"Grumbler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was on his way to Sofia. He seemed 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 ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... the pages of history, for they are the Spartans of the nineteenth century. They are swift to help those who need help, but unsparing with their scorn for those who are unworthy. The treatment meted out to the grumbler and mischief-maker usually presents more of the elements of comedy than anything else, and it is his own fault if he does not get off lightly. But if he cuts up rough, tries to strike or kick his drivers ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... 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 ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... 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 ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... 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 ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 to relieve me of the burden. Mary, the betrothed ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... the ranks, his escort had followed him without his 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: I am surrounded ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... 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 ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... Villemain, "Souvenirs contemporaines," vol. I., 137-156. ("Une visite a l'Ecole normale en 1812," Napoleon's own words to M. de Narbonne.) "Tacitus is a dissatisfied senator, an Auteuil grumbler, who revenges himself, pen in hand, in his cabinet. His is the spite of the aristocrat and philosopher both at once.... Marcus Aurelius is a sort of Joseph II., and, in much larger proportions, a philanthropist and sectarian in commerce with the sophists and ideologues of his ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... fame by the publication of his well-known poem, "Natterin' Nan," which first appeared in a Bradford journal in 1856. This is a vigorous piece of dramatic realism, setting forth the character of a Yorkshire scold and grumbler with infinite zest and humour. But it is in pathos that the genius of Preston chiefly consists. In poems like "Owd Moxy," "T' Lancashire Famine," and "I niver can call her my wife," he gives us pictures of the struggle that went on in the cottage-homes of the West Riding ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... all who had the better luck to belong to the expeditionary force. That they were not under orders for the East was the daily burden of complaint in every barrack-room and guard-house upon the Rock. The British soldier is an inveterate grumbler; he quarrels perpetually with his quarters, his food, his clothing, and his general want of luck. Just now the bad luck of being refused a share in an arduous campaign, with its attendant chances of ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... been attracted to the capital by many interests—races as different from its former citizens as Germans or Spaniards, and unfortunately not disposed to show overmuch good-fellowship or loving-kindness to the original inhabitants. The Roman is a grumbler by nature, but he is also a "peace-at-any-price" man. Politicians and revolutionary agents have more than once been deceived by these traits, supposing that because the Roman grumbled he really desired change, but realising ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... lemon than cream jugs are used. Cream is 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 ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... 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
... 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 ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... happy face would put to shame the most inveterate grumbler. Her buoyant spirits were infectious. Her ringing, merry laugh was ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... Mr. 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 St. ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... 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; and that's Liberal; and ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... old grumbler," laughed Frank. "Come on, I'll give you some action. We have several hours of good daylight left before dinnertime. I'll take you on at tennis. Della and I will play you and Jack, and we won't give you time ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... is 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
... is 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
... and told out their private affairs. The man of business knit his brows and 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, ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... you 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 be ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... with each other, you see, the Taube and the forty-two-centimetre shell, the "Brummer," or "Grumbler," as they call it in Germany—could anything be more piquant? You should hear them—the chaste, chic, nun-like Taube and the thick-chested old Brummer, singing that he is her dear old Grumbler and she ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... 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
... endurance of a tedious illness, ending in an exemplary death, confirmed the strong impression his merit had made upon the mind of Mr. Johnson. "It is so very difficult," said he, always, "for a sick man not to be a scoundrel. Oh! set the pillows soft, here is Mr. Grumbler a-coming. Ah! let no air in for the world, Mr. ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... you mean!" returned self-complaisant Roland. "I say, Jenkins, isn't it a shame about Arthur Channing? Galloway has his money back from the very thief himself, as the letter said, and yet the old grumbler won't speak out like a man, and say, 'Shake hands, old fellow,' and 'I know you are innocent, and come back to the office again.' Arthur would return, if he said that See if I ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... another sample, was 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 ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of 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 so profoundly convinced of its perfection. A ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... age were now seated comfortably by their own hearths, while he was hurrying about Europe, a vagabond adventurer, risking his life for—and at once the reason why he was risking his life rose up to convict him a grumbler. ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... 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 hands, ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... written nowadays 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 ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... through the woods. The carriages spun along over the smooth roads, the postilions cracked their whips and tooted their horns, the air was cold and deliciously invigorating, and we were the gayest party imaginable. One would have thought that even the worst grumbler would have been put in good spirits by these circumstances; but no! our distinguished diplomat was silent and sullen, resenting all fun and nonsense. No wonder that all conspired together to ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... my German hurried me on. Soon, with three others, I found myself by poor old Bill Shoebridge, a good old grumbler of some fifty summers, who had been cruelly sent out to us in December, and had kept his end up well, with, at times, many grumblings. He was painfully ...
— The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's) - A Record of its Services in the Great War, 1914-1919 • Fred W. Ward
... simply that ills bravely borne seemed aided by some mysterious power outside their bearers; whereas the craven and the grumbler seemed but to add to their own burden. For the rest, though he would not say it for the pain it gave her, the knowledge of his growing weakness was already a solace to him, and he watched with hidden eagerness for the day that should set him free. At least a corpse was no drain upon the slender ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... I've tried veronal. No use 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 ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... all taxes. It summons each citizen to pay for the government in proportion to his wealth; and his wealth marks roughly the amount of government protection that he needs. In practise, however, the working out of an income tax is so complex that every grumbler can find in its intricacies some cause of complaint. The present tax is therefore described here by an expert statistician, Mr. Joseph A. Hill, the United States Government official at the head of the Division of Revision and Results of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... turning to his two friends. 'Hear this discontented grumbler. Isn't it enough to make a man swear never to help him in his plots and schemes again? ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... him of a high moral standard, and be careful at this early age to avoid the common fault of giving a dog a bad name. If it is said on all sides that a child has an uncontrollable temper, is an inveterate grumbler, is lacking in all power of concentration, or has a tendency to deceit, it is likely that the child will act up to his reputation. He comes in time to regard this failing of his as part of himself just ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... 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 until ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... without the single disagreeable person who in these small boats is sufficient to mar the enjoyment of the whole party. On a vessel which is little more than a large steam launch, the bore, the cynic, or the grumbler holds the company at his mercy. But the Korosko was free from anything of the kind. Colonel Cochrane Cochrane was one of those officers whom the British Government, acting upon a large system of averages, declares at a certain age to be incapable of further service, and who demonstrate ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... will dawn in the United States over a people full of hope and aspiration and good cheer. Such a condition means contentment and happiness. The carping grumbler who may here and there go forth will find few to listen to him. The majority will wonder what is the matter with him, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... 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 I ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... grumbler," said Rantoul, seriously. "If I go into society, it is to see the hollowness ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... to a 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 ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... started for anarchy. All were content to be picked up and brought on according to the power of the world, making allowance for the pinches of hard times, and the blows of east winds that had blown themselves out. Even the prime grumbler of the earth—a biped, who looks up to heaven for that purpose mainly—was as nearly content with the present state of things as he can be with anything, until it is the past. Scudamore only met one man, but that one declared it was a lovely night; and perhaps he was ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... 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 ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young
... 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 false pretences. I've a great mind—I hear the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... the spoils of office. In his prosperity he never forgot prudence, modesty, and moderation. Hearing one day an old veteran officer complain that the King ignored his thirty years of service while he enriched "a miserable actor," Farinelli secured promotion for the grumbler, and, giving the commission to the abashed soldier, mildly taxed him for calling the King ungrateful. According to another anecdote, he requested an embassy for one of the courtiers. "Do you not know," said the King, ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... rather let the things remain where they are, than have to bring them all this way," exclaimed the worst grumbler of ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 of all, ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... cracks, and with a face amazingly like parchment, upon which a long, sharp nose stuck downward, morosely and ominously. This was Alexandra, the servant of old of the student bird-houses; the friend and creditor of all the students; a woman of sixty-five, argumentative, and a grumbler. ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... damp, loathsome, infected with disease, and swarming with vermin,—we are filled with wonder at the contrast which it presents to the England of our day. We no longer sigh for "the good old days." The most confirmed grumbler is compelled to admit that, bad as things now are, they were far worse a few generations back. Macaulay, in this elaborate and carefully prepared chapter, has done a good service to humanity in disabusing well-intentioned ignorance ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... 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
... 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, we believe not a pig has been stolen nor a fence broken down ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... 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 been ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... 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 ordered a suit of clothes from his tailor and had nothing to find ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... emaciation or obesity of a 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 ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... thought 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 of you to cover your faces with too much grime; an honest farm labourer should ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... know), insisted that there would be no more fighting in 1708 than there had been in the previous year, and that our commander had reasons for keeping him quiet. Indeed, Esmond's general, who was known as a grumbler, and to have a hearty mistrust of the great duke, and hundreds more officers besides, did not scruple to say that these private reasons came to the duke in the shape of crown-pieces from the French king, by whom the generalissimo was ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you perpetual grumbler," interrupted Daphne in an offended tone. "Who would ever have thought it cruel to test the steady hand and the keen eye upon senseless animals in the joyous chase? But what shall we call the fault-finder, who spoils his friend's innocent enjoyment of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 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 ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... little girl, "isn't this funny! We have the first volume of 'The Grumbler' and the second of 'The Grandfather.' I don't believe I can piece them together," with a bright, ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... happened to be empty just then, with the exception of North and the injured man. North aroused himself and looked around. Seeing no listeners near, he went up to the grumbler, and began to condole ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... Wolff, its editor, has had so much journalistic experience, outside of Germany, and is, moreover, a man of such marked ability, that he is striving to be something more than a sycophantic clerk of the Government. He is not a grumbler, not a dissatisfied extremist, not unpatriotic, but possesses a breadth of outlook patriotic in the highest sense. On the morning after the Liebknecht riots in the Potsdamer Platz, his paper did not appear. The reason given by the Commandant of the Mark of Brandenburg was that he had ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... 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 ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... came the leadsman. It was true, nobody could ever have dreamt of calling him handsome, but there is no need for a man to be handsome, as long as he is an able leadsman, or anything else able. The students had chosen a hideous old grumbler to impersonate him. That alone would not have mattered; but nature had made one of his arms shorter than the other, and his representative had made a feature of this defect. And that was too bad; for a defect is something for which one ought not ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... choose the least obtrusive form of speech and action, as well as dress, but she must have smiled over the fierceness with which weaker sisters were attacked, and perhaps have sought to change the attitude of this chronic fault- finder; "a sincere, witty and valiant grumbler," but always a grumbler, to whom the fashions of the time seemed an outrage on common sense. He devotes a separate section of his book to them, and the delinquencies of women in general because they were "deficients or redundants not to be brought under any rule," and therefore not entitled to "pester ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... 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 ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... delighted with 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, ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... 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 ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... said, "although you are a great grumbler, I tell you that in my judgment you were born under a lucky star, or saint, call it which you will. For instance, when you were walking up and down that Hall of the Pit in the palace at Constantinople, which I always dream of now ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... Jack is to this day, so he ever has been—an inveterate grumbler; he will find something to growl about. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that, with such good cause, there should be constant dissatisfaction ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... by the Over-Lord; this could not possibly pass unchallenged among listeners living in the feudal age. When a prince called an assembly, he himself opened the debate, as Achilles does in Book I. 54-67. That a lewd fellow, the buffoon and grumbler of the host, of "the people," nameless and silent throughout the Epic, should rush in and open debate in an assembly convoked by the Over-Lord, would have been regarded by feudal hearers, or by any ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... drank and ate there in token of revenge. He pledged the 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
... 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 weather ever "cleared ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... 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 at ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... 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 every kind word from their master ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... Warrington, the grumbler, growled out that Pen was becoming such a puppy that soon there would be no bearing him. But the truth is, the young man's success and dashing manners pleased his elder companion. He liked to see Pen gay and spirited, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... before he guessed that Zeke's star was not in the ascendant. There was but little fighting required, but much digging of intrenchments, drill, and monotonous picket duty. Zeke did not take kindly to such tasks, and shirked them when possible. He was becoming known as the champion grumbler in the mess, and no one escaped his criticism, not even "Old Put"—as General Putnam, who commanded the Connecticut quota, was called. Jarvis, on the other hand, performed his military duties as he had worked the farm, and rapidly acquired the bearing of a soldier. Indomitable ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... 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. Johnsons Rambler ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... rouse the cook," he said to himself, with a smile. "That fellow little thinks how useful he is in keeping up my spirits. The most inveterate croaker and grumbler in the world—and yet, according to his own account, the only cheerful man in the whole ship's company. John Want! John Want! ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... that the statesman's assertion was a big lie. George roared this at Walpole, and then was for turning round in his bed and settling down to sleep again. Walpole, however, persisted in disturbing the royal slumbers, and assured the drowsy grumbler that he really was George the Second, King of England. He produced for George's further satisfaction a letter from Lord Townshend, describing the time, place, and circumstances of the late King's death. Walpole tendered the ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... new 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
... 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. I look at MY FLOWERS, ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... a 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 ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... was the name of his chief hereditary estate; but in winter he used to go by himself to Moscow, where he put up at a hotel, attended his club assiduously, aired his eloquence freely, explained his plans in society, and more than ever gave himself out as an Anglomaniac, a grumbler, and a statesman. But the year 1825 came and brought with it much trouble[A]. Ivan Petrovich's intimate friends and acquaintances underwent a heavy tribulation. He made haste to betake himself far away into the country, and there he shut himself up in his ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... rather glad 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 would ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... upright fearlessness—his shoulders were learning to bend, his head to slouch forward. One needed but to glance at him to see that Geoffrey Tudor was fast becoming that most disagreeable of social characters, a grumbler! And with grumbling unrepressed, and indulged in, come worse things, for it has its root in that true ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... piano astride of a chair, a pipe in his mouth and a black velvet skull-cap on his head, was Tom Waller, the sheep-painter-Thomas Brandon Waller, he signed it—known as the Walrus. He, too, was a boarder and a delightful fellow, although an habitual grumbler. His highest ambition was to affix an N. A. at the end of his name, but he had failed of election by thirty votes out of forty cast. That exasperating event he had duly celebrated at Pfaff's in various continued libations covering a week, and had accordingly, ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... am not a pessimist, nor misanthrope, nor grumbler; I bear it all, the burden of Public Affairs, the immensity of Space, the brevity of Life, and the thought of the all-swallowing Grave—all this I put up with without impatience. I accept the common lot. And if now and then ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... Cana of Galilee pleased the thirsty people around the table. No one of those people, being thirsty, ever thought of making new vessels for the wine, but to get wine as soon as possible into the vessels. To pour wine into existing vessels, that is really the needed miracle, my dear grumbler! ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... table—in a way peculiarly her own. One could never be with her many minutes without hearing some bright fancy, some quick stroke of repartee, some ludicrous way of putting a thing. But whether she told of the grumbler who could find nothing to complain of in heaven except that "his halo didn't fit," or said in her quick way, when the plainness of a lady's dress was commended, "Why, I didn't suppose that anybody could go to heaven now-a-days without an overskirt," or wrote her ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... course, grumbled, as I have found out that some people will grumble when any new system is introduced, the object of which they do not understand. The loudest grumbler at anything new introduced on board was old Fleming the boatswain. He called himself a Conservative, or, rather, a Tory, and ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... service, and glorified work in the doing of the camp 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 ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... tame grumbler I. I only claim the privilege of croaking in my own corner here, without uniting my throat to the grand chorus of the marshNi quito Rey, ni pongo ReyI neither make king nor mar king, as Sancho says, ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... you blessed 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 must understand that shepherding ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... surprised at that. It would need an angel out of heaven to get on with him sometimes. What induced me ever to marry such a grumbler I don't know. I wonder if Monsieur What-is-it?—Gard—would come back ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... not hear these words, for he was beginning to explore the top of the mountain, and making plans for converting the place into a stronghold. Bart heard them, however, and turned to the grumbler. ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... I," replied my father. "I see the sons of bankers and merchants gazetted every month, and I do not see what claims they have to urge, unless they be golden ones. However, I have not served my king fifty years to turn grumbler at this time of life. I suppose that the people at the head of affairs know what is most proper and convenient; perhaps when the lad sees how difficult, nay, how impossible it is that he should enter the army, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... of emigrants he was leading made very good progress on their journey towards the settlement. The only grumbler was Mrs Clagget, as she trudged on with a long stick in her hand, sometimes by the side of the Diceys, and at others addressing her remarks to Mrs Jones. However, as it was so evident that she talked for the sake of keeping her tongue in motion, no one minded her. She regained her good humour ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... and christened his vieille garde his grognards: tough and true as steel, they yet would have their growl. Now the lads of the Eighty-Eighth, having proved themselves better men even than the veteran guards of the Corsican corporal, also claim the grumbler's privilege, setting forth sundry griefs and grave causes of complaint. They are not allowed the word "Pyrenees" upon their colours, although, at the fight of that name, they not only were present, but rendered good service:—whilst ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... are full, old Grumbler,' said the tar; 'others are more active than you; but here, we are just alongside of the Betsy. Ship, ahoy! Throw us a ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... 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 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 ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... as if this hurricane was never going to cease!" cried the chief grumbler of the party. "We might as well have stopped and fought the savages, and if they had killed us there would have been ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... birth and military profession. His face was ardent, his pantaloons were of white flannel, his expression of countenance was that of habitual discontent, but with a twinkle of geniality in the eye which redeemed the Grumbler from the usual tedium of his tribe. He accosted ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... any 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 nature at the period ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... at his heart. "Indeed and I do!" he cried contritely. "I'm a born old grumbler, mavourneen, I know—contrariness in person! But in this case ... come, love, do try to grasp what I'm after; it means so much to me." And he held out his hand ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... bad luck, don't be a grumbler; If you are finished off from a tumbler! [11] But to the end of your life, cut a shine, You're not the first man got into a line." Foddy, loddy, ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... 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 ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... Cayley's Las Alforjas. The Tables 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, and the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... but when he got a pot of beer he preferred it to be beer, and not 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, and for commanding officers to remain eternally ...
— 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
... Sheik 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
... rapid was no great affair. There was plenty of water, and they were carried racing smoothly down between low rocky banks. Stonor named the place the Grumbler from the deep throaty ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... the first day the ladies would not swim. They had the trunks to open, they said, and the closets to arrange. And the four men and the fourteen boys went to that bath of baths alone. And as Felix, the cynic grumbler, ran races naked on the beach with his boy and the boy beat him, even Felix was heard to say, "How little man needs here below to ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... you know they shrink in the washing,' which satisfied the grumbler. And that always seemed to me the strangest ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... disciples of our favoured politicians being really, if they only knew it, disciples of Whistler. Also, and equally important, we have to bear in mind that the English genius does not, like the German, lie in disciplined idealism. The Englishman is an Anarchist and a grumbler: he has no such word as Fatherland, and the idea which he supposes corresponds to it is nothing but the swing of a roaring chorus to a patriotic song. Also he is a muddler and a slacker, because tense and continuous ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... declared that he had enlisted for the war, and meant to take things as they came. It was not exactly agreeable to stand on guard for two hours, on a cold, rainy night; but grumbling would not make it any the more agreeable, and only made the grumbler discontented and unhappy. It did not look like "the pomp and circumstance of war," and no doubt most of the boys in the Pinchbrook company would have been better satisfied in their own houses in "the village by the sea." But most of these men had ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... with the loiterers mounts higher and higher. Tirloir the Grumbler takes the lead and expands. This is where he comes in. With his little pointed gesticulations he goads and spurs the anger ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... 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 their masters at their ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... King, "and that shall soon be settled." And thereupon he flew with his Queen to the residence of the bear, and called to him from the entrance, "Old grumbler, why have you insulted my children? That shall cost you dear, for we will decide the matter ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... invective and sarcasm: he could dissect a character in terse and sonorous couplets, brilliant with antithesis: but of dramatic talent he was altogether destitute. If he had written a lampoon on Dennis, such as that on Atticus, or that on Sporus, the old grumbler would have been crushed. But Pope writing dialogue resembled—to borrow Horace's imagery and his own—a wolf, which, instead of biting, should take to kicking, or a monkey which should try to sting. The Narrative is utterly contemptible. Of argument ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... reluctance. The outposts were seldom caught napping. Digging and tree-felling—for the men had learned the value of making fortifications and good roads—were taken as a matter of course. Nor was the Southern soldier a grumbler. He accepted half-rations and muddy camping-grounds without remonstrance; if his boots wore out he made shift to march without them; and when his uniform fell to pieces he waited for the next victory to supply himself with a new outfit. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... and a long fast enabled me to do good justice to. In the afternoon, malgre a cutting east wind, which was anything but agreeable after the hot weather I had been living in, I took a long walk about the town, accompanied by an old friend of mine and a constitutional grumbler, who yet joined with me in declaring that a first impression of Boston could hardly fail pleasing any man who could be pleased by a near view of a city, well and substantially built, as it is ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... rather strange to us; stranger, I suspect, to my friends than to me; but Dick took the opportunity of both the host and his grand-daughter being out of the room to say to me, softly: "A grumbler: there are a few of them still. Once upon a time, I am told, they were quite ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... lectures us upon every vice which we have not, and every little frailty which we have, with a pointed asperity that upsets our temper for the day, and causes us long afterwards to bewail the evil hour in which we rescued such an ill-conditioned grumbler from the kindly waters ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... get into the bed at one side—the side from which he had originally climbed—and get out at the other. A simple operation, and one not helpful to mother Mary's housekeeping labors; but she never minded that, because the novel punishment always sent the grumbler down-stairs again in ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... 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, her surroundings and her ungoverned impulses. The young ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... and a copious supply of ready money, and you make a Conservative of him. He can then see the other side of the moon, which he could never see before. Once, a determined Radical in Scotland, named Davy Armstrong, left his native village; and many years afterwards, an old fellow grumbler met him, and commenced the old song. Davy shook his head. His friend was astonished, and soon perceived that Davy was no longer a grumbler, but a rank Tory. Wondering at the change, he was desirous of knowing the reason. Davy quietly ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... "Only, it is you who are charming! I must go to the Grosvenor as soon as it opens to see if your clever husband, who seems to be able to paint everything and everybody, has done you justice.... But you mustn't sit talking to an old grumbler like me any longer. Go back to your picture; Mr. Dollond will pilot you. And if you encounter Mary on the way, tell her that a certain discontented old lady of her acquaintance wants to ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... 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
... of great mildness he unites a glance of fire, and eyes of a vivacity 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 he could also be very ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... discomforts and the strange characters with whom he was thrown, and more discontented travellers used to declare that Don Luis, as he told the muleteers to call him, always seemed to have the best success with the surly hotel-keepers, though when he resigned his acquisitions to any resolute grumbler, it used to be discovered that he had been putting up with ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... no faith in its leaders. Nor was he a zealous 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 ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... 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 in which they ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... "that I owe a tremendous lot to Lisle. He was always cheerful, and his unmerciful chaffing kept me alive. I am quite sure I should never have got through that time, when we were lost in the forest, if it hadn't been for him. I was a confirmed grumbler, too; but he never let me indulge my discontent. Altogether you have no idea, Colonel Houghton, how much ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... replied the 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
... sorry at the moment that she had provoked him out of his usual patient indifference; nay, she might even feel intimidated at the altercation she had provoked, for the resentment of a quiet and patient person has always in it something formidable to the professed and habitual grumbler. But her pride was too great to think of a retreat, after having sounded the signal for contest, and so she continued, though in a tone ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... 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.)
... I'm ill-tempered, or unjust or violent, but there are things that irritate me. Unpunctuality for instance. Dinner ten minutes late makes me fume; failure to keep an appointment makes me hate a person, I'm rather a grumbler about food; can't stand a potato ill-boiled or an under-done chop. Then—ah yes! restraint is intolerable to me. I must come and go at my own will. I must do and refrain just as I think fit. One enormous advantage of my shopkeeping is that I'm my own master. I can't subordinate ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... 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
... a grumbler complaining of the defects of a republic; yet, certainly, in these United States, the republican form of government, established with no little fear and uncertainty by the Fathers, has, with all its defects, received triumphant vindication. Nowhere more triumphant ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... it proper to interrupt the dissatisfied old grumbler; and as he came to a melancholy close we did not dare to tell him how greatly this distrustful repudiation of students ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... Sir Mulberry, turning to his two friends. 'Hear this discontented grumbler. Isn't it enough to make a man swear never to help him in his plots and schemes again? Isn't ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... By the great grumbler, answered he, but I'll bet you don't! immediately delivering me one pistol, and taking up and unlocking the other himself. Accordingly I placed the plate against the wall, fired, and was not far from the centre. Upon my honour ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... Hartley, again, who staid all the time in Paris. He has come back a regular grumbler. If you would believe him, there is not a single thing worth having, from one end of the Union to the other. He is disgusted with everything, and only last night said that our climate wants fog! Now, I think it is much better to go plodding ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow |
