"Grumbling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wonderfully quick and business-like, now, and all fell out, as he had said, about the boatmen, one of them grumbling; but he did not refuse the job, and in ten minutes they were getting very close to the soft grey side of the "Flash," with the boy trembling still, for fear he should see it begin to glide away, before ...
— The Little Skipper - A Son of a Sailor • George Manville Fenn
... lad be,' he had said when some of the party had passed grumbling remarks about 'too bloomin' much fuss an' feathers over a straight simple bloomin' job.' The Corporal had promptly squashed that opinion. 'Leave the lad be,' he said. 'He's young to the job, mebbe, but he's not such a simple fool as some that take this for a simple job. ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... on grumbling, "that, for a man who claims to know this country, your management has been ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... heard voices close beside him. A young girl, he made out, was grumbling because she had got to leave the parsonage, where she had been staying with Mathilde, the parson's daughter, and it was her father who was taking her home. A third voice, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... pretended to drop his whip before the other door, and, in stooping for it, slipped the second padlock through the rings, deftly turned the key as he straightened up, and, assured that the two officers were securely locked in, he sprang upon his horse, grumbling at the conductor who had left him to do his work. In fact the conductor was still squabbling with the landlord over his bill when the third traveller got into his place in ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... were gone about three months, and harvested two dollars and a half apiece. But the mere pleasure of the hunt was sufficient. That was pay enough. They did no grumbling. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... down at the table in the recess, on which the mineral productions were lying, and proceeded to examine them, grumbling and pshawing at each which he took ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... have been particularly noticed, as he has become the astonishment of all who saw him. We remained that night and the following on the sand hills; you cannot conceive our wretched state, as it blew and rained nearly the whole time. Our men bore all this without grumbling, although they had nothing to eat but the biscuits they carried with them, which by this time were completely wet. We at length got into Egmont, and on the following day (5th) into Alkmaar, where we enjoyed ourselves amazingly. Alkmaar is ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... reply, went grumbling to open the door for the Alderman, who was a rough, as solid as a bridge, in spite of his fifty years, and with whom it was worth no one's while to joke when ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... against pressure from the outside, using the shafts of an old cart to make struts, which they secured against the side walls or frame of the gateway. These formed buttresses of considerable strength; and the landlord, instead of grumbling at the damage which might be done to his bordj, and the danger which threatened himself, was maudlin with delight at the prospect of killing a few ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was all astir by this time with life and movement, doors opening and shutting, footsteps up and down the staircases and corridors, voices talking, calling, grumbling, downstairs eating and drinking going on with much clattering of plates and dishes, fiacres and omnibuses driving up, tourists setting off in gay parties for their day's sight- seeing, luggage being moved, travellers coming, travellers going, to England, to the north, to the south, to the ends ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... mustn't want to take his out of his hands, and go grumbling as if you would do it so much better if he would only let you get your hand ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... cold, yet the casement was ajar, for the chimney of the room had smoked for weeks; but nothing had been done towards remedying the trouble, except grumbling at it, and letting in draughts of keen air through half-open doors and windows, to the manifest detriment of the health of both mother and child. And what was she to do, poor thing, in her hour of special trial ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... relatives. He was perfectly satisfied with things as they were. The truth is, Johnny Chuck was already beginning to get fat with good living and he is naturally lazy. As a rule he can find plenty to eat very near his home, so he seldom goes far from his own doorstep. Peter left him grumbling and growling, and chuckled to himself all the way back to the dear Old Briar-patch. He knew that Johnny Chuck would not ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... the khan became more uncomfortable; the people were so uncivil they would hardly give us cold water without grumbling. The second night we witnessed one of the most dreadful storms we ever remember to have seen. Violent gusts of wind shook our desolate abode, while the rain poured down in torrents and found entrance in ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... 'Catalogus Bibliotheca Harleianae,' in four volumes. The first two, in Latin, were compiled by Dr. Johnson at a daily wage, and the third and fourth (which are a repetition of the first two), in English, are by Oldys. A charge of 5s. was made for the first two volumes, which caused a good deal of grumbling among the trade, and was resented 'as an avaricious innovation,' but Osborne replied that the volumes could be either returned in exchange for books or for the original purchase-money. He was also ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... melancholy, and afflicted by it as few have been from his earliest years, said that "a man's being in a good or bad humour very much depends upon his will." We may train ourselves in a habit of patience and contentment on the one hand, or of grumbling and discontent on the other. We may accustom ourselves to exaggerate small evils, and to underestimate great blessings. We may even become the victim of petty miseries by giving way to them. Thus, we may educate ourselves ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... down from a second-floor kitchen with her mother's breakfast. She was grumbling a little louder on each step of the rickety stairway. "Lord, have mussy! Ma is still a-talkin' 'bout dat old slavery stuff, and it ain't nothin' nohow." After Ida's eyes had rested on the yellow crepe frock just presented Georgia in appreciation ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... chum in order that he might contrive to scrape through his lessons. It was Bob who did the work and Van who serenely accepted the fruits of it—accepted it but too frequently with scant thanks and even with grumbling. Bob, however, doggedly kept at his self-imposed task. To-day's Latin translation was but an illustration of the daily program; Bob did the pioneering and Van came upon the field when the path was cleared of difficulties. And yet it was a glance of genuine affection that Bob cast at his friend ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... by a common instinct of caution, the Indians fell silent, and during the crossing there was no sound but the grumbling of the clumsy sweeps in the thole-pins, and the splash of ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... he married Miss Tulliver, had been regarded as the buck of Basset, now wore a beard nearly a week old, and had the depressed, unexpectant air of a machine-horse. He answered in a patient-grumbling tone, "Why, poor farmers like me must do as they can; they must leave it to them as have got money to play with, to put half as much into the ground as they mean to get ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... unaccountable that Asa should choose to be out of the way at such a time as this," Esther pettishly observed. "When all is finished and to rights, we shall have the boy coming up, grumbling for his meal, and hungry as a bear after his winter's nap. His stomach is as true as the best clock in Kentucky, and seldom wants winding up to tell the time, whether of day or night. A desperate eater is Asa, when a-hungered by a ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... little box of the Lively Poll—which out of courtesy we shall style the cabin—Jim Freeman and David Duffy were playing cards, and Stephen Lockley was smoking. Joe Stubby was drinking, smoking, and grumbling at the weather; Hawkson, a new hand shipped in place of Fred Martin, was looking on. The ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... all of this bemoaning And this grumbling and this groaning The mind of Jack, her son and heir, unconscionably bored. His heart completely hardening, He gave his time to gardening, For raising ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... would have seemed very wonderful. Many of the soldiers were still munching the hard bread and raw pork of their meagre breakfasts, or drinking the cold coffee with which they had filled their canteens the day previous. Many more were chatting in an undertone, grumbling over their sore feet and other discomfits, chaffing each other, and laughing. The general bearing, however, was grave, patient, quietly enduring, and one might almost say stolid. You would have said, to judge by their expressions, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... That love, alas! can ne'er be cured; A complicated heap of ills, Despising boluses and pills. Ah! Chloe, this I find is true, Since first I gave my heart to you. Now, by your cruelty hard bound, I strain my guts, my colon wound. Now jealousy my grumbling tripes Assaults with grating, grinding gripes. When pity in those eyes I view, My bowels wambling make me spew. When I an amorous kiss design'd, I belch'd a hurricane of wind. Once you a gentle sigh let fall; Remember how I suck'd it all; What colic pangs from thence I felt, Had you ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... The slave, wondering and grumbling, cast round his heavy eyes, and before one of the altars, whose remains still crowd the narrow space, he beheld a form bending as ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... So, still grumbling and petting, Moses set his burden down in Madam Sturtevant's presence, and saw her open her lips to reprove her erring grandson, then as suddenly close them again and strain the boy to her heart, while her stately figure shook like an aspen. But Moses knew ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... teacher. Here inattention by far led all others. Defects of sense and speech, carelessness, indifference, lack of honor and of self-restraint, laziness, dreamy listlessness, nervousness, mental incapacity, lack of consideration for others, vanity, affectation, disobedience, untruthfulness, grumbling, etc., follow. Inattention to a degree that makes some children at the mercy of their environment and all its changes, and their mental life one perpetual distraction, is a fault which teachers, of course, naturally observe. Children's views of ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... I never rode with him. "I was too young for the work," he would say; but that day he gave his consent, only making the bargain that there should be no crying out or grumbling if I were tired or hungry long ere we got home again. I had laughed at the idea as I saddled my shaggy little nag, and, to make matters sure, I had gone to Janet, the kitchen wench, and begged her for a satchel of oatcakes and ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... girls slept till later than usual the next morning, for they had been a good while awake in the night. Rosy began grumbling and declaring she would not get up, and there was very nearly the beginning of a stormy scene with Martha when the sound of Bee's voice calling out "Good-morning, Rosy," from the next room reminded her of their talk in the night, and though she did not feel all at ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... direction of the only pass through the hills which led to the gates, the pass by which caravans from either north or south or east or west would enter the city. The sounds we heard were the squealing of thoats and the grumbling of zitidars, with the occasional clank of arms which announced the approach of a body of warriors. The thought uppermost in her mind was that it was my father returned from his expedition, but ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... green boughs hung over the doors, and the ready-cooked turkey was fizzing over again in the oven, and the dinner was ready, Sue and Charlie hid themselves behind a door and waited for Aunt Betsey and Uncle Jake. Slowly the old people came grumbling home as they had grumbled out. They were old and stiff and poor, and what was there to be thankful for? For the rheumatism? Yes, if God willed it, said Aunt Betsey, who, ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Atkins for grumbling, which is an Englishman's birthright. As for no rum, subsequently the men were allowed two tots a week; Wednesdays and Saturdays were, I think, the days of issue. Less than half a gill was each man's share. I am inclined to believe had there been a daily issue ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... being disturbed at such a late hour, continued grumbling to himself all the way to the barracks. Whenever he had taken more than was good for him he was in a quarrelsome mood, and in such a case he usually made trouble. His comrades claimed that ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... inconsistent; he is always both reasonable and unreasonable. You can try to cast him in a mould, but he resumes his normal shapelessness the moment the mould is removed. Expose him to frightful ordeals of terror and pain, and he will emerge grumbling about some petty grievance or carrying on a flirtation with another man's wife or squabbling about sectarian dogmas or gambling on magazine competitions or planning new businesses—in fact, behaving precisely as the natural lord of creation always does behave. No member ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... back trembling in her corner; and after waiting a while and getting no answer he went grumbling away, and presently she heard him go out at the street door. Then she sprang to her feet, and stood for a while intently listening, with a terror and hatred of this man stronger than she had ever felt before urging her to fly and place herself for ever beyond his reach. ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... and look for it." He massages his stomach with the little sharp taps of a guitar player, and plunges into the gray of the morning, grinning yet dignified, with his awkward outlines of an invalid in a dressing-gown. We hear him grumbling until he disappears. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... girl started up the hill and the Stone rolled slowly beside her, groaning and grumbling because the ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... He went grumbling off. Rashid and I were staring hard at one another; for the village named was that where we had spent the night, and Huseyn Agha's roasted fowls were in ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... Aldegonde," said Lothair, grumbling to himself, "that if one is to meet that Duke of Brecon every day at luncheon, for my part I had rather ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... we spent in drilling and idling and grumbling, and some of us, not so hard worked as Sergeant-Major Jenkins, in the true military style of conviviality, usually terminating in an abrupt entry in the orderly book, opposite the name of the follower of Bacchus, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the man, in a grumbling tone; "I'm only a messenger. I've given our people's orders, and now I'm ready to take back yours. Only don't say, when you're all made prisoners and marched off to our plantations, that I didn't as an Englishman give you a ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... Every nation has men of energy. But there is a certain type which mixes its bravery and its energy with a gentle modesty and a boyish good-humour, and it is just this type which is the highest. Here the whole expedition seem to have been imbued with the spirit of their commander. No flinching, no grumbling, every discomfort taken as a jest, no thought of self, each working only for the success of the enterprise. When you have read of such privations so endured and so chronicled, it makes one ashamed to show emotion over the small annoyances of daily life. Read ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Lord wants is, that you shall go about the business to which He sets you, not asking for an easy post, nor grumbling at a ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff
... commence, "First, observe how many note-compass the tune is next the place of your first note, and how many notes above and below that so as you may begin the tune of your first note, as the rest may be sung in the compass of your and the peoples voices without Squeaking above or Grumbling below." ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... of hers, a patient, one-eyed little cobbler followed her about, mending shoes for white men, doing the old woman's cooking, and bearing all her abuse without grumbling. Strange to relate, a battered Bible was seldom out of his sight; and whenever he had leisure, and his mistress' back was turned, he was forever poring over it. This pious propensity used to enrage the old crone past belief; and oftentimes ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... Frank, grumbling with some reason; for Mat was a surly old fellow, who tied a most indefensible neckcloth, and always contrived to have a great patch on his boots,—besides, he called Frank "Master," and obstinately refused to trot down hill,—"Mat, indeed! let Mat take the message, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... worthy old soldier, grumbling. "I have my feet in the snow, and a gutter runs down on my head, and there's death at my heart; and you sing to me of violets, of the sun, and of grass, and of love. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... it true that the class which has the most knowledge gets the most power? I suppose philosophers, like my friend Dr. Riccabocca, think they have the most knowledge. And pray, in what age have philosophers governed the world? Are they not always grumbling ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... for an imaginary crumb of that; and make their entertainers uncomfortable by their ridiculous fastidiousness; while, if we could see these very delicate masticators in their own homes, perhaps we should find them grumbling for Benjamin's share of the daily meal. For my own part, I always eat in public as if no eye was upon me, and do it in a hearty, natural way. You may be sure, when you see persons, whether male or female, give ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... to rise and hang the pot on the fire higher up the joist, lest its contents should burn before the return from the funeral. Loury grew the sky, and more and more anxious the face of Little Rathie's daughter, and still Bowie prayed on. Had it not been for the impatience of the precentor and the grumbling of the mourners outside, there is no saying when the remains would have been lifted through ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... with; only men of letters and his friends knew what pains he could be at to oblige and to help the humblest of struggling fellow-craftsmen, provided he was not forbidden to accompany the unstinted assistance with a little grumbling at the fearful wreck of his time which all sorts of people, even the tramps of the literary ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... movements in the wilderness, reported that the savage army was troubled. All such forces are loose and irregular, with little cohesive power, and they will not bear disappointment and waiting. Moreover the warriors having lost many men, with nothing in repayment were grumbling and saying that the face of Manitou was set against them. They were confirmed too in this belief by the presence of the mysterious foe who had slain the warriors in the tree, and who had since given other unmistakable signs of ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... "haul taut" at the critical moment. Alas! in his clumsy hands the effect intended was exactly reversed; the rope was gently loosened, and I subsided in the most undignified, inevitable, and provokingly cool manner quietly into the water at 10.30 P.M. However, there was no use in grumbling, so I spluttered and laughed, ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... savez ah, oui! She thought you wanted a cheese hollandais. Your postprandial, do you know that word? Postprandial. There was a fellow I knew once in Barcelona, queer fellow, used to call it his postprandial. Well: slainte! Around the slabbed tables the tangle of wined breaths and grumbling gorges. His breath hangs over our saucestained plates, the green fairy's fang thrusting between his lips. Of Ireland, the Dalcassians, of hopes, conspiracies, of Arthur Griffith now, A E, pimander, good shepherd of men. To yoke me as his yokefellow, our crimes our common ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... agreed that it has been a very bloody affair, and the difficulty of seeing a way out of our present position has made all despondent, and a number of those in high positions are being torn to shreds. Our men are not grumbling, and look as if they could go through it again, but it was a very trying two ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... vigorously, I decided that there was nothing to fear in that direction, for no such distinguished person would deign to live in so humble a residence. Presently, in answer to our repeated efforts, we heard several grumbling voices, a door was opened, and I was bidden to enter. As soon as I was accustomed to the glaring gas-light, I experienced a considerable shock. Occupying the whole length of the room in which I stood was a double line of beds, mostly containing sleeping men, and from the walls hung many greenish ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... to de wood pile grumbling to hisself and old Master stoop down to look at de boiler again, and it blow right up and him ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... "Forgotten"—Iemon felt a letter thrust into his hand, which he passed quickly to his sleeve. Then he and Kondo[u] rose to take their leave. The usual salutations followed. As if to compensate for the failure of the entertainment all joined in seeing them depart. Kwaiba was still grumbling and half quarrelling with O'Hana. O'Moto was engaged with Kondo[u] Rokuro[u]bei. Kibei insisted on aiding Iemon; and Iemon did not dare to refuse his services in donning the haori. As he adjusted the awkward efforts of ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... did needlework in the same room in which the children were playing; the husband, who had lost his appointment on account of his extreme shabbiness, was copying a manuscript in the adjoining room, and grumbling at the children's noise. Hard words were ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... hear him, Charles?" cried Goethe, delighted—"hear all the voices of earth united in the grumbling thunder of his wrath? See, there he stands, yonder in heaven—his form dark as midnight. I hear it—he calls—Overshadow the heavens, O Jupiter, With thy vaporous clouds! Cut off the oak and mountain-tops As a boy plucks the thistle. Leave me earth and my cabin Which thou hast not ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... the Queen up at the Vaal River, that this country would remain English until the sun stood still in the heavens and the waters of the Vaal ran backwards.[*] That's good enough for me, for, as I tell these grumbling fellows who want the land back now that we have paid their debts and defeated their enemies, no English government is false to its word, or breaks engagements solemnly entered into by its representatives. We leave that sort of thing to foreigners. No, no, Captain Niel, ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... but she had seen all three squatting together close to the little gate five minutes before. She ordered Chamu to go and find the missing man and he waddled off, grumbling. At the end of five minutes ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... Thus, there beside the grumbling sea, these two—full man and woman, having weighed the issues of this life, the complex threads of soul and body, obligation and right, willed that they would take to themselves out of all eternity a few days, a few nights, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... arrest as if he himself had detected the whole concern, instead of having it thrust under his nose by the London chemical company—was preparing to ride over me roughshod. I insisted that he read the warrant for my arrest and with much grumbling he finally did so. It had been issued under the Official Secret Act that had been rushed through the House of Commons. I was charged with endangering the safeguards of the ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... strolling in the woods a double luxury; while the rain was chiefly of the showery sort, such as a rubber coat and old clothes render comparatively harmless. Not that I failed to take a hand with my associates in grumbling about the weather. Table-talk would speedily come to an end in such circumstances if people were forbidden to criticise the order of nature; and it is not for me to boast any peculiar sanctity in this respect. But when all was over, it had to be acknowledged that I, for one, ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... length managed to get our boatmen to work tolerably well; and when we were alike well roasted by the sun and repeatedly drenched, besides being tired out and hungry, they had become quite submissive, and exchanged their grumbling for merriment. A more lovely spot can scarcely be found, than the secluded bay of Botafogo with its pretty village, and the noble Corcovado mountain immediately behind, and ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... the keys and none of them will fit," Eve complained. "And yet you're always grumbling at me for not keeping my keys in order. If you wanted to show him the blue paper why have ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... his miniature ship, went back to put his model away in an empty cupboard—led the way to the door again—stopped once more—remembered that some of the rooms were chilly—and pottered about, swearing and grumbling, and looking for his hat. Magdalen sat down patiently to wait for him. She gratefully contrasted his treatment of her with the treatment she had received from the women. Resist it as firmly, despise it as proudly as we may, all studied unkindness—no matter how contemptible it ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... reported good, and we went to work and rolled up all our rags. In half an hour the ship was snug, riding by the stream, with a strong current, or tide, setting exactly north-east, or directly opposite to the captain's theory. As soon as Mr. Marble had ascertained this fact, I overheard him grumbling about something, of which I could distinctly understand nothing but the words ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... a big rock, and Antti on a tree stump, and Heikki starts off, grumbling out just ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... than he favours, as being commonly well expounded in his bitterness, and no man speaks treason more securely. He chides great men with most boldness, and is counted for it an honest fellow. He is grumbling much in behalf of the commonwealth, and is in prison oft for it with credit. He is generally honest, but more generally thought so, and his downrightness credits him, as a man not well bended and crookened to the times. In conclusion, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... wasn't for him to dictate, and, grumbling at the prospect before him, he harnessed his horses and drove them to the door, where Madam Conway was already ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... first note was queer enough; but your two other letters, with Moore's and Gifford's opinions, set all right again. I told you before that I can never recast any thing. I am like the tiger: if I miss the first spring, I go grumbling back to my jungle again; but if I do hit, it is crushing. * * * You disparaged the last three cantos to me, and kept them back above a year; but I have heard from England that (notwithstanding the errors of the press) they are well thought of; for instance, by American Irving, which last is a feather ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... And thus grumbling, Cap'n Pigg went below—not altogether unwillingly, as, being a man who understood the importance of economizing time, he combined his search for the fog-horn with the quenching of a highly useful thirst. But when he came on deck again, wiping his mouth with the back of his ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... jury of the Salon of 1836 refused a picture of Marilhat's—I think it was his first. Some of the artists who had seen the young painter's work thought this decision unjust. They grumbled, and their grumbling got as far as the newspapers. I was curious enough to go and see the picture at Durand-Ruel's. It was a view of Rome by twilight, seen between great umbrella pines, I thought it a splendid picture, and spurred somewhat, I confess, by a spirit of contradiction, ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... (858) that could not live at Paris, because there was no maccaroni? Now am I relapsed into all the dissatisfied repinement of a true English grumbling voluptuary. I could find in my heart to write a Craftsman against the Government, because I am not quite so much at my ease as on my own sofa. I could persuade myself that it is my Lord Carteret's fault that I am only sitting ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... You get up grumbling, execrating the sacrament of marriage. There is not the slightest merit in your heroism; it wasn't you, but your wife, that got up. Caroline gets you everything you want with provoking promptitude; she foresees everything, she ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... urgent, Bourrienne would return at eight o'clock; if it was otherwise, he insisted, and then, with much grumbling, Bonaparte would get up. He slept seven, sometimes eight, hours out of the twenty-four, taking a short nap in the afternoon. He also gave ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... performed by the Roumanians during the Christmas festival. It is called in Wallachia "Vicleim" (from Bethlehem), in Moldavia and Transylvania "Irozi" (plural from Irod Herod). At least ten persons figure in it: "Emperor" Herod, an old grumbling monarch who speaks in harsh tones to his followers; an officer and two soldiers in Roman attire; the three Magi, in Oriental garb, a child, and "two comical figures—the paiata (the clown) and the mosul, or ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... young master, mighty bad news. Thou knowest how in Essex men have refused to pay the poll-tax, but there has been naught of that on this side of the river as yet, though there is sore grumbling, seeing that the tax-collectors are not content with drawing the tax from those of proper age, but often demand payments for boys and girls, who, as they might see, are still under fourteen. It happened so to-day at Dartford. One ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... persons so disposed to come and have an audience of their monarch. Meantime, the doors of the great duke's apartments in the same palace would be beleaguered by an army of courtiers, envoys, and contractors, who had paid solid gold for admission, and who were often sent away grumbling and despairing ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... resumed her work, but all the time grumbling, and muttering something about "ole maids" and ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... a fool's errand altogether," one of them said in a grumbling tone. "We don't know that they have headed this way; and if they have, we might search these woods for ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... them say that someone they call 'the Chief' was there last night and that another man, 'the Boss,' gave him orders to tell no one outside about it. I suppose the Chief is our friend with the stupefying gun. The Boss must be the fellow who runs the garage. What are they saying now? They were grumbling about their work when I handed the ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... and, muttering to herself as she discharged her task, seemed, in inveterate spleen of temper, to grudge even those accommodations for which she was to receive payment. At length, however, she departed, grumbling between her teeth, that 'she wad rather lock up a haill ward than be fiking about thae niff-naffy gentles that gae sae muckle ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... very glad it wasn't. But we were well-trained girls in those days, and rarely thought of grumbling at anything our teachers did. We might not like them, but I don't ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... man or woman has some cherished grudge or wrong and is harboring it, nursing it, dwelling on it, rolling it as a sweet morsel under the tongue, and quite determined to enjoy a miserable time in selfish morbidness and grumbling, it costs us no little sacrifice to throw off the morbid spell, to refuse the suggestions of injury, neglect and the remembrance of unkindness, to rise out of the mood of self-commiseration in wholesome and holy determination, and say, "I will rejoice ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... that was the case. The constant attention to detail in the army, the smartness of the men, and the good turn-out of the horses and limbers, have a great moral effect upon every department of the service. The men were always grumbling about polishing buttons and chains, but I told them that the impression of efficiency it gave one made it quite worth while. A Division that could turn out such a fine looking Train as we had could always be depended upon to do ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... a dumb soul, especially here in England; but he has as deep a heart in him as Jacob, nevertheless, and as tender. Do you fancy that the gentleman over whose book we were grumbling last night, attached no more to his own simple words than you do? His account of a stag's run looks bald enough to you: but to him (unless Diana struck him blind for intruding on her privacy) what a whole poem of memories ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... henchman and page Stand sniffing the duck-stuffing (onion and sage), And the scullions and cooks, With fidgety looks, Are grumbling and mutt'ring, and scowling as black As cooks always do when the dinner's put back; For though the board's deckt, and the napery, fair As the unsunned snow-flake, is spread out with care, And the Dais is furnished with stool and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Maud Etty had married the handsome young lieutenant in the Hussars, quite against her father's wishes. But she was an only child, and after a good deal of demur and grumbling, Sir John, who idolized his daughter, gave way to her whim, and a reluctant consent to the marriage was wrung ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... in curl papers and a revolver beside her, and through her open door shouted advice to her lodgers. But they were unsympathetic, and reassured her only by banging their doors and retiring with profane grumbling, and in a few moments the silence was broken only by the voice of the justice as he fled down the main street of Ventersburg offering his ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... great surprise of his father and mother, Mark got up in good humor; he answered his father without grumbling, and when he was desired to go and work in the field, Mark hastened to take his hoe and spade, and set ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... at the Clarion and up at Dale's house last night," he said. "They were mad about your having gone to Foley's. Graveling—he was the worst—he's telling them all that you're up to some mischief on your own account. They are all grumbling like a lot of sore heads. If they could stop your speaking here to-night, I believe they would. They're a rotten lot. Before they got their places in Parliament, they were ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... at ten and twelve dollars a sack and condensed milk at seventy-five cents a tin, we roared and grumbled—and paid the price! I vowed I would never pay twenty dollars for a pair of shoes at home, but roaring and grumbling is no more effective in procuring shoes in New York than it was in obtaining ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... Popsipetel day, bright and hot, blue and yellow. Drowsily I looked out to sea thinking of my mother and father. I wondered if they were getting anxious over my long absence. Beside me old Polynesia went on grumbling away in low steady tones; and her words began to mingle and mix with the gentle lapping of the waves upon the shore. It may have been the even murmur of her voice, helped by the soft and balmy air, that lulled me to sleep. ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... this so probable that he had no answer to give and presently McVay, who had been grumbling over the matter to himself, asked: "Are ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller
... just a snack," said Master Cheese. "I had such a short dinner to-day. Now that all those girls are stuck down at the dining-table, Miss Deb sometimes forgets to ask one a third time to meat," he added in a grumbling tone. "And there was nothing but a rubbishing rice pudding after it to-day! So I'd like to take a little, Tynn. ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... resolutely refusing to give more, and placed the bottle under the cover of her garments. No one dared to touch the stuff. There was some jostling around her, but a few of the men constituted themselves into a bodyguard, and by whip and drum kept the mob off. Amidst much tumult and grumbling and laughter at her sallies she got them to agree to leave the spirit in her charge on her declaring that she would be surety for it arriving in their several villages in ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... slightest interest in it. "The locomotive one would have gone ashore without the carriage, and would have been delighted to get rid of it; but they had a joint courier, and neither of them would part with him for a moment; so they went growling and grumbling on together, and seemed to have no satisfaction but in asking for impossible viands on board the boat, and having a grim delight ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Bertie turned away grumbling; he was not a whit wiser than he had been before, and he felt somehow that he had been reproved, and, more than that, warned. But he was not very seriously impressed, and he determined some day to find out the whole history of his Uncle Frank: know exactly what he did, and ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... muttered he, in a grumbling tone; "when we are with other people we must do as they wish; but there are some who would like better to eat brown bread with their own knife than partridges with the silver ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... the boatswain came for'ard, and I heard him and Tom Hulk and about a dozen others talking in whispers together. I lay still, pretending to be asleep, as, of course, they thought were the rest of the watch. Capstick began grumbling at the chance there was that we should take no prizes; and declared that, for his part, he was not going to submit to that sort of thing. The others agreed with him, and swore that they would stand by him, and do whatever he proposed. Some said that the best thing would ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... hollowness in this way; be rough with them in return and the effect produced is that of a balloon collapsed by a prick. Such was Sibilet. But as most men are not observers, and as among observers three fourths observe only after a thing has taken place, Adolphe Sibilet's grumbling manner was considered the result of an honest frankness, of a capacity much praised by his master, and of a stubborn uprightness which no temptation could shake. Some men are as much benefited by their defects as others ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... be counted upon to set his men an example of cool and judicious daring. The first sergeant, Armstrong, was an old regular army man, and his knowledge of drill and routine was invaluable to us. He thoroughly understood his profession, and was remarkably successful in training raw men. Sergeants Grumbling, Kubelis, and Bauer were all of them excellent men, and could be relied upon to perform their duty with conscientious thoroughness ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... redundance. No impassioned personage wishes he had been born in the age of Pitt, that his ardent youth might have eaten the dearest bread, dressed itself with the longest coat-tails and the shortest waist, or heard the loudest grumbling at the heaviest war-taxes; and it would be really something original in polished verse if one of our young writers declared he would gladly be turned eighty-five that he might have known the joy and pride of being an Englishman ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... I tell thee," said Dea, now with marked impatience. "And—stay—" she added as Licinia still grumbling prepared reluctantly to obey—"I pray thee find out for me all that is going on in the city. Mayhap Tertius will know what has happened—or Piso.... Go seek them, Licinia, and find out all that there is to know, ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... I supposed he had saved both our lives. But he detested words of direct praise. He made some grumbling rejoinder, and led the horses out of the thicket. Buck, he explained to me, was a good horse, and so was Muggins. Both of them generally meant well, and that was the Judge's reason for sending them to meet me. But these broncos had their off days. Off ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister |
