always merry. I can put my pieces together just as I please. I take out of every comedy what pleases me best, and no one is angry at it. Pieces that are neglected now-a-days by the great public, but which it used to run after thirty years ago, and at which it used ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... comes in their way; and the assistants are as much implicated as the prisoners. You'll fare hard; but just do as we do in a calm, wait for the wind to blow, and pray for the best. If you say any thing, or grumble about it, the sheriff will order you locked, up on the third story, and that's worse than death itself. The first thing you do, make preparations for something to eat. We pay for it here, but don't get it; and you'd starve afore you'd eat what they give them ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... thread, Spreading the brats their bread and jam, Trundling them out in the morning pram, Washing their pinafores clean and white And tucking them up in their cots at night. * * * * * Ask me not—for I cannot tell, I can only guess—how the end befell: A wifely word, an angry scowl, A bit of a grumble, a bit of a growl, A scolding here, a squabbling there, And here the sound of an ugly swear, A cry of despair from the sore opprest, A secret call to the "Miners' Rest," A sudden revolt from the brooms and mats, And a roar from a thousand throats—"Down brats!" * * * * * "What—striking ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various |
