"Grumbler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my friends, come in," said the warden;—he was still warden then. "Come in, and sit down;" and he took the hand of Abel Handy, who was the nearest to him, and led the limping grumbler to a chair. The others followed slowly and bashfully; the infirm, the lame, and the blind: poor wretches! who had been so happy, had they but known it! Now their aged faces were covered with shame, and ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... not be sick, you must not be a grumbler, my dear old troubadour. You must cough, blow your nose, get well, say that France is mad, humanity silly, and that we are crude animals; and you must love yourself, your kind, and your friends above all. I have some very sad hours. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... keep people from breaking among themselves until the long-expected arrival of the Chevalier should, it was hoped, check the growing jealousies in the camp;" a party arose, headed by Lord Huntley, Lord Seaforth, and the Master of Sinclair, who soon obtained the name of the Grumbler's Club, and who rendered themselves odious to the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... recent graduate from West Point, is a modest gentleman, and no grumbler. He says that privately he was treated by fellow-cadets with proper consideration, but reluctantly admits that he was publicly slighted. He can afford to be untroubled and magnanimous. How is it with his fellows? Will not shame ere long mantle their cheeks at the recollection of this lack of moral ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... old grumbler! I reckon he isn't that kind. And your judgment of your neighbors is a bit extreme. Never mind. It's such a good sign to hear you scold that I'm encouraged to think you'll soon be well again. Now I'll go down and be ready to open the door ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... stable, bidding Dick keep watch outside. Ridley too had heard a spiteful whisper or two, but it had seemed too preposterous for him to attend to it. "You are young, Hardcastle," he said, with a smile, "or you would know that there is nothing a grumbler will not say, nor how far men's tongues ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 'Now, grumbler,' retorted the intrepid child, putting her gloved hand suddenly over her father's mouth; Stanway submitted. The picture of the two in this delicious momentary contact remained long in Twemlow's mind; and he thought that Stanway could not be ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... little grumbler!" Lady O'Gara said with her infectious gaiety. "Come for a good trot. I know what will happen to you: you'll get chilblains if you sit by the fire in cold weather. Your hands will be dreadful to look at, and your feet will ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... own people; a poor bird will pull out its own feathers to cover another. But I can't complain; I have had bad days, but there are folks who have had worse. And the women have always been good to me. Bengta was a grumbler, but she meant it kindly; Karna sacrificed money and health to me—God be thanked that she didn't live after they took the farm from me. For I've been a landowner too; I had almost forgotten that in all my misery! Yes, and old Lise—Begging Lise, as they ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... a huge, good-natured, flax-headed lubber; lazy, sentimental, full of harmless brag, a grumbler by nature; an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar, and yet not a successful one, for he had had no intelligent training, but was allowed to come up just any way. This life was serious enough to him, and seldom satisfactory. But he was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... champion grumbler. "I did get a drink at Hasheen, but this poor brute I am riding didn't, so I leave the growling ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... at all. I had to crack him up; otherwise I couldn't have done the job so quickly. It's the easiest thing in the world to write laudation; only an inexperienced grumbler would declare it was easier to find fault. The book was Billington's "Vagaries"; pompous idiocy, of course, but he lives in a big house and gives dinners. Well, from 10.30 to 11, I smoked a cigar and reflected, feeling that the day wasn't badly begun. At eleven I was ready to write ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... point, "how will you protect your ten-acre farms from invidious neighbors, from wandering guerrillas?" We will advise them, dear grumbler, to protect themselves. That is one of the responsibilities which freemen have to take as the price of freedom. In the department of Norfolk, where seventeen thousand blacks are supporting themselves on scattered farms, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... is not the whole of the trouble. Not only is the watch-dog generally disliked, but he is in danger of being turned from what he ought to be, into a gruff old grumbler. You cannot go on perpetually barking out warnings without getting a hoarse note into your voice, and that makes you compare very ill with the parlour dog and his charming manners, or with the sporting dogs who go out and attend ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... young bride in a bumper, and drank perdition to her under his breath. He made responses of smothered maledictions as her father gave her away in the chapel, and my lord vowed to love, honour and cherish her. He was not the only grumbler respecting that marriage, as Mr. Warrington knew: he heard, then and afterwards, no end of abuse of my lady and her grandfather. The old gentleman's City friends, his legal adviser, the Dissenting clergyman at whose chapel they attended ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... consolation his three daughters could find in the first fervour of their grief. Time was when they had been apt to confess to one another that papa was occasionally rather "trying," a vague expression which scarcely involved a lapse of filial duty on the part of the grumbler. But to hear them to-day one would have supposed that they had never been tried; that life with Lord Calderwood in a small house in Chapel-street, Mayfair, had ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... sympathize with a middle-aged grumbler, who, after reading Mr. Palgrave's memoir and introduction, should exclaim, 'Why was there not such an edition of Scott when ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... a grumbler born," he said, "and so fond of it that you squeal before you're hurt, just for the pleasure of squealing. One thing I can tell you, for Mister Daniel said it in so many words: he's the same in politics as his father; ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... fine enough," said Ned, who was rather a grumbler, as, having finished his groom-like operation, he now slowly mounted. "D—-it, Oliver! [The moon] looks out as broadly as if he were going to blab. For my part, I love a dark night, with a star here and ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... either. The only remedy would be for me to give the house up. Which would he absurd. My wife soothes me and says that of course I shall get used to the clock. I shall never get used to it. Lately she has ceased even to mention the clock. My daughter thinks I am becoming a grumbler in my latter years. My son smiles indifferently. I admit that my son's secretary is more sympathetic. Like most people who are both idle and short of sleep, I usually look very well, spry and wideawake. My friends remark on my healthy appearance. You did. The popular mind cannot ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... delightful; nothing so entertains us as mimicry, the personation of character. We enjoy it in private. I confess that I am always pleased with the Parson in the character of grumbler. He would be an immense success on the stage. I don't know but the theatre will have to go back into the hands of the priests, who once ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of the crew gave a cheer at this, Ben Boltrope's lusty voice being conspicuously to the fore; but some, amongst whom was a lazy lout named Bill Moody, who was the chief grumbler in the forecastle, expressed their discontent audibly; saying that they "hadn't signed articles to be ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... paying any attention to it: but when he set off at a gallop, he perceived, that his grenadiers were galloping after him, and stopped. "What do you do there?" said he to one of them: "Go about your business!" The old grumbler[92], who knew that apprehensions were entertained for the life of his general, appeared disposed not to obey. The Emperor then took hold of him by his hairy cap, and, giving it a hearty shake, repeated with a smile his order to him to retire: "Go all of you away: ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... horrible language in which they reproached me because one o' 'em had managed t' break a front tooth in biting a bit o' th' salt pork they'd had for dinner, which was certainly no fault o' mine, when one of 'em, an English chap he was, an' the worst grumbler ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... The minds of the grumbler, the gossip, the thief, the criminal, are poor, empty, starved, wayward minds, and their brains are small, poorly nourished, sickly brains. The young wife with a moment of leisure who has a starved, empty mind, is a victim of her passions, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... harvest that the President has boldly led our attention in his admirable Proclamation of Amnesty. It is to the details of it that each loyal man has to look already. It is but a few weeks since we heard a sentimental grumbler, at a public meeting, lamenting over the discomforts of the freed slaves in the Southwest, as he compared them with their lost paradise. Men of his type, to whom the present is always worse than the past, succeed in persuading themselves that the incidental ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... drizzle; but this cannot redeem a grumbler. Plump he sits down in the warmth of its very blaze, and complains that it snaps, perhaps, or that it is oak and maple, when he paid for all hickory. You can trust him to put out your wood-fire for you as effectually as a water-spout. And, if even a wood-fire, bless it! cannot outshine ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... continuing to shout, and when Pisani issued out from the palace, he was seized and carried in triumph to his house in San Fantino. As he was passing the Campanile of Saint Mark, his old pilot, Marino Corbaro, a remarkably able seaman, but a perpetual grumbler against those in authority, met him, and elbowing his way through the crowd, drew close to him, loudly shouting at the ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... you, old grumbler? You shall stay here and guard the lady, if you are so much afraid of your beautiful self; and I will ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... porridge. He did not relish in his mouth the same thing that the wind was distributing impartially into ears and eyes. He said he could take in—at the pores—enough of that to suit his liking. But he was no grumbler, as a rule. He worked hard and incessantly, Colonel Barter determining to keep his men of the Yorkshire Light Infantry quite up to the mark. It was necessary to take every precaution against surprise, ...
— 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
... The grumbler followed, but, no sooner was he alone with stout Woodes, than the captain sprang upon him with the agility of a leopard. He was thrown to the ground, held, and bound by two officers. Then he was stripped and whipped ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... the like of which never was seen. When you handle any matter in which he takes an interest, then his eyes, his lips, his hands, everything about him speaks. You would be quite wrong to picture in him an everlasting grumbler. Not at all; he laughs with those who laugh, he chats and jokes with children, he rallies his housekeeper."[139] He was not so civil to all the world, and occasionally turned upon his pursuers with a word of most sardonic roughness.[140] But ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... it," quoth the Saxon, even in that day a grumbler; "but I take it, the main difference between thee and me is, that I can say what mislikes me out like a man; and it would fare ill with thy limbs or thy life if thou wert as frank in the grim land ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... republican. He saw more in the English Constitution to admire than Americans generally did; although, while he respected English institutions, he had small liking for Englishmen, as they had for him. In truth, he was a born grumbler, and a censorious critic. He did not like anybody very much, except his wife, and, beyond his domestic circle, saw more faults than virtues in those with whom he was associated. Even with his ardent temperament he had not those warm friendships ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... guise of just recognition of work done. Words of complaint, whether heard or read, strike a discord to one who himself at the moment is satisfied with his surroundings. We all have an instinctive shrinking from the tones of a grumbler. Nelson's insistence upon his grievances has no exemption from this common experience; yet it must be remembered that these assertions of the importance of his own services, and dissatisfaction with the terms ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... repining, taking on &c v.; heart-burning, heart-grief; querulousness &c (lamentation) 839; hypercriticism. inquietude, vexation of spirit, soreness; worry, concern, fear &c 860. [person who is discontented] malcontent, grumbler, growler, croaker, dissident, dissenter, laudator temporis acti [Lat.]; censurer, complainer, fault-finder, murmerer^. cave of Adullam^, indignation meeting, winter of our discontent [Henry VI]; with what I most enjoy contented ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... far from being as nattle and querulous as the famous ill-natured grumbler so racily pictured by Benjamin Preston, of Bradford; but, like most of the dwellers upon earth, she was a little bit touched with the same complaint. When the rain was over, we came away. I cannot say that the ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... cher grumbler, for I have two ears, and while Sir Lionel's rather mournful notes entered first; your pretty nothings were blown in upon them so quickly, by some more mirthful sprite as to send his to my memory, while yours are in my ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... that you would bring that argument forward, you incorrigible grumbler," laughed Sir Percy good-humouredly. "Let me tell you that if you start to-morrow from Paris in that spirit you will run your head and Armand's into a noose long before you reach the gate of Neuilly. I cannot allow either ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... superior, however it may be expressed. Loyalty means that you are for your organization and its officers and noncommissioned officers—not against them; that you always extend your most earnest and hearty support to those in authority. No soldier is a loyal soldier who is a knocker or a grumbler or a shirker. Just one man of this class in a company breeds discontent and dissatisfaction among many others. You should, therefore, not only guard against doing such things yourself but should discourage such actions among any of ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... don't say that," cried the boy. "I've always been a discontented grumbler ever since I've been here, Joe. But, I say, don't call me Dyke. It sounds as if you were getting formal with me, and as if we were not as we used to be before you ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... the hot springs, and after the fashion of sailors were pretty ready at giving them names according to their peculiarities. One was "The Grumbler;" another "The Bear-pit." A whistling hissing spring became "The Squealer." One that gurgled horribly, "The Bubbly Jock;" whilst others were, "The Lion's Den," from the roaring sound; "The Trumpet Major;" and the noisiest of all, from which a curious clattering metallic sound ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... other position in life, develops the greatest inconsistencies in poor human nature. The grumbler of the day's march is very frequently the joker of the bivouac. The worse, at the expense of man's better qualities, are rapidly strengthened, and the least particle of selfishness, however concealed by a generous ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... was at the old shop. There's a great deal of business done here, and very little time to talk to anyone in the shop. But many girls have worse things to put up with than I have, and I won't make you think I'm a grumbler." ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... GRUMBLER. A discontented yet often hard-working seaman. Also, the gurnard, a fish of the blenny kind, which makes a rumbling noise when struggling to disengage itself on reaching ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... constitutional grumbler, it was with the greatest difficulty that Moodie could get him to do anything beyond bringing a few pails of water from the swamp for the use of the house, and he often passed me carrying water up from the lake without offering ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... something of a nuisance, and if people don't take lemon they can take tea as Li Hung Chang does. For a guest to have a preference and emphasize it, is downright rude. To be asked to a lady's house is glory enough for any one. The grumbler can go to a restaurant and take a cup and drink it up for ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... watching Are killing you outright; The evening dews are catching, And you're out every night. Why does that horrid grumbler, Old Inkpen, work ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... his brother-in-law as well as his cousin, and Isabella, Edward's consort, was his niece. Unluckily, the personality of the great earl was not equal to his pedigree or his estates. Proud, hard to work with, jealous, and irascible, he was essentially the leader of opposition, the grumbler, and the frondeur. When the time came for a constructive policy, Thomas broke down almost as signally as Edward himself. His ability was limited, his power of application small, and his passions violent and ungovernable. ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... about the unconscious power of thought waves, and certainly one grumbler can often spread dissatisfaction through an entire community. Perhaps the black looks which Ingred encountered from the disappointed tennis-players in her form turned into naughty sprites who whispered treason in the ears of the juniors, or perhaps it was a mere coincidence that mutiny suddenly ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... understand me in this matter. We have not a particle of sympathy with the ordinary grumbler, by which we mean that class of persons whose noses are not only stuck up at any and every encroachment on their worn-out ideas of what is right and wrong, but, like crabbed terriers, snap at the heels of every man that passes. Nor do we wish you to think that we place ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... Carnegie that I am "not" a grumbler, as I don't want to run the risk of having the door of heaven shut in my face when he succeeds ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... thing, you old grumbler, it is quite certain he cannot do worse than you do. My jaws ache now with trying to eat the food you gave us this morning. Another week and you would have starved the whole ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... I lave the bit o' ground me father had? Av ye offered me a hundhred acres o' land for nothin' elsewhere, I vow to God I would rather stay on the bit o' rock that grows heath and gorse, if I could only get a crust out iv it, far sooner," said the grumbler. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... happy face would put to shame the most inveterate grumbler. Her buoyant spirits were infectious. Her ringing, merry laugh was cheering to ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... favourites gorge themselves in luxurious plenty, while he nurses his hunger, but would a thousand times rather pay allegiance to those who save him from absolute starvation? And Zaphnath, in his nightly wanderings and his daily errands of espionage, thinkest thou he overhears a public grumbler who fails to curse him and his Pharaoh, and to extol the men from the Blue Star, and the unfortunate farmer, who, until now, has been able to give the people work ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... understand that his life during his tenure of it cannot have been a pleasant one. Every crank with an infallible recipe for catching sunbeams in cucumber-frames and turning them into potatoes, or whatever might be the fashionable food at the moment; every grumbler who imagined that every rise in prices must be entirely due to the malignity of men and not to the scarcity of the article; every politician with a grudge to satisfy or an axe to grind—all these pounced upon Lord DEVONPORT as a victim made ready to their ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... Turned. Wanted—an Owner.—Some Account of certain Bones found in a Vault beneath Rothwell Church. History of the Prussian Court and Aristocracy. Bertha's Love. Carpiana. Lorenzo Benomi. Chimney Pots. By a Grumbler. Emily Orford. Part I. Mahomet's Song. Belgium, Leopold, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... be an Admiral, would he suspect that he owed this elevation to the man who, strictly obeying the ship's orders, never even spoke to the man at the wheel? Now to come to the next point. This correspondent girds at my having had a special cabin and a special steward. Why! the envious grumbler! if he had been as specially unwell as I was—but there, I own I lose patience with him—didn't I go out as a "Special," and if a Special doesn't have everything special about him, he is simply obtaining money under ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... an appointed time. Then, to the intense disappointment of the valiant young troops, the orders were countermanded and the whole army settled back into its quarters. Dick, who persistently refused to be a grumbler, knew that a cause must exist for such an action, but before he could wonder about it long Colonel Winchester told him, Warner and Pennington to have their horses saddled, and be ready to ride at a ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... character.[3233] Frequently no trouble is taken to find a suitable name, this being either Chrysale, Orgon, Damis, Dorante, or Valere. The name designates only a simple quality, that of a father, a youth, a valet, a grumbler, a gallant, and, like an ordinary cloak, fitting indifferently all forms alike, as it passes from the wardrobe of Moliere to that of Regnard, Destouche, Lesage or Marivaux.[3234] The character lacks the personal badge, the unique, authentic appellation serving as the primary stamp ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... gad-fly unseemly, I am certain that we must have here Old Reason, the grumbler, extremely Annoyed by our joy and our cheer. He tells us in tones of monition Of the clouds and the tempests to come: Let us drive him away to perdition, That he bore us no more with ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... of adversity to such straits? Some allowance must be made for the fact that these accounts come from those interested in the land, who were always ready to make the most of misfortune with a view to further protection, and the farmer is a notorious grumbler. It seems, however, that most landlords and tenants believed that the high prices would last for ever, and lived accordingly, and, as we have seen, many made no profit at all because of their increased burdens. As a matter of fact, both were grumbling because prices had ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... you both feel some affection for me, also—but you know, a new broom sweeps clean! People are willing enough at first, but things change with time. Besides, I may be in the way; newly married people love to be alone, and an old grumbler like me spoils the beauty of a cozy house. You will be afraid of my sharp words, grow ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... know full well that at first view some will be able to judge my artistic caprices low and flimsy, but they ought to know that it requires as much grace, art and nature to draw well a role of comedy as to represent a wise old grumbler." ("Selva ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... old grumbler, you stop that, please. If not 'please,' stop it anyway, because I'm your commander. You know why, and only why, my mother said 'no' to that bright scheme of yours." Then she explained to Ninian, who was listening closely: "You ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... a sincere republican, saw and dreaded for his country's sake the secret views and inordinate ambition of Bonaparte. He was a grumbler by nature; yet he never evinced discontent in the discharge of his duties as a soldier. He swore and stormed, but marched bravely to the cannon's mouth: he was indeed courage personified. One day when he was in the trench ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... further acquaintance he proved a very trying one. His temper was not of the stormy kind that reigned at Arundel, which had hitherto been Philippa's only idea of a bad temper: but he was a perpetual grumbler, and the slightest temporary discomfort or vexation would overcast her sky with conjugal clouds for the rest of the day. The least stone in his path was treated as a gigantic mountain; the narrowest brooklet as an unfathomable sea. And gradually—she ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... mutiny were and he drove those into the camp first. The others followed. In five minutes they were all at their places at table munching quietly. Another man, even with equal determination, might have not succeeded. But the greediest grumbler among them understood that this young man had first been as valiant to secure their rights as he was now ready to curb ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... remarked to the owners when he saw that Joe was this voyage to form one of his crew: "The old fellow would be worth his pay if he never put his hand to work. He keeps a crew in good humour with his yarns and stories; and if there is a grumbler on board he always manages to turn the laugh against him, and to show him to the others in his true light as a skulker and a sneak. He looks after the boys and puts them up to their duty, and acts generally ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... them at their own estimate; so they cry out upon this place and upon that, saying it does not know the things belonging to its peace and that it will be too late soon and that people will be very sorry then that they did not make more of the grumbler, whoever he may be, inasmuch as he will make it hot for them and pay ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... his Christmas annuals Charles Dickens delighted to portray the misanthropic grumbler who hated to see others enjoy themselves, and always laid himself out to be especially miserable at Christmas time, exaggerating the effects of the season by assuming a frozen aspect, and like an iceberg, chilling all around him; yet as the same iceberg when swept into the Gulf Stream finds the ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... slightly deformed, his face was distinctly ugly, broad, clean-shaven, with a pair of black, piercing eyes that gave him a most striking appearance. His grey hair was long, his nose aquiline, his teeth protruding and yellow; and he was a grumbler of the most pronounced type. He growled at the food, at the service, at the draughts, at the light in the restaurant, at the staleness of the bread we had brought with us from Paris, and at the butter, which he declared to be only ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... to hear you say it is miserable, Ralph. I was certainly thinking so myself; but you always accuse me of being a grumbler, so I thought I ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... kenned? Yesterday we were joined in same abode; * Conversing heedless of each envious friend:[FN192] Trickt us that traitor Time, disjoined our lot * And our waste home to desert fate condemned: Wouldst have me, Grumbler! from my dearling fly? * I find my vitals blame will not perpend: Cease thou to censure; leave me to repine; * My mind e'er findeth thoughts that pleasure lend. O Lords[FN193] of me who brake our troth and plight, * Deem not to lose your ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... criticise the Taj with the best of them, and especially well fitted just now to stand no nonsense. We met an American who was travelling as a matter of duty, and had found, as far as travel was concerned, I suspect, that he belonged to the class represented by the grumbler in paradise, whose "halo didn't fit his head exactly." He had found nothing in India, he said, but a lot of rubbish, but checked himself at once, "except the Taj. Now that building—that is—perfectly satisfactory," as if he had ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... same time a certain strain of romance which the other John Bulls of literature mostly lack, and which John Bunyan, the king of them all, only reached within the limits, still more limited than Borrow's, of purely religious, if not purely ecclesiastical, interests. A born grumbler; a person with an intense appetite for the good things of this life; profoundly impressed with, and at the same time sceptically critical of, the bad or good things of another life; apt, as he somewhere says himself, "to hit people when he is not pleased"; ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... writing to the Bishop of London: it is making a fuss, and looks as if I regretted the part I had taken on Church Reform, which I certainly do not—but I should be much annoyed if the Bishop were to consider me as a perpetual grumbler against him and his measures—I really am not: I like the Bishop and like his conversation—the battle is ended, and I have no other quarrel with him and the Archbishop but that they neither of them ever ask me to dinner. You see a good deal of the Bishop, and as you have always ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... papers had many imitations, as the Historian, here named; the Rhapsody, Observator, Moderator, Growler, Censor, Hermit, Surprize, Silent Monitor, Inquisitor, Pilgrim, Restorer, Instructor, Grumbler, &c. There was also in 1712 a Rambler, anticipating the name of Dr. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... tasks. Health was drawn with every breath of mountain air, and, judging from their faces, the seventh rule, "Be happy", seemed almost superfluous. Everyone looked radiant, even Mary Acton, who was a champion grumbler, and generally ready to complain of crumpled rose-leaves. After breakfast and service duty came drill, a more than usually formal affair, for Mr. Arnold himself reviewed them. He had great experience with the Boy Scouts, so the girls were anxious to ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... forthwith turns the world over into the hands of the cook. And into what better hands could you fall? To you, my fat, jolly, four-meals-a-day friend, Mr. Gourmand, but more especially to you, my somber, lean, dyspeptic, two-meals-a-day friend, Mr. Grumbler, the cook is indeed a valuable friend. The cook wields a scepter that is only second in power to that of love; and even love has become soured through the evil instrumentality of the good-looking or bad-cooking cook. This is no jest, it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... what was eaten. Yet our practical narrative cannot ignore the matter. Certain delicate subjects, however, are best treated dialectically, and perhaps we could not here do better than record a dialogue which we think we must have overheard between Grumbler and Cheerful, two dramatic characters not unknown to readers of the ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... Radical and his wife—the wife, who looked the very image of shame and malignity, did not say much, it is true, but encouraged her husband in all he said. Both of their own accord introduced the subject of Lavengro. The Radical called the writer a grumbler, just as if there had ever been a greater grumbler than himself until, by the means above described, he had obtained a place: he said that the book contained a melancholy view of human nature—just as if anybody could look in his face without having a melancholy view ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... paused, as if for judgment, he was not only acquitted of intentional disrespect; the last grumbler was anxious to ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... tried to dine. Don Ferdinando entered as usual, and sat mute through his unchanging meal; the grumbler grumbled and ate, as perchance he does to this day. I forced myself to believe that the food had a savour for me, and that the wine did not taste of drugs. As I sat over my pretended meal, I heard the sirocco moaning without, and at times a splash of rain against the window. Near ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... said that he "must reach C—— by a certain time or the consequences would be most disastrous." The fashionable lady wrapped herself in her furs and bestowed withering looks on the crying baby. The grumbler grumbled, and was sure somebody was to blame somewhere. The funny man bubbled and sparkled as usual, and sent rays akin to sunshine over lugubrious faces. The profane man opened his mouth and out came toads and scorpions, and the tobacco-chewers made dark pools on the floor to vex the ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... his rank, and this had a tendency to make him a grumbler. It needed only an appearance of tyranny or injustice to array him in spirit against the authorities of the ship. Shuffles knew his state of mind, and was prepared to take advantage of it, hoping through him to gain other discontented spirits ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... admirably the weekly communication between England and South Africa, are so powerful, handsome, and commodious, their captains and crews are so attentive and obliging, their food and cabin accommodation so ample and luxurious, that it seems impossible for anyone, excepting a confirmed grumbler, to find any reasonable fault with any of their arrangements, where all are so good. Passengers will select the particular vessel by which they desire to travel, rather by the convenience of the date fixed for sailing, than from any particular choice of the name of the steamer, either belonging ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young |
