"Grumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in getting Newman through the scale. "'Fraid you never'll make a great singer, my boy," he said, "but you may be able to grumble bass a little, if you prove to have an ear that can follow. ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... many of them to-night, John, but I saw some goods behind the cart just now; and though they give more trouble, perhaps, still they pay as well; so we have no reason to grumble, have we? Besides, you have been delivering, I dare ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... accomplished butler, and served so well in rehearsals that Pierre could only grumble. One afternoon she superintended the comedy. She found a thousand faults with him, so many, in fact, that Pierre did not understand what it meant, and became possessed with the vague idea that she was hitting him over the groom's ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... boy; but his father interrupted him. He knew the unvarying beginning of a long grumble, and dreading the argument, cut ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Sacrifice of the Mass. In such congregations there is indeed Catholic life. These pious Catholics carry the blessing of heaven with them wherever they go. Amid all the cares and troubles of life they are gay and cheerful, whilst others grumble and are sad. The religious doctrines and practices learned in youth, can seldom or never be blotted out. The question of Catholic schools is a question of making the country Catholic. If this means be neglected, all other means ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... or flood there is not a word of complaint. I have known these field-faring men and women for thirty years, and have yet to hear a single one of them grumble at the weather. It is not indifference; it is true philosophy—acquiescence in the inevitable. The grievances of cultivators of lemons and wholesale agriculturalists, whose speculations are often ruined by a single stroke of the human pen in the shape of new ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... kept very fashionable hours, and always waited dinner for himself till nine o'clock, there was still plenty of time; so, with a loud grumble about the trouble, he seized a large basket in his hand, and set off at a rapid pace towards the fairy Teach-all's garden. It was very seldom that Snap-'em-up ventured to think of foraging in this direction, as he never once succeeded in carrying off a single captive from the enclosure, ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... remarked to Ned. "At the shop they always tell those who grumble what she earned one week. Twenty-four and six, wasn't it, Nellie? But they don't say she worked eighteen hours a ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... answer had been given. In an hour or so, Lionel would arrive; those hateful nuptials, dooming Fawley as the nuptials of Paris and Helen had doomed Troy, would be finally arranged. In another week the work of demolition would commence. He never meant to leave Darrell to superintend that work. No; grumble and refuse as he might till the last moment, he knew well enough that, when it came to the point, he, Richard Fairthorn, must endure any torture that could save Guy Darrell from a pang. A voice comes singing low through the grove—the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... who cannot hear God's voice unless He speaks to them in the thunders of Sinai, nor see Him unless He flares before them in the bonfires of a burning bush. They grumble because His Messenger came to a tribe in the hill countries of Long Ago. They wish to see the miracle of the dead arising. They see not the miracle of life around them. Death from Life is more strange to them than ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... inquired for the Polytechnic professor; but he had disappeared like the Greek and Roman gods; from that time I have been the happiest man in the world. I am a happy director; for none of my company ever grumble, nor the public either, for I always make them merry. I can arrange my pieces just as I please. I choose out of every comedy what I like best, and no one is offended. Plays that are neglected now-a-days by the great public were ran after thirty years ago, and listened to till the tears ran ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... 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 bears them; ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... 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 of ...
— The City That Was - A Requiem of Old San Francisco • Will Irwin
... much, prattler," said Gervique, "and look out on your side. When we have got by them, it'll be time to grumble. Look out for ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... consistent, or coherent. Nature is not. A forest of oaks burns down or is cut down, and do oaks spring again? No. Pines. Logic, is baffled, but the land is bettered. A field of corn is planted, and Nature does not set herself to protect it, but sends a flock of crows to devour it; the farmers grumble, but the crows are saved alive. Freezing water contracts awhile, and then without any provocation turns right about face and expands; if your pitcher stands in the way, so much the worse for your pitcher, but the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... never been jealous of the favor shown his cousin, but had given him warm friendship; and Blake, who was much the stronger, had now and then stood between the lad and harm. He had done so again in Bertram's greatest need, and now he must not grumble ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... of the case, and drove on fast, philosophically allowing him to grumble and growl without much concerning herself; but it was almost dark before they drew up at ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... 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, power welcomes that, takes it to its arms, says that ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... particular manner, divil an alms did I give them, but let them stand and took no heed of them, so that at last they took themselves off, grumbling and cursing. And little did I care for their grumblings and cursings. Two days before I wouldn't have had an unfortunate grumble at me, or curse me, for all the riches below the sun; but now their grumblings and curses didn't give me the slightest unasiness, for I had an evil prayer spoken against me in the Shanna Gailey by the monstrous woman, and I knew that I was blighted in this world and the next. In a little ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... then. You must be very new to the world, to grumble at this. How would you bear to lie on the field of battle on a frosty night, as I did t'other day, stark naked, with nothing to keep me warm but the carcass of a fellow I had been ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... opposite nature. The unpleasant ones are like the thorns which make themselves felt as we scramble—for we often do scramble in a very undignified manner—through the thickets of life; and, feeling the thorns, we grumble, and are blind to all but the thorns. The flowers, and the lovely leaves, and the red berries, and the clusters of filberts, and the birds'-nests do not force themselves upon our attention as the thorns do, and ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... forced devices at merriment were too transparent, Arnfinn's table-talk was of a rambling, incoherent sort, and he answered dreadfully malapropos, if a chance word was addressed to him, and even the good-natured pastor began, at last, to grumble; for the inmates of the Gran Parsonage seemed to have but one life and one soul in common, and any individual disturbance immediately disturbed the peace and happiness of the whole household. Now gloom had, in some unaccountable ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... along with them, I positively refused it, and rose up (for I was sitting on the ground) in order to go to the boat. One or two of the men began to importune me to go, and when I still refused positively, began to grumble, and say they were not under my command, and they would go. "Come, Jack," says one of the men, "will you go with me? I will go for one." Jack said he would; and another followed, and then another; and, in a word, they all left me but one, whom, with much difficulty too, I persuaded to stay; so ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... pale yellow in the sun's glare. East and west and north and south the construction-trains rattled and shrieked up and down the embankments, the piled trucks of brown and white stone banging behind them till the side-boards were unpinned, and with a roar and a grumble a few thousand tons more material were thrown out to hold ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... 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 to ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... letting the old lady grumble on, sat down to his bowl of steaming soup. "What do you say to dinner, Pascualet! Don't mind her! Your daddy is going to make the best sailor in the Cabanal out of you! Tell us, mama, what ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... 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 ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... with a smile and a kiss, a fresh pipe of tobacco, and a dry pair of socks;—that is a man. We may have cried our hearts out; we must have ready the pipe and the socks, or, 'Is that what you call love?' they grumble. You want mortal patience if you love a man,—it is like a fretful child that thumps you when your breast is bare to it. Still, be you patient, dear, just as I am, just as ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... consisted of an imaginary dialogue between Cato and Laelius. We found the first portion rather heavy, and retired a few moments for refreshment (pocula quoedam vini).—All want to reach old age, says Cato, and grumble when they get it; therefore they are donkeys.—The lecturer will allow us to say that he is the donkey; we know we shall grumble at old age, but we want to live through youth and manhood, in spite of the troubles we shall groan over.—There was considerable prosing as to what old age can ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... Never was a little brother or sister more real to them than was "Peggy Mel" as she rushed into the hive laden with stolen honey, while her neighbors gossiped about it, or the stately elm that played sly tricks, or the log which proved to be a good bedfellow because it did not grumble. Burroughs's way of investing beasts, birds, insects, and inanimate things with human motives is very pleasing to children. They like to trace analogies between the human and the irrational, ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... a matter of necessity than of pleasure, for the men, as well as ourselves, must have meat. We prefer to take a man with us to carry home the game, or lead the others to where it lies; but as they frequently grumble and complain of being tired, we do not particularly object to going alone, except that it involves the extra labour of our making a second trip to show the men where the animal that has been shot is to be found. When it is a couple of miles off it is rather fatiguing to have to go ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... very glad that your father knows Lord Grosvenor. As to the Tories, I am still in a rage;[81] they abuse and grumble incessantly in the ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... by themselves. John Bull dislikes keeping the idle, bastard children of other nations. He readily protects all those who tread upon English soil, but in return for this kindness he expects them, like bees, to be all workers. Drones, ragamuffins, and rodneys cannot grumble if they get kicked out of the hive. If 20,000 Englishmen were to tramp all over India, Turkey, Persia, Hungary, Spain, America, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, South Africa, Germany, or France, in bands of from, say two to fifty men, women, and children, in a most wretched; miserable ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... Englishman's privilege to grumble, and a sailorman's duty; yet one thing always strikes me in talking to seafaring men, namely how indelible the sea's stamp is; how indissolubly they are bound to the sea—with sunken bonds like those ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... just 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 ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Prussian Majesty grumbles painfully responsive: "Will, with eagerness, do whatever is just; most surely! But is his Britannic Majesty aware? Hanover Officials are quite misinformed as to the circumstances;"—and does not return any of the men. Merely a pacific grumble, and nothing done in regard to the complaints. Then there is the Meadow of Clamei which we spoke of: "That belongs to Brandenburg, you say? Nevertheless the contiguous parts of Hanover have rights upon it. Some 'eight cart-loads ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... letter so loud as the Lessons, unless you wish Lizzie to hear every word, for she has all her mother's quick senses. There is not much of it, and the scrawl seems hasty. We might have had more for three and fourpence. But I am not the one to grumble about bad measure—as the boy said about old Busby. Now, Maria, listen, but say nothing; if feminine capacity may compass it. Why, bless my heart, every word of it is French!" The rector threw ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... 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 ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... what interesting recollections,—all swept away! Mon Dieu! and what for,—miles of florid facades staring and glaring at one with goggle-eyed pitiless windows; house-rents trebled, and the consciousness that if you venture to grumble underground railways, like concealed volcanoes, can burst forth on you at any moment with an eruption of bayonets and muskets. This maudit empire seeks to keep its hold on France much as a grand seigneur seeks to enchain a nymph of the ballet,—tricks ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... tea, the grounds, apparently the peat of the valley, filled up nearly an eighth of the cup, causing Lucilla in lugubrious mirth to talk of 'That lake whose gloomy tea, ne'er saw Hyson nor Bohea,' when Rashe fretfully retorted, 'It is very unkind in you to grumble at everything, when you ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... course he continued on his best behaviour, but behind the scenes he permitted himself to grumble loudly at the old lady's meanness ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... meantime all these rogues have good dinners; even Bois l'Hery has his meals sent in to the prison from the Cafe Anglais, and poor old Passajon is reduced to live on scraps picked up in the kitchen. Still we must not grumble too much. There are others more wretched than we are—witness M. Francis, who came in this morning to the Territorial, thin, pale, with dirty linen and frayed cuffs, which he still pulled ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... that after this his confidence should go further, and just then the child began a little grumble, and he took her back hastily to Mrs Gray ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... quite nice sometimes," remarked Betty, as they left the house, "only the worst of it is you never know when they are going to be. Sometimes they laugh at everything one says, and another time they grumble." ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... the willin' hands that can turn to a'most anything. If ye'd seen me diggin' for goold, bad luck to it, ye'd belaive what I tell ye. Ah!" he added with a sigh, "it's a rich man I'd have been this day if that ship had only kep' afloat a few hours longer. Well, well, I needn't grumble, when me own comrades, that thought it so safe in the Blankow Bank, are about as badly off as me. When was it they began to suspec' ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 trying to keep her bushes ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... being in advance they must check speed or perhaps stop. This was a species of insult to the "Flying Dutchman," whose way ought to have been kept perfectly clear, for even a check of speed would inevitably cause the loss of several minutes. With an indignant grumble John Marrot cut off steam, but immediately the signals were lowered and he was allowed to go on. Again, in a few minutes, ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... price of success. The world's benefactors are the world's hard workers. "Tickle the earth with a hoe, and it will laugh at you with a harvest." But it closes its fists against those who extend to it an idle hand. Many people contend that the world owes them a living, and grumble that it does not pay the debt. What have they done for the world to bring it into their debt? The world owes every man a living when he earns it by honest toil, and not before. Those who sow with a stingy hand may expect to ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... said good-night again and left the room. Dona Casiana continued to grumble, then ensconced her rotund person in the rocker and dozed off into a dream about an establishment of the same type as that across the way; but a model establishment, with luxuriously appointed salons, whither ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... berth was no longer deemed lucky; promotion passed him by and seized upon his fellow in the field. I had missed the war in China and the fighting in the Philippines and, as a consequence, had seen juniors lifted over me. Yet, possibly, I had small cause to grumble; for my own gold leaves had dropped upon me in Cuba, to the disadvantage of many who were my elders, and, doubtless, my betters as well. I had applied for active service, but evidently it had not met with approval, for my original orders to report to the Chief ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... companions, on an errand. [Pleasant prison life.] Without stopping his game the fellow excused himself on the ground of being a prisoner, and one of his guardians proceeded in the midst of the intense heat to carry my troublesome message. Prisoners have certainly little cause to grumble. [Frequent floggings little regarded.] The only inconvenience to which they are exposed are the floggings which the local authorities very liberally dispense by the dozens for the most trifling offences. Except the momentary bodily pain, however, these appear ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... It's always the case. But here's the soup. I hope you have brought a good appetite. You can't expect such a meal here as you would get in New York; but they do fairly well. I, for one, don't grumble about the food in London, as most Americans do. Londoners manage to keep alive, and that, after all, is the ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... the kind-hearted woman, "what ails thee? Cheer up, man, and finish thy collop. Thou mayest fret about it as thou likes, but thou cannot undo a bad stitch by wishing. If it will make thee better for time to come, though, I'll not grumble. Come, come, goodman, if one collop winna content thee, I ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... grumble, and admire. Look at this," showing her the tassels of the inner window curtains done up in little bags. "And the glass is pinned up with nice yellow paper; and here is a damask napkin fastened to the wall behind ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... landlady's, and paid for as an advertisement. This impartial testimony to the superior qualities of the establishment and its head attracted a number of applicants for admission, and a couple of new boarders made a brief appearance at the table. One of them was of the class of people who grumble if they don't get canvas-backs and woodcocks every day, for three-fifty per week. The other was subject to somnambulism, or walking in the night, when he ought to have been asleep in his bed. In ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... so warm as I expected; the southern icebergs are at no great distance, and they ice the south-east wind for us. If it were not so violent, it would be delicious; and there are no unhealthy winds—nothing like our east wind. The people here grumble at the north-wester, which sometimes brings rain, and call it damp, which, as they don't know what damp is, is excusable; it feels like a DRY south-wester in England. It is, however, quite a delusion to think of living out of doors, here; the south-easters keep one in nearly, if not quite, ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... 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 horse races on ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... of joint, his sides twisted, his arms almost dropping off, trembling with fatigue and tired from his desperate effort. And you kept drawing out this torturing kiss, without seeing or understanding. Then when you freed him, you began to grumble: "How ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... vermin under the heels of the new race. Mankind will be swamped and drowned in things of its own begetting! And all for nothing! Size! Mere size! Enlargement and da capo. Already we go picking our way among the first beginnings of the coming time. And all we do is to say 'How inconvenient!' To grumble ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... to uproariousness prevailed in Mrs. Colwyn's absence, and it must be confessed that neither Janetta nor Nora tried very hard to repress the little ones' noise. It was a comfort to be able, for once, to enjoy themselves without fear of Mrs. Colwyn's perpetual snarl and grumble. A most exciting pillow-fight was going on in the upstairs regions, and here Janetta was holding her own as boldly as the boldest, when the sound of an opening door made the combatants pause in their ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... too much mince-pie, goes to his weekly lecture, and, seeing only half a dozen people there, proceeds to grumble at those half-dozen for the sins of such as stay away. "The Church is cold, there is no interest in religion," and so on: a simple outpouring of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... and partly from necessity, he ceased to grumble, and from that time forth it was wonderful how much less unpleasant even external things appeared, and how much his health benefited by the tranquillity of spirits thus produced. He was willing to be pleased with all that was done with that intent; and as he grew better, ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... no grumblers?" I asked Elder Frederick Evans at Mount Lebanon; and he replied, "Yes, of course—and they grumble at the elder. That is what he is for. It is necessary to have some one man to grumble at, for ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... remembered that she had said that life, if it was no more than its present appearances, was "utter nonsense." She went back to that. "One says things like that," she wrote "and not for a moment does one believe it. I grumble at my life, I seem to be always weakly and fruitlessly fighting my life, and I love it. I would not be willingly dead—for anything. I'd rather be an old match-woman selling matches on a freezing night ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... went out to the switch that controlled the power. Suddenly the power beams flamed, changed from a dull glow into an intense, almost intolerable brilliance. A dull grumble of power climbed up to ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... your pardon, and God's pardon, too, if I've weakened your faith, by showing you how feeble mine was. Half our life's spent in waiting, and it ill becomes one like me, wi' so many mercies, to grumble. I'll try and put a bridle o'er my tongue, and my thoughts too." She spoke in a humble and gentle voice, like one ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... said Jasmine, "that to sigh was very weakening. What I propose is this—that we give each other a fine whenever we are heard sighing, and another much more severe fine if we grumble, and the worst fine of all if we cry. Now, what shall the ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... am at the crowds of English who resort to this town for the winter: the greatest part of them, it is true, are not invalids, but persons seduced into this nook by its reputation, and arriving too late in the season to leave it. They grumble, and are astonished to find themselves no better off than if they had stayed at home; but they are, it would seem, ashamed to confess how much they have been deceived, and, therefore, remain silent on the subject of climate, content to praise the beauty ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... and 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 creation ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... the form of a turkey-cock. The sky is his palace, and he remains in it when the air is clear. When the clouds begin to grumble, he descends to the earth to gather up snakes, and other objects which the Indians call okies. The lightning flashes whenever he opens or closes his wings. If the storm is more violent than usual, it is because his young are with him, and aiding in the noise as well as they can."—Relation ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... There goes an oriole, a gorgeous creature, flashing from one elm to another, and piping in his happiest manner as he flies. It might be the middle of May, to judge from his behavior. He likes dog-day weather, there can be no question of that, however the rest of the world may grumble. ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... of all the "East India traders," when I suggested to him that he was fortunate in obtaining twenty per cent. on some copper ventures about which he was grumbling. (My readers must not confuse a Boston grumble with the ordinary ejaculations of discontent indulged in by the inhabitants of other portions of the world remote from the Hub of the Universe. A Boston grumble consists of an upward movement of the eyebrow, a slight twitch of the mustache and a murmur cross-bred ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... official, not, however, very successful at the Board of Trade, and greatly given to grumble and growl. He held the mildly reciprocitarian views in which he followed Mill and expanded Cobden's opinions, and was thought by us to be the author of the Letters of a Disciple of Richard Cobden, the circulation of which by the ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... at the bank. When they was first married she used to go down to the bank and sit up with him to keep him company; but it was lonesome there in the dark, and she give it up. She was always fond of company and having men around. Her and her mother are a good deal alike. Henry used to grumble about it, and then she'd get mad, and that's how it begun. And then the neighbors talked too. It was after that that he got to coming to see me. I was living out in service then, and he used to stop in to see me on his way back from the bank, about seven in the morning, when ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... was to have little peace that night! Hardly had Dick finished his grumble and sauntered away, before her husband's step was heard ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... know that I need to grumble, if you can feel contented behind that old cart," laughed Reade. ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... other to sit down, giving in turn his reasons why the other should take precedence. Every one at the table understood how both really felt in the matter, and all knew well that the one who did not take the coveted seat would grumble discontentedly for the remainder of the evening. The farce proceeded ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... eat my share as well as his own. I know he will, and I do so love those kind of puddings, especially when they are made with strawberry jam. Oh dear, how I envy Alexander Selkirk on his desert island! I am sure he never had any nasty old lessons to learn, and I think he was very stupid to grumble over his solitude when he could do every day simply what he pleased. Well, if I must study, I must; so, here goes," and, drawing the despised grammar towards her once more, Winnie set herself steadily to master ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... grumble, Lilias, my dear, that you have to bear the yoke in your youth. I dare say you need all you're getting. Many a better woman has had more to bear. We all have our share of trouble at one time or another. Who knows but you may see prosperous ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... grumble at the farmers, acause you deals with them first-hand; but you be too stupid to do aught but hunt by sight. I be an old dog, and I hunts cunning. I sees farther than my nose, I does, I larnt politics to London when I was a prentice; and I ain't forgotten the plans of it. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... "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 out ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... they will feed you, light you, sleep you, wait on you, for two francs a day. Withered old ladies, ancient governesses, who will teach you for forty centimes an hour, gather round these ricketty tables, wolf up the thin soup, grumble at the watery coffee, help themselves with unladylike greediness to the potato pie. It must need careful housewifery to keep these poor creatures on two francs a day and make a profit for yourself. So "Madame," ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... sleep, or say one's prayers; especially to marry, if the lady was of a degree entitled to be a king's ward. Jane, fortunately, had no estate, the king's father having stolen it from her when she was an infant; so all the king could do about our marriage was to grumble, which I let him do to ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... were relapsing into their ordinary indifference to the state of things around them, when one morning word was passed among us that a draft of one hundred was to be sent to Dartmoor prison, and those who thought proper might volunteer; but that that number must go at any rate. So seeing it was 'Grumble you may, but go you must,' was the order of the day, the number required soon availed themselves of the privilege, and were sent in barges on board the vessel which was to convey them to their future abode. Other drafts were sent from time to time, until the whole were removed. For myself, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... grumble over two horses," said Christodulos. "I served under Hadgi Stavros, the King of the Mountains, in the War of Independence, and earned enough money to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... chill rain and snow, my heart was warm, warmer than it had been in many a day. Woman is infallible when she reads the heart of another. Phyllis said that Gretchen loved me; it only remained for me to find her. Pembroke began to grumble. ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... punishment for a woman! At length her vanity overcame her prudence, and being unable to conceal the jewels any longer, she one day said to me, "Bourrienne, there is to be a large party here to-morrow, and I absolutely must wear my pearls. But you know he will grumble if he notices them. I beg, Bourrienne, that you will keep near me. If he asks me where I got my pearls I must tell him, without hesitation, that I have had them ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... California.' No. Mr., nor Esquire, nor Rev. nor Dr. nor Prof., nor anything else. He and his mother are my best customers, in one way. Not that they buy much, but they never ask my price for the purpose of beating me down. Nor do they grumble about the quality of my goods. Why, those two have bought more from this store to give away to those in poor circumstances, than they have for themselves. And they keep very still about what they do in giving. There is the Jones family, who have more children than ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... would grumble, Joses; no matter where we were, or what we were doing, you would have your grumble. I ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... and fearful lest they might catch cold. Then too, with all these men, the good they do, in doing it, pays itself: if they do you a kindness, they are not at all solicitous to have you know and remember it: if sufferings and hardships overtake them, if wounds and bruises be their portion, they never grumble or repine at it, as feeling that Providence has a grudge against them, or that the world is slighting them: whether they live or die, the mere conscience of rectitude suffices them, without further recompense. So that the simple happiness they find in doing what is right is ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... shook her head sorrowfully as she warned Dora off till the nurse's dress could be changed. Occasionally she cried out petulantly, "If he would only be impatient, and fret and grumble like other people; if he would not take things so quietly; if he would resist and struggle, I believe he might fight the battle and win it yet. I think he will get over the crisis, but what of that if there is no rallying? He is letting ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... is really fond of cold baths, he ought not to grumble at the English climate for being a cold bath. In these days we are constantly told that we should leave our little special possessions and join in the enjoyment of common social institutions and a common social machinery. I offer the rain as a thoroughly Socialistic institution. It disregards ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... out of the gospels what Jesus said to small audiences, we should rob them of their choicest portions. So, if, when we get to the chapel we find that there are more pews than people, let us preach to those who are there. Why grumble at the few who have come, perhaps a long way? Let us feed these with the choicest of the wheat. It may be an historic time for anything you know. There may be someone there whom your sermon may lead to Jesus, and who ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... own shadow on the ground. For five days the men followed him with great confidence, and then they found that their rations were all consumed, and there was no sign of Western Port or any settlement. They began to grumble, and to mistrust their captain; they said he must have been leading them astray, otherwise they would have seen some sign of the country being inhabited, and they formed a plan for putting Spiller's knowledge of inland navigation to ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... him back, and hinder him from taking his affairs into his own hands. Not till he was twenty-four did Richard begin to govern for himself; and then the Duke of Gloucester was always grumbling and setting the people to grumble, because the king chose to have peace with France. Duke Thomas used to lament over the glories of the battles of Edward III., and tell the people they had taxes to pay to keep the king in ermine robes, and rings, and jewels, and to let him give feasts and ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... assure you, for the general expects all to be able to do as well as himself. But with a chief who never spares himself all are willing to do their best. Extreme as has been the labor of the troops, severe as have been their hardships, you will never hear a grumble; the men have most implicit confidence in him, and are ready to go anywhere and ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... hear what he was saying. Then she heard Aunt Isabel's voice, no louder than uncle Charlie's but more penetrating; it had a queer note in it—almost as if she were crying. Suddenly she did cry out!—And then Uncle Charlie's deep grumble again. ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... We grumble in our Fatherland; every stupid thing, every contrary trifle, vexes us there; like boys, we are always longing to rush forth into the wide world, and, when we finally find ourselves there, we find it too wide, and often yearn in secret for the narrow stupidities and contrarieties of home. Yes, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... But, grumble as she might, there was no getting out of it, and, as Hauskuld would listen to nothing, she sought for her foster-father, Thiostolf, who never had been known to say her nay. When she had told her story, he bade her ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... 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 ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... back again, "But he will not grumble because too much sugar is used in the house. So let him take it then, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... grumble, "When?" Guns of Verdun answer then, "Sisters, when to guard Lorraine Gunners ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... a right to make a will. In our State she can hold bonds and mortgages as her own. In our State she has a right to her own property. She can not sell it, though, if it is real estate, simply because the moment she marries her husband has a life-time right. The woman does not grumble at that; but still when he dies owning real estate, she gets only the rental value of one-third, which is called the widow's dower. Now I think the man ought to have the rental value of one-third of the woman's maiden ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... know about the sentiment," said Rose, "but I am sure about the pie. If that were missing at dinner-time I know who would grumble. So I'll go, and attend to my duties." She had risen, and was confronting Scarlett. "Good-bye," she ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... off the Galapagos for upwards of two months, sometimes in company with other whalers, but more frequently alone, meeting with fair success. At last many of the men began to grumble at being kept so long at sea; those especially who had before shown a mutinous disposition taking no pains to conceal their discontent, for we had been ten months from the Thames, and according to the ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... use to grumble?" demanded my representative. "Do you suppose I will give up my sport for yours? When would I get a sixpence to stake, if it were not that I was kind to young fellows just beginning? There; growl no more; the twenty ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... preference shown her, and was altogether so kind and friendly and sweet that no one could quarrel with her even in thought, and Johnnie herself had to forgive her, and be contented with a little whispered grumble to Dorry now and then over ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... neither do I think I give myself the lie in calling him an honest fellow presently after. No one quality engrosses us purely and universally. Were it not the sign of a fool to talk to one's self, there would hardly be a day or hour wherein I might not be heard to grumble and mutter to myself and against myself, "Confound the fool!" and yet I do not think that to be my definition. Who for seeing me one while cold and presently very fond towards my wife, believes the one or the other to be counterfeited, is an ass. Nero, taking leave of ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... them, and still they grumble, Having not got all they want; Neither are they longer humble, Which but ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... have got nobody to grumble at; you brought it upon yourself," philosophically returned Miss Carlyle, as she opened the door to admit her brother. "You would go hunting after that brazen hussy, Afy, you know, in defiance of all that could be said ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... night the order about looting, and the men were under the impression that if any of them took so much as a green apple he would be liable to "death or some such less punishment as the Act shall provide." They talk about it and grumble, and then suddenly, without any warning except a clucking and scratching, the Mess Sergeant is seen by the greater part of the Battalion to issue triumphantly from a farm gate with two or three fat hens under his arms. Smiling broadly, totally ignorant of the enormity ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... when the shades of night were falling, the general disposition was one of willingness to wait. The food, to be sure, lacked something of its wonted excellence; but it served (in the summer), and we did not grumble. The shelling, too, had fallen somewhat flat. Mafeking was more out of the way and in a worse plight than Kimberley. Reflections of this kind begot condescension and a noble willingness ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... grumble, however. "I would rather your fingers should bend the bow than pluck at harp-strings, Robin," growled he. "Still, there is time for all things. Read me now our ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... science to aggressive ends, and at last when she felt the time was ripe she let loose the new monster that she had made of war to cow the spirit of mankind. She set the thing trampling through Belgium. She cannot grumble if at last it comes home, stranger and more dreadful even than she made it, trampling the German towns and fields with German blood upon it and ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... inevitable want of comfort in the military march try the courage of the brave man more than the din of battle, and robs the military career of much of its boasted enthusiasm. The stalwart son of Mars, who forgets there are such things as danger and fatigue in the exciting hour of battle, will grumble his discontent at the inconveniences of the hour of peace. We will leave it to the imagination of the reader to conceive the feelings, the regrets and misgivings, of our young heroines as their little vessel set sail from the town of Spezzia for the fortress of Messina. ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... shops being opened and studying the old timbered houses, "it's getting almost absurd: like Father's story of the soldier who greeted his master every morning in India with 'Another hot day, sirr.' We thought if we got one good day out of the three we were to be on the road we wouldn't grumble, and here it goes on and on.... We must come back to Shrewsbury, Davie. It deserves more than just ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... not grumble at the reappearance of Wyndham Lewis's Kermesse, which has been altered and greatly improved since its last appearance at the London Salon. Lewis promises to become that rare thing, a real academic artist. He is academic ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell |
