"Grumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which was surrounded by the cells, the refectory, and the domestic buildings of the monks. The erection of the castle is dated in the twelfth century, and from this time we may consider the older abbey buildings around the church to have been deserted and left to ruin; but we can hardly grumble at a transfer which has given us so curious a combination of military and monastic architecture in the ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... time he had worried aloud about her task. Yet she was secretly troubled. It gave her a headache to climb down the four flights of stairs from their flat. The acrid dust of the city streets stung her eyes, the dissonant grumble of a million hurrying noises dizzied her, and she would stand on a street-corner for five minutes before daring to cross. When Father told her that all the buying was done, and awaiting her approval, ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... he made his report as cheerful as he could, but he could not make it a particularly brilliant one, although he did his best. He was one of those men who grumble at trifles, but are unusually bright and cheerful in the presence of a great emergency. The sneer had left his face, the cynical accent had disappeared from his voice; he employed all his social gifts, which were naturally great, for the entertainment ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... wonder I grumble at times, With women so pretty and plenty, To know that I never was born To figure as one of the Twenty; But yet, when the average lot With critical vision I scan, I think it may be for the best That I'm ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... regarded the late king's action with little favour. Lincoln, the wisest and most influential of the earls, even found reasons for the grant of Cornwall to Gaveston, and kept in check his son-in-law, Earl Thomas of Lancaster, who was the most disposed to grumble at the elevation of the Gascon favourite. Gilbert of Gloucester was but newly come to his earldom. He was personally attached to the king, his old playmate and uncle, and was not unfriendly to his Gascon brother-in-law. The recent concentration of ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... down to spin, points at Martha and says to Tars] It's not in her to be quiet. As I always say, we women must find something to grumble about. ...
— The Cause of it All • Leo Tolstoy
... "No sacrifice should be too great for the Fatherland, no privation, too arduous to be endured if one but has the spirit to conquer." He paid particular attention to the rapidly increasing number of people who grumble incessantly over the shortage of food. The good man was clearly losing ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... Legislature for ratification. Many of the charters and amendments came decidedly under Wolfe's ideas of "freak." But there are some extremes to which the machine dare not go, and it did not dare to go on record as against popular municipal government. Wolfe and his associates could and did grumble, but they did not dare refuse the several ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... 100 strings of beads. I wished to begin the exchange by being generous, and told his messenger so; then a small quantity of maize was brought, and I grumbled at the meanness of the present: there is no use in being bashful, as they are not ashamed to grumble too. The man said that Kabinga would send more when he had ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... be poisoned." Of course we had to be careful of spies, but I stuck the bottles in my pack when the officer wasn't looking. Well, we marched to the depot and were soon packed into the small uncomfortable coaches. We started to kick and grumble, but Rust said: "You are lucky to have coaches at all. Last time I went up I rode in a cattle-car," and he pointed out a lot of cars on which was painted "Capacity, so many horses, so many men." After that we hadn't anything more ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... man in 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 ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... out; some men did so from their hearts, admiring the Duke of Marlborough's prodigious talents, and deploring the disgrace of the greatest general the world ever knew: 'twas the stomach that caused other patriots to grumble, and such men cried out because they were poor, and paid to do so. Against these my Lord Bolingbroke never showed the slightest mercy, whipping a dozen into prison or into the pillory without the ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "When it ain't market day and ye haven't saved enough to buy a few papers or boxes of matches it does come hard. In winter the times is bad, but in summer we gets on fairish, and there ain't nothing to grumble about. Are you ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... arouse a perception of tone-quality in her pupils. Let the beauty of soft, light tone as contrasted with loud, harsh tone be once clearly demonstrated to a class, and the interest and best efforts of every girl or boy who has the germ of music within them will be enlisted. Those who grumble because they may not sing out good and loud may be disregarded, and with a clear conscience. The future will most likely reveal such incipient lovers of noisy music as pounders of drums ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... tinkle, mingle, sprinkle, twinkle, there is implied a frequency, or iteration of small acts. And the same frequency of acts, but less subtile by reason of the clearer vowel a, is indicated in jangle, tangle, spangle, mangle, wrangle, brangle, dangle; as also in mumble, grumble, jumble. But at the same time the close u implies something obscure or obtunded; and a congeries of consonants mbl, denotes a confused kind of rolling or tumbling, as in ramble, scamble, scramble, wamble, amble; but in ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... 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 his ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... itself each panoply With joints that grumble in revolt Maketh an angle with its knee, That creaketh ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... was to have little peace that night! Hardly had Dick finished his grumble and sauntered away, before her husband's step was ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... this. A stout vigilance for a short time will secure your certain happiness for ever. But every thing depends on your present exertions. Don't complain and take advantage of my absence, and call me a hard master, and grumble that you are placed in the midst of a howling wilderness, without peace or security. Say not, that you are exposed to temptations without any power to resist them. You have some difficulties, it is true; but you have many helps and many comforts ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... open, and the flies should find your meat, They’ll scarcely leave a single piece that’s fit for man to eat. But you mustn’t curse, nor grumble—what won’t fatten will fill up— For what’s out of sight is out of mind in an old ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... regularly every year. Before it is delivered, my speech (like the Queen's) is looked for as eagerly as if nothing of the kind had ever been heard before. When it is delivered, and turns out not to be the novelty anticipated, though they grumble a little, they look forward hopefully to something newer next year. An easy people to govern, in the Parliament and in the Kitchen—that's the moral of it. After breakfast, Mr. Franklin and I had a private conference on the subject of the Moonstone—the ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... quieted him down and got him home at last; and when he'd got home he was that dismal and depressed from the reaction that he sat in his armchair all day and did nothing but grumble and burst into tears, for, you see, he'd overdone it, and it was bound to tell upon him. But after that all his natural pluck and determination got hold of him again, and if he wasn't mad to have that dance that ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... couple of days before he began to pry around, and find fault, and grumble at the expense; and I saw there was danger of things relapsing into something like their former condition. So I took him one side, and ...
— The Man Who Stole A Meeting-House - 1878, From "Coupon Bonds" • J. T. Trowbridge
... after, as our little home at Middlemoor had been so very, very simple. Yes, I see now it must have been very hard upon her, for, instead of doing all I could to help her, I was quite taken up with my own part of it, and ready to grumble at and exaggerate ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... of experience and common sense, upon what factors their price seems mainly to depend? Two factors spring to mind at once; their cost of production and their usefulness. As regards the former, the case seems clear enough. We may indeed sometimes grumble that the price of this or that commodity is unconscionably high in comparison with its cost; but this only goes to show that we conceive a relation between price and cost as the normal, governing rule. If one commodity cost only a half ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... blankly at each other, and then the spokesman smiled. "Oh, well," he said, "if you have prohibited both of them, I don't see that we have anything to grumble at." ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... our orator, "the Rebels keep their best generals for their Home Guard. Lee and Early, and the rest of the crew, are lambs and sucking doves to Generals Starvation, Wear-'em-out, and Grumble,—especially that last-named fellow, who is the worst of the three, because he comes under our own colors, and we feel shy about firing on our own men. I believe we are all too apt to think that muscles are the vital forces, and that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... 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 be of good cheer, prophesying that Thorwald should not be her only husband, and ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... 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 wish ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... 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 trooped in a long procession all the scrofulous youths of the ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... or less, they give us 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 ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... that was shocking, there was a tremor in the air and the echo of a rumbling sound beneath the girl's feet. The crack of a distant explosion followed. Then another, and another, until the sound became a continual grumble of angry ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... is 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 horse races on ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... fancy the excitement into which that letter put me. I was half beside myself with glee, and if ever I despised a man, it was old Tom Redruth, who could do nothing but grumble and lament. Any of the under-gamekeepers would gladly have changed places with him; but such was not the squire's pleasure, and the squire's pleasure was like law among them all. Nobody but old Redruth would have dared so much as ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... debated warmly, it was not carried. They had already anchored, as it were, and they resolved to dine "starving," and to grumble all the time of dinner when no one subject was talked about except the friture. It was a miserable spectacle to witness, but confirming the proposition, not at all new, that the French care more about ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... 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. ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... and moment, and then letting his interest, as the vernacular says, 'tail off.' The trouble taken about Halbert by personages natural and supernatural promises the case of some extraordinary figure, and he is but very ordinary. Still, at the works of how many novelists except Scott should we grumble, if we had the admirable descriptions of Glendearg, the scenes in the Abbey, the night-ride of poor Father Philip, the escape from the Castle of Avenel, the passage of the interview of Halbert with Murray and Morton? Even the ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... very soon they had completed the work necessary for the protection of all. The tools of the enemy "casualties," the spades and picks left behind in deserted villages, were all gladly piled on to the French soldiers' knapsacks, to be carried willingly by the very men who used to grumble at being loaded with even the smallest regulation tool. As soon as night had set in on the occasion of a lull in the fighting, the digging of the trenches was begun. Sometimes, in the darkness, the men of each fighting ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... what's the 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 ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... might get good rain now, and, anyway, it wouldn't cost much to put the potatoes in. If they came on well, it would be a few pounds in my pocket; if the crop was a failure, I'd have a better show with Mary next time she was struck by an idea outside housekeeping, and have something to grumble about when I ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... was inevitable. No one expected the House to win. The defeat was no reflection on Gordon's leadership. The Chief, in fact, said to him: "We were much too small a side, Caruthers, but I think we put up a plucky fight. You haven't anything to grumble at. We did much better ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... it was only the head of the lance that went through my arm. Still, it made a hole big enough to be uncommonly painful; the more so because it gave it a frightful wrench as the man dropped the lance. However, there is nothing to grumble at; and I may consider myself lucky indeed to have got off with a flesh wound when so many good fellows ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... feel de drefful hunger, he tink it am a vice, And he gib me for my dinner a little broken rice,— A little broken rice and a bery little fat, And he grumble like de debbil if I eat ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... unintelligible bellowings, that he was to wait in that narrow damp lobby for the coming of his fellow- Commissioner, the grating on his feelings was even more discordant. He had not pluck enough left to grumble: but he grunted his displeasure. He grunted, however, in vain; for in about a quarter of an hour Alaric was close to him, shoulder to shoulder. He also wore a white jacket, &c., with a nightcap of mud and candle on his head; but somehow he looked as though ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... party collected, and the two Generals came in from some vanity of inspection to grumble a little merrily at the open air banquet, but to take their places in all good humour, and the lively meal began with all the home witticisms, yet not such as to exclude strangers. Indeed, Hubert Delrio was treated with something like distinction, and ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... us, ought to be ashamed of abetting him in it." Those were the thanks which honest Bows got for his friendship and his life's devotion. And I do not suppose that the old philosopher was much worse off than many other men, or had greater reason to grumble. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... risky game, and I lost. And I shall now take the consequences. With luck I should have won. I did not have luck, and I am not going to grumble about it. But I am grateful to you for letting me explain. I should not have liked you to go on thinking that I played practical jokes on my friends. That is all I have to say, I think. It was kind of you to listen. ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... who lived among the mountains with his wife and children; and so very poor was he that he often found it hard to give his family enough to satisfy their hunger. But he did not grumble; he only worked the harder; and his wife, though she had scarcely any furniture, and never a chance of a new dress, kept the house so clean, and the old clothes so well mended, that, all unknown to herself, she rose high in the ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... to the scarcity of business that now came my way, Theodore had little or nothing to do, and he was in very truth eating his head off, and with that, grumble, grumble all the time, threatening to leave me, if you please, to leave my service for more remunerative occupation. As if anyone else would dream of employing such an out-at-elbows mudlark—a jail-bird, Sir, if ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... cry, plaint; lungs; stentor. V. cry, roar, shout, bawl, brawl, halloo, halloa, hoop, whoop, yell, bellow, howl, scream, screech, screak^, shriek, shrill, squeak, squeal, squall, whine, pule, pipe, yaup^. cheer; hoot; grumble, moan, groan. snore, snort; grunt &c (animal sounds) 412. vociferate; raise up the voice, lift up the voice; call out, sing out, cry out; exclaim; rend the air; thunder at the top of one's voice, shout at the top of one's voice, shout at the pitch of one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... I hate to grumble, and I have, I believe, shouldered my share of the new taxes like a man, but I am not made of such stern stuff as to be superior to all human aid, and in my own case the mortification of non-combating, which ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... thought Cecil; but she was too well bred to grumble, and she had her great work to carry on of copying and illustrating ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... arrived at the station at Plum Creek, the coach was a little ahead of time, and the driver who was there to relieve ours commenced to grumble at the idea of having to start out before the regular hour. He found fault because we had come into the station so soon, and swore he could drive where our man could not "drag a halter-chain," as he claimed in his boasting. We at once took a dislike to him, ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... sister. "Three for Miss Garth. None for mamma. One for me. And the other six all for papa. You lazy old darling, you hate answering letters, don't you?" pursued Magdalen, dropping the postman's character and assuming the daughter's. "How you will grumble and fidget in the study! and how you will wish there were no such things as letters in the world! and how red your nice old bald head will get at the top with the worry of writing the answers; and how many of the answers you will leave until ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... There are harbour dues and regulations, and other taxes. But the people are not taxed—only the traders. When the copra tax was levied, I lowered the purchasing price accordingly. Then the people began to grumble, and Feathers of the Sun passed a new law, setting the old price back and forbidding any man to lower it. Me he fined two pounds and five pigs, it being well known that I possessed five pigs. You will find them entered in the ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... till Eustace came home alone, only just in time for a late dinner, and growled out rather crossly that Harold had chosen to walk home, and not to be waited for. Eustace himself was out of sorts and tired, eating little and hardly vouchsafing a word, except to grumble at us and the food, and though we heard Harold come in about nine o'clock, he did not come in, but went up ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... one time on marches, as night is the only time for cooking. The decrees of an order for a detail are inexorable. A soldier must take it as it comes, for none ever know but what the next duties may be even worse than the present. As a general rule, soldiers rarely ever grumble at any detail on the eve of an engagement, for sometimes it excuses them from a battle, and the old experienced veteran never ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... may grumble a little—but I'll be on the lookout for any move. I'll see to that. I'll teach 'em a lesson as to how far they can push this business of shorter hours and equal pay. It's the unskilled workers who are mostly affected, you understand, and they're not organized. If we can keep ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... from his surprise Croisset had passed swiftly through the door. The engineer called his name, but there came no response other than the rapidly retreating sound of the Northerner's moccasined feet. With a grumble of vexation he sank back on his pillows. The fresh excitement had set his head in a whirl again and a feverish heat mounted into his face. For a long time he lay with his eyes closed, trying to clear for himself the mystery of the preceding night. The one thought which obsessed ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... War-clerk, of Momoros, Dobsents, and such like: all intent to have Churches plundered, to have Reason adored, Suspects cut down, and the Revolution triumph. Perhaps carrying the matter too far? Danton was heard to grumble at the civic strophes; and to recommend prose and decency. Robespierre also grumbles that in overturning Superstition we did not mean to make a religion of Atheism. In fact, your Chaumette and Company constitute a kind of Hyper-Jacobinism, or rabid 'Faction des Enrages;' ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... It was, according to Lark's secret information, only the "smart and would-be smart set" who had combined to spring this mine upon the management. The rest grumbled no more than it was normal for all pleasure-pilgrims to grumble; and as, roughly speaking, the contented travellers were all going on to Palestine after a week's wild sightseeing in Cairo, the colonel might be allowed to continue his voyage without the interruption of ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... 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 in most cases to make little ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... she became savage. Below, dreadfully near, she could hear the broom-swish of Aunt Bessie's voice, and the mop-pounding of Uncle Whittier's grumble. She had a reasonless dread that they would intrude on her, then a fear that she would yield to Gopher Prairie's conception of duty toward an Aunt Bessie and go down-stairs to be "nice." She felt the demand for standardized behavior coming in ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... straw. Mutiny had long been smouldering. The hardships of the voyage, the terrific Atlantic storms, the prospect of a long Antarctic winter of inaction on that wild Patagonian coast—these alone caused officers and men to grumble and to demand an immediate return ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... took lodgings in another part of the city, quite as poor a place, but there no one had the right to grumble at him. Still, because she was some relation to Mat, he gave Grandma Rugg full half of his money, but he never remained inside her doors longer ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... 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
... and the door reply, The hall wake, yawn, and smile; the torpid stair Will grumble at our feet, the table cry: 'Fetch my belongings for me; I am bare.' A clatter! Something in the attic falls. A ghost has lifted up his robes and fled. The loitering shadows move along the walls; Then silence very slowly lifts his head. The starling with impatient screech has ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... the quiet and stable home life of an island people, have done more than anything to make the Englishman a deceptive personality to the outside eye. He has for centuries been permitted to grumble. There is no such confirmed grumbler—until he really has something to grumble at, and then no one who grumbles less. There is no such confirmed carper at the condition of his country, yet no one really ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... now," replied Zeb, "or you'd shovel dirt under fire to the last hour of your enlistment. I'd give grumblers like you something to grumble about. See here, fellows, I'm sick of this seditious talk in our mess. The Connecticut men are getting to be the talk of the army. You heard a squad of New Hampshire boys jeer at us to-day, and ask, 'When are ye going home to mother?' You ask, Zeke Watkins, ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... grumble a little. One poor fellow, with a bullet through his lungs, took high and strong ground against the meat:—"Oh! God love ye! how could a body eat it, swimming in fat? but the eggs, they was beautiful; and the toast ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... one of the foremost men in the city; he has broad and liberal ideas, and none of the jealousy of us Flemings that is so common among the citizens, although my countrymen more directly rival him in his trade than they do many others who grumble at us, though they are in no way injured ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... disaster, but a matter for sincere congratulation that the British prosperous and the British successful, to whom warning after warning has rained in vain from the days of Ruskin, Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, should be called to account at last in their own household. They will grumble, they will be very angry, but in the end, I believe, they will rise to the opportunities of their inconvenience. They will shake off their intellectual lassitude, take over again the public and private affairs they have come to leave ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... but can you say that these proofs are not in my hands? Should you, however, desire to buy them, you are at liberty to do so. I give you the first option, and yet you grumble." ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... grumble, those old salts, for as soon as one had shot off his grievance his neighbour would follow with another, each more ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Libby, and affording food for speculation to Mrs. Barnes over her knitting. In the winter Captain Ephraim polished him up in his old tricks, and taught him some new ones. But by this time he had grown so big that Mrs. Barnes began to grumble at him for taking up too much room. He was, as ever, a model of confiding amiability, in spite of his ample jaws and formidable teeth. But one day toward spring he showed that this good nature of his would not stand the test of seeing ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... humorous, wild or tame, Lofty or low, 'tis all the same, Too haughty or too humble; And every editorial wight Has nought to do but what is right, And let the grumblers grumble. ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... ashamed to name him, for fear you should be angry with me for doing so. It is—it is the pig! The resemblance is not exactly a flattering one to you, perhaps, but we are all alike, and it would be worse than foolish to grumble at being created as we are. Moreover, there is one difference; the pig, who thinks of nothing but eating, has a very much larger stomach than we have, which is some consolation, at ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... that you had been jingling in your hand. You are to experience some difficulty in finding it again, move about a little to force any one that may be lurking by the garage to retreat around the corner. Grumble a bit and make a little noise; but you are not to overdo it—a couple of minutes at the outside is enough, by that time I shall be under the car seat. You will then run the machine out to the street and ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... now changed, and not for the better. Still, if any one has no right to grumble, it is the archaeologist, because the building of these suburban quarters has placed more knowledge at his disposal than could have been gathered before in the lapse of a century. I quote only one instance. Famous in the annals of Roman excavations are those made ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... Scold, find fault, grumble,—Mr Hasnip was just as if his breakfast had not agreed with him because he got up too early; and at last I was back in my seat, with my face burning, my head aching, and a general feeling of misery ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... now so fully occupied that she could not go out to work in families, as she had been wont to do, but the money paid by her boarders more than compensated for that. Her heart, as well as her hands, was quite full, and having no time to brood over her fallen condition, she did not worry and grumble so much as formerly, and was happier than she had ever been since the doctor died and left her to battle with the world alone. And thus she learned to realize the ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... effect was to stretch him out upon the deck senseless and bleeding. The sound of his fall disturbed one or two of the rest—all of whom were sprawled out inertly upon the foredeck, in the midst of empty and overturned bottles and pannikins—just sufficiently to cause them to raise their heads and grumble out a few unintelligible words; but we had no difficulty whatever with them, and in less than half an hour we had the whole of them securely bound, hand and foot, and lying at our mercy. Having reduced ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... life why they should get a meal ready merely because a timepiece says twelve o'clock. Let them wait until a man's hungry," he would grumble. Then, arrived at the cabin, he would be all courtesy ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... expect to be heard and despatched at all hours and at all seasons, come what will, attending only to their own affairs; and if the poor devil of a judge does not hear and despatch them, either because it is not in his power, or it happens to be an unseasonable time for giving audience, then they grumble and backbite, gnaw him to the very bones, and even bespatter his whole generation. Ignorant man of business! foolish man of business! be not in such a violent hurry; wait for the proper season and conjuncture, and come not at meals and sleeping-time; for judges are made of flesh and blood, and ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... 'March'—and you sha'n't be allowed to put your feet in London a day earlier," said Mary, laying her head on Catharine's knee. "You needn't grumble. Next week you'll have your fells and your becks—as much Westmoreland as ever you want. Only ten days more here," and this time it was Mary who sighed, ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ever the Downs have come to stand as a symbol of an England half lost, which might seem to be passing away, but that is, as indeed these hills assure us, eternal and indestructible, the very England of our hearts, which cannot die. There are some doubtless who grumble at this invasion and are fearful lest even this last nobility should be destroyed by the multitude or this last sanctuary desecrated by the rapacity of the rich, or this last silence broken by the brutal noise of the motor car. But the Downs are too strong, they have seen too many civilisations ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... fairer. We must hope that yesterday's curious little moon may have changed our luck. All day it continued finer, and in the afternoon the wind freshened, and shifted a point or two for the better, sending us along, at higher speed and right on our course; so that we must not grumble, though the motion was ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... the woods to Grandpa Grumble's house; for, sure enough, Bunny and Susan had gone to bed and turned out all ...
— Snubby Nose and Tippy Toes • Laura Rountree Smith
... into the infinite aeons. Everything in this world is but temporary: why should temporary help be undervalued? Would you not pull out a drowning bather because he will bathe again to-morrow? The only question is—DOES IT HELP? Jonah might grumble at the withering of his gourd, but if it had not grown at all, would he ever have preached to Nineveh? It set the laird on a Pisgah-rock, whence he gazed into ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... the men of the column in the roadway seem of a luminous quality. It imparted to the heavy infantry overcoats a new colour, a kind of blue which was so pale that a regiment might have been merely a long, low shadow in the mist. However, a muttering, one part grumble, three parts joke, hovered in the air above the thick ranks, and blended in an undertoned roar, which was the voice ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... fine weather i' Lincoln," was Dan's dry answer. "Up at smithy, it's none so bad neither—yet. Just a touch of thunder we had this morning,—a bit of a grumble i' th' distance like: but I've known worser storms a deal. ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt
... and utterly crushing the power of Charles in the field. Among the 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 and ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... its ease at home and earning extravagantly high war-time wages while middle-aged bread-winners in England were compulsorily called to the colours; but the marvellously easy-going disposition of Englishmen submitted to the injustice with no more than a legitimate grumble. ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... the very mildest beer, and live on very plain food, and never lose your temper, and go to church every Sunday, and always remain content in the position in which Providence has placed you, and never grumble nor swear; and always keep your clothes decent, and rise early, and use every opportunity of improving yourself, you will get on very well, and never come ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... "50" in a report. We had to stand back, and see about one quarter of our number march out and away home. We could not complain at this—much as we wanted to go ourselves, since there could be no question that these poor fellows deserved the precedence. We did grumble savagely, however, at Captain Bowes's venality, in selling out chances to moneyed men, since these were invariably those who were best prepared to withstand the hardships of imprisonment, as they were mostly new men, and all had good clothes and blankets. ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... "What call has Parmiter to have such a desperate spite against Burke? He got a lickin', in course, but what's a lickin' to a Englishman? Rot it all, the youngster en't a bad matey. He've led a dog's life, that he have, and I've never heard a grumble, nary one; ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... meat, all on credit. The bills increased everywhere at the rate of three and four francs a day. She had not paid a sou to the furniture dealer nor to the three comrades, the mason, the carpenter and the painter. All these people commenced to grumble, and she was no longer greeted with the same ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... of the room above the arch of the caravansary waddled to the far end of the cloister, and sat down, cross-legged, to grumble to himself and scratch his paunch at intervals. His master, low-browed and irritable, continued to strike the stone column with his cane. He was in ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... they think?" Her cheeks were unexplainably scarlet. "If I choose to trust you to take care of me, why should they grumble? And I won't have to spend the night. You don't know how strong I am. I'm very strong. I don't feel tired. We'll go back by moonlight. There's ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... when the Americans began to grumble. "You must go at once, or take the consequences," he exclaimed; and the prisoners saw that it ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... not hesitate to employ all the means in his power to aid them. In return, the soldier professes for his officer an affection, a devotion, a sort of filial respect. Discipline, he knows, must be severe, and he does not grumble at its penalties. In battle, he does not abandon his chief; he watches over him, will die for his safety, will not let him fall into the hands of the enemy if wounded. At the bivouac he makes the officer's fire, though his own should die for want of fuel; cares for his horse, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... As for food, we grumble at times, just as people at home are grumbling at the Savoy, or Lockhart's. It is the Briton's habit so to do. But in moments of repletion we are fain to confess that the organisation of our commissariat is wonderful. Of ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... duties for all. There are opportunities everywhere. Every one of them is a test of love. Brother, sister, how does your love stand the test? Love will not grumble; it will not complain; it will not shrink from service. Do you love as fervently ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... Lincoln sent for Senator Zack Chandler of Michigan, and proposed a compromise. "General Rosecrans," said he, "has a great many friends; he fought the battle of Stone River and won a brilliant victory, and his advocates begin to grumble about his treatment. Now, I will tell you what I have been thinking about. If you will confirm Schofield in the Senate, I will remove him from the command in Missouri and send him down to Sherman. That will satisfy the radicals. Then I will send Rosecrans ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... have some saving 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 "to the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... you to make fun of me," cried Esau, throwing himself down. "Now then, if you want to quarrel again, go it. I shan't grumble." ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... Brussels where 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," the much- grumbled-at, who ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... victory of Bunker's Hill (as we used to call it in those days), the nation flushed out in its usual hot-headed anger. The talk was all against the philosophers after that, and the people were most indomitably loyal. It was not until the land-tax was increased, that the gentry began to grumble a little; but still my party in the West was very strong against the Tiptoffs, and I determined to take the ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... straight, nowadays; and even God in heaven creates His things no longer straight, and does not shrink from letting the peach-stones grow crooked. But no matter—what God does is well done," added the emperor, crossing himself devoutly; "even an emperor must not censure it, and must not grumble when his cup is not straight because God gave the peach- stone a hump. Well, perhaps, I may change it yet, and ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... comin' round him to get your daughters to keep house for him, and your sons edicated and made priests of; but now that the child takes a ginteel relish for beef and mutton, and wants to be respected, ye are mane an' low spirited enough to grumble about it." ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... thinking that to grumble in the presence of that rich, despotic personality would require ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... satisfactory or hard-working officers. Yet they and their like continued to get advancement. Ordinances might be passed from time to time, requiring age or length of service, but ordinances in old France did not apply to the great. The poorer nobility might grumble, but the court families continued to get the good places. The lieutenant-colonels and the other working officers of the army had but little chance of rising to be general officers. Even before the order of ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... your fetter, for it is the only thing that makes life worth living. None are happy, none are good, none are respectable, that are not gyved like us. And I must tell you, besides, it is very dangerous talk. If you grumble of your iron, you will have no luck; if you ever take it off, you will be instantly smitten by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 to be ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... life; and there is now a decorum in vice, a respectability among the disreputable, a pure spirit of Philistinism among the waifs and strays of thy Bohemia. For lo! thy very gravediggers talk politics; and thy castaways kneel upon new graves, to discuss the cost of the monument and grumble at the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... make Ned's stay a sort of continuous fete to everybody. She put on no airs over the 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 the inconvenience ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... Satisfaction, and fell to work might and main: and continued at it for near two years together, felling Timber, and fetching it out of the Woods, laying Foundations, hewing Stone, till they were almost killed with labour. And being wrought quite tyred, they began to accuse and grumble at one another for having been the occasion of all this toil. After they had laboured thus a long while, and were all discouraged, and the People quiet, the King sent word to them to leave off. And now it lies unfinished, all the Timber brought in, rots upon ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... hold them, and who talked of erecting a statue to the liberty-loving Irishwoman when Italy should be free. Dublin naturally seemed rather dull after all the excitement and delights of a London season, but Lady Morgan, though she loved to grumble at her native city, had not yet thought of turning absentee herself. Her popularity with her countrymen (those of her own way of thinking) had suffered no diminution, and her national celebrity was proved by the following verse from a ballad which ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... behaved as an American People's Club knows so well how to behave; dispersed quietly, without a grumble, or a recollection of the half value of the tickets lost. Miss Kent's carriage drove rapidly from a side door. In two hours, she was on board the night train down ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... primaries, who speak of politics to their neighbors, as members and parts of the machine, and regard only those as good and reliable American citizens who take no part whatever, simply reserving the right to grumble after the work has been done by others. Not much can be accomplished in politics without an organization, and the moment an organization is formed, and, you might say, just a little before, leading spirits will be developed. Certain men will take the lead, and the weaker men will ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... some of the crew began to grumble at the presence of the passengers. Food was running low, and a certain amount of care was required to prevent them from escaping. The upshot of it was that your parents were put ashore on Double Island, with a fairly good amount ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... or painting despises the ladies and gentlemen who treat those arts as fashionable accomplishments. An author was, according to him, a man who turned out books as a bricklayer turns out houses or a tailor coats. So long as he supplied a good article and got a fair price, he was a fool to grumble, and a humbug to ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... you recollect they used to play at cricket In the bye-streets years ago, With a broomstick for a bat, a coat for wicket? Now the Bobbies hunt them so! The old ladies grumble at their skipping; The old gents object to their tip-cat; So they squat midst slums that shine like dirty dripping, Not knowing what the dickens to be at. And the young Town Children, O my brothers, Do you ask them why they stand Making mud-pies, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... linnets, 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 and country. Song-sparrows, ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... he had never dreamed—and he began to see that the only reason these men could do these things was that they dared to do them. Well, he too—he and Allan—would dare some things...He paid a dollar for their lunch without a grumble, and again they took ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... back to the job they found the 'coddy' in the kitchen, looking for them and he began to talk and grumble, but the Semi-drunk soon shut him up: he told him he could either have a drink out of one of the bottles or a punch in the bloody nose—whichever he liked! Or if he did not fancy either of these alternatives, he could ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... trawler discharging fish in the Humber on a wet December morning is no more desolating than was the look of Celestine under the mountains of Bougie; and Bougie, if you have a memory for the coloured posters, is in the blue Mediterranean. But do I grumble? I do not. With all the world but slops, cold iron, and squalls of sleet, I ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... it is easy to grumble, and especially in a cheerful, open, light, and smiling city, crammed with works Of art, ancient and modern, its architecture a study of all styles, and its foaming beer, said by antiquarians to be a good deal ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... in these things; but he did not for a moment think that any one acting with him would have dealings with Glump. On the Saturday morning, when the case was still going on, to the great detriment of Baron Grumble's domestic happiness, Glump had not yet been caught. It seemed that the man had no wife, no relative, no friend. The woman at whose house he lodged declared that he often went and came after this fashion. The respect with which ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... dare say you ain't; but if she's willing, you ain't no occasion to grumble, 's I see. She ain't a-going to hear of your starting out hot-foot, 's if she wouldn't keep you. It'd look bad for the reputation of ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... 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
... especially "Knees Up!" seems to have been of a pretty severe kind, for it draws from Baden-Powell the exclamation, "I'd like to kill him who invented it—but it does us all a power of good." That is the saying of the old soldier. In the barrack-room it is considered the right thing to grumble, or "grouse" as it is called, while one is working hardest. Thus the man with a jack-boot on his left arm and a polishing brush in his right hand—going like lightning,—the sweat running down his red ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... assorted, ill cooked, cold, and calculated to make one extremely ill, but no doubt costing a great deal of money, time, and anxiety to the givers of the feast. Then we fall to grumbling, and are discontented with having too much, but having acquired a habit of expecting it we grumble still more if there is not as much ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... Now, when a wight Sits up all night Ill-natured jokes devising, And all his wiles Are met with smiles, It's hard, there's no disguising! Oh, don't the days seem lank and long When all goes right and nothing goes wrong, And isn't your life extremely flat With nothing whatever to grumble at! ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... to grumble and complain, It's jest as cheap and easy to rejoice; When God sorts out the weather and sends rain, Why, rain's ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... by way of punishment for his having dared to purchase the coat of one of the servants belonging to the electoral household, for he must know that it is not the lackey's but electoral property. But if the Jew ventures to grumble, then say to him that I shall have him watched and his false dealings inquired into. When you have obtained the coat, carry it to the master of the wardrobe, and tell him to release Jocelyn from the guardhouse and permit him to wear ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... say, the best shot of the party. We had been unsuccessful, however, on several occasions, and though there was no famine in the camp, we had very little meat fit to eat; while our black attendants were beginning to grumble greatly at being placed on short commons. This made us more than ever anxious to get some game. We had scoured the country towards the south for some distance, and falling in with no animals, we were induced to proceed further off than usual. The country over which we were passing ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... "If you have the sense to keep out of his 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 ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... there, missy, an' its only half what he desarves the whole of us together could give him, but shure, if we give him all we're able, an' our good intinshions along wid that, he won't be the man to grumble ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... 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 property or real estate, and it ought to be called the widower's ...
— 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.
... but though a very unbending viceroy, a must from the reigning baronet had a potent effect on Markham, whether it was for good or evil. He might grumble, but he never disobeyed, and the boy he was used to scold and order had found that Morville intonation of the must, which took away all idea of resistance. He still, ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Dickie had been allowed to stroke the kitten on Nurse's lap; but it was not a cheerful carriageful that arrived shortly afterwards at the Vicarage, every one seemed to have something to grumble at ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... always right, and it is wicked to grumble. Still, if you saw what a hole it was,—past ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... alluding to those happy days in which another love was paramount. Camilla could not endure this with an equal mind. "Bella, dear," she said, "we know what all that means. He has made his choice, and if I am satisfied with what he does now, surely you need not grumble." Miss Stanbury's illness had undoubtedly been a great source of contentment to the family at Heavitree, as they had all been able to argue that her impending demise was the natural consequence of her great ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... the good woman. "But, there! how the baggage men do grumble at having to lug up big trunks ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... paragraphs you can easily scatter about; these attract booksellers, and booksellers will give advertisements where they find their works are noticed. Above all things, write cautiously concerning all localities; if you praise much, a hundred will grumble; if you are severe, one only may complain, but twenty will shake the head. You will have friends on one side of the water desiring one thing, friends on the other side desiring the reverse, and in seeking to please one you vex ten. An honest heart, a clear ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... troubled himself. Indeed, he had become so ailing and languid of late, that even the squire made only very faint objections to his desire for frequent change of scene, though formerly he used to grumble so much at the necessary expenditure ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... themselves and altogether unnoticeably, of course, to the casual glance, they cautiously right themselves; or, more correctly, fade until they grow a belly unto themselves, and acquire podagra and diseases of the liver. Then they grumble at the whole world; say that they were not understood, that their time was the time of sacred ideals. While in the family they are despots and not infrequently ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... extras to be audited, as possibly would have been the case had a hard-headed designer like Mr. Pierce been employed. The committee felt itself entitled to the congratulations of the community. Nor was the community on the whole disposed to grumble, for home talent had been employed by the architect; under rigorous supervision, to be sure, so that poor material and slap-dash workmanship were out of the question. Still, payments had been prompt, and Benham was able to ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... quieted down to a low-voiced grumble. He was letting the world know that the arrangement was not pleasing and that he didn't intend to suffer in silence. Cameras began to snap, recording for the folks back home the undignified ride of the lady tourist on the ungainly ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... material and social 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 its ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... Jack had carried the day captive in his audience at the mast, yet more than thirty-six hours elapsed ere anything official was heard of the "liberty" his shipmates so earnestly coveted. Some of the people began to growl and grumble. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... order with a grumble, looked from his unreliable horse to the frosty roadway, and was about to shake his head in definite negation when Max cajoled him with a more ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... his father. "He'd talk the hind leg off an elephant. When things need settling, I just settle them myself and leave him to grumble away ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... of the family, still obstinate, refused to profit by the old man's advice, and declared he was not right, and that he only liked to grumble ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... Do you grumble? Do you demur? (Exit servant hastily.) Do my very slaves conspire against me? Heaven, earth, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... diction into which we have now fallen, after all our abuse of the far more manly and sincere "poetic diction" of the eighteenth century; they will find no loitering by the way to argue and moralise, and grumble at Providence, and show off the author's own genius and sensibility; they will find, in short, two real works of art, earnest, melodious, self-forgetful, knowing clearly what they want to say, saying it in the shortest, the simplest, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... use may be forgiven. "The daughter's tragedy," I muttered, and considering it, philosophising according to my wont, I tried to reconcile myself to this visit. "After all," I said, "I am on my own business, therefore I have no right to grumble." ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore |
