"Gossip" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... painted a picture of her standing with her donkey under the vines. We guessed somehow that she had a history, and we asked Sareda, our cook, about her. Sareda knew everybody in the place. She was a dear old gossip. She got quite excited over Luigia's story. She said it had been the talk of Tarana at the time. Luigia used to be a lovely girl when she was young, and she was quite wealthy for a peasant, because she owned a little lemon grove on the hillside. She inherited it from her father, who was dead. ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... said the king, now in a full tide of gossip, "and I mind not the name of the right leal lord that helped us with every unce he had in his house, that his native Prince might have some credit in the eyes of them that had ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... and costly flowers and conventional ecclesiastical furniture. But we still hold a "small-and-early" in the vestibule before service and a "five o'clock" in the chapel afterward. Sunday morning church is a this-world function with a pietized gossip and a decorous sort of sociable with an intellectual fillip thrown in. Thus we try to make our services attractive to the secular instincts, the non-religious things, in man's nature. We try to get him into the church by saying, ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... our fatigue, devoted the evening entirely to literary pursuits; searching diligently with tallow candles over the wall and ceiling for consecutive numbers of the Illustrated London News, reading court gossip from a birch plank in the corner, and obituaries of distinguished Englishmen from the back of a door. By dint of industry and perseverance we finished one whole side of the house before bedtime, and having gained a vast amount of valuable ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... considerations influenced him—one being the fact that could he keep his plans a secret from the enemy he would have the advantage of delivering a surprise attack upon the forces of Lu-don from a direction that they would not expect attack, and in the meantime he would be able to keep his men from the gossip of the cities where strange tales were already circulating relative to the coming of Jad-ben-Otho in person to aid the high priest in his war against Ja-don. It took stout hearts and loyal ones to ignore the implied ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... season. To be more explicit, it consists of letters written between June, 1814, and December, 1816; dated from South Lancing, (near Worthing), Rouen, Paris, and Brussels; and the writer's domicile, Hampton Court. The most interesting portion of the work is the gossip it contains on the state of things in the French capital, on the return of Napoleon, in 1815, and in Brussels, before and after the battle of Waterloo. Nevertheless, as the whole is indiscribably discursive, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various
... rather than of ordinary lovers. The fact is that nothing is so easy as falling in love and staying there. It is a very common experience, so common that it attracts little attention. The course of true love usually runs so smoothly that there is nothing that causes remark. It is not an occasion of gossip. Two good-tempered and healthy persons are obviously made for each other. They know it, and everybody else knows it, and they keep on knowing it, and act, as Joe Gargery ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... went along, she pointed out to Ellen two or three houses in the distance, and gave her not a little gossip about the people who lived in them; but all this Ellen scarcely heard, and cared nothing at all about. She had paused by the side of a large rock standing alone by the wayside, and was looking very closely ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... deal of pathological gossip with Dr. Davis's patient, during which Daisy chattered unremittingly to her own companion. The young man asked Mrs. Miller how she was pleased with Rome. "Well, I must say I am disappointed," she answered. "We had heard so much about it; I suppose we had heard too much. But we couldn't help that. ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... thinks I am afraid of him. But I have girt this sword and dagger to my side in order to show him that my steel can cut as well as his, and that I too am a Florentine, of the Micceri, a far better family than his Cellini." The scoundrel who reported this poisonous gossip spoke it with such good effect that I felt a fever in the instant swoop upon me; and when I say fever, I mean fever, and no mere metaphor. The insane passion which took possession of me might have been my death, had I not resolved to give it vent as the occasion offered. I ordered ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... so that he can now subordinate one thing to another in importance, and introduce all manner of very subtle detail, to a degree that was before impossible. He can render just as easily the flourish of trumpets before a victorious emperor and the gossip of country market women, the gradual decay of forty years of a man's life and the gesture of a passionate moment. He finds himself equally unable, if he looks at it from one point of view—equally able, if he looks at it ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... anything of the sort; some of his traditions made her push back her skirts. Did all women have lovers? Did they all lie and even the best have their price? Were there only three or four that didn't deceive their husbands? When Isabel heard such things she felt a greater scorn for them than for the gossip of a village parlour—a scorn that kept its freshness in a very tainted air. There was the taint of her sister-in-law: did her husband judge only by the Countess Gemini? This lady very often lied, and she had practised deceptions ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... knows when, and cooks, eats, and "clears away" breakfast before other people have fairly rubbed their eyes open; where all the town are neighbors for ten miles round, and know your outgoings and incomings without impertinence, gossip without a sting, are intelligent without pretension, sturdy without rudeness, honest without effort, and cherish an orthodoxy true as steel, straight as a pine, unimpeachable in quality, and unlimited in quantity. God bless them! Late may they return to heaven, and never want a man ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... come near to the town thou must go more slowly and tarry behind a little, till we have reached my father's hall, because I dread the gossip of the baser sort of people whom we may meet. After thou hast seen us enter the city, then thou mayest enter it also and inquire the way to the king's palace. It is very beautiful. Thou mayest easily ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... heartily, and then shook hands with a market hunter he had met for an hour's gossip in the eddy at St. Louis. "Any luck, Bill? ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... to do until the third act, and her part, a guest, a country gossip, consisted only in standing by the door, as if she were overhearing something, and then speaking a short monologue. For at least an hour and a half before her cue, while the others were walking, reading, having tea, quarrelling, she never left me and kept on mumbling her part, and dropping ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... the chambers, of which the windows were open to the pleasant evening sun, and saw beds scrupulously plain, a quaint old chair or two, and little pictures of favorite saints decorating the spotless white walls. The old ladies kept up a quick, cheerful clatter, as they paused to gossip at the gates of their little domiciles; and with a great deal of artifice, and lurking behind walls, and looking at the church as if I intended to design that, I managed to get a sketch of a couple ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Sir John, very honest, very much in love with me. I thought that Hill was dead, but I was frightened, and I wanted to get away from Paris. Sir John heard gossip about us—about Anna the recluse, a paragon of virtue, and Annabel alias 'Alcide' a dancer at the cafes chantants, and concerning whom there were many stories which were false, and a few—which were true. I—well, I borrowed Anna's ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Hessen, excellent Wilhelm, King George's friend and gossip, is come over to that little Town of Hanau, which is his own, in the Schloss of which King George is lodged: and there, between Carteret and our Landgraf,—the King of Prussia's Ambassador (Herr Klinggraf), and one or two selectly zealous Official persons, assisting or watching,—we have ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... "Too low for a hawk, too high for a buzzard." That homely old saying seemed to sum me up. And suppose I COULD still take pleasure in the company of my own old upper-middle class, how would that class regard me now? Gossip percolates. Little by little, I was sure, the story of my Keeb fiasco would leak down into the drawing-room of Mrs. Foster-Dugdale. I felt I could never hold up my head in any company where anything of that story was known. Are you quite sure ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... A gossip writer states that one of the recent additions to the Metropolitan Special constabulary weighs seventeen stone. It is not yet decided whether he will take one ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... that it was impossible to know which to trust. It was obvious that a fortune lay either way, for every rumour set the funds fluctuating; but without special information it was impossible to act, and no one dared to plunge heavily upon the strength of newspaper surmise and the gossip of the street. Warner knew that an hour's work might resuscitate the fallen fortunes of himself and his partner, and yet he could not afford to make a mistake. He returned to his office in the afternoon, half inclined to back ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... intimate with Madame de Stael, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Madame de Choiseul, the Duchess of Luxembourg, Madame Necker, Hume, Madame de Genlis. In her salon old creeds were argued down, new ideas disseminated, and bons mots and witty gossip circulated. She has recounted what went on, and explained the reign of clever women in her century. Ignoring her blindness, she lived her life as gayly as she could in visiting, feasting, opera-going, and letter-writing. But even her social supremacy and brilliant correspondence ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... been visiting Avalon there has been a run of tuna. But the average weight was from sixty to ninety-five pounds. Until this season only a very few big tuna had been taken. The prestige of the Tuna Club, the bragging of the old members, the gossip of the boatmen—all tend to make a fisherman feel small until he has landed a big one. Come to think of it, considering the years of the Tuna Club fame, not so very many anglers have captured a blue-button tuna. I vowed I did not care in particular about it, but whenever ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... what man is this Who wears a loop of gold upon his breast, Stuck heartwise; and whose glassy flatteries Take all the townsfolk ere they go to rest Who come to buy and gossip? Doth his eye Remember a face lovely in a wood? O people! hasten, hasten, do not buy His woeful wares; the bird of grief doth brood There where his heart should be; and far away There mourns long ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare
... Vansen. Gossip! Let the duke alone. The old cat looks as though he had swallowed devils, instead of mice, and could not now digest them. Let him alone, I say; he must eat, drink, and sleep, like other men. I am not afraid if we only watch our opportunity, At first he makes quick work Of it; by-and-by, however, ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... Sir Alfred in dealing with the men and politics of the moment. He swore to no man's words, and one felt in him not only the first-rate administrator, as shown by his Indian career, but also the thinker's scorn for the mere party point of view. He was an excellent gossip, of a refined and subtle sort; he was the soul of honor; and there was that in his fragile and delicate personality which earned the warm affection of many friends. So gentle, so absent-minded, so tired he often seemed; and yet I could imagine those gray-blue eyes of Sir Alfred's ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in a furnished villa at Parame, where chickens were to be bought for thirty-two sous, to more exalted anecdotes connected with the time when her hero had been advanced as far as the post of Commander of the Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert. It is all kindly gossip, not ill suited to the best-tempered service in the world. Especially did I like Lady POORE'S gently maternal attitude towards the many junior officers who figure very attractively in her pages (e.g. the jovial pic-nic party ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... playing fine French airs, and have much gossip of the composers and will perchance bring music with him that will stir us to greater ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... the Italian anticipated, ere he had half disburdened his budget of Escurial gossip, Nignio de Zuniga had his own grievances to confide. Uppermost in his mind, was the irritation of having been employed that morning in a cow-hunt; and from execrations on the name of the old woman, enriched ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... naturalist, and tried to interest her girls in all the specimens of stones, flowers, birds, or insects which they found during their walks. "If you will only learn to talk about things instead of people," she said, "you will avoid a great deal of disagreeable gossip and ill-natured conversation. The wide world is full of beautiful objects, and the more you know about them the less concern you will take over your neighbours' doings and failings. Real culture ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... after Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste had sailed away (November 18) that a piece of gossip came to King's ears that caused him uneasiness. According to the rumour, Lieutenant-Colonel Paterson, of the New South Wales corps, had stated that one of the French officers had told him that one of the purposes of the expedition was to fix upon a site for a settlement ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... von Josephi, "as our political gossip can no longer annoy the ladies, allow me to say that my presence here is not accidental, as I had ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... old housekeeper led her lady through the house, and mightily did she chatter and gossip by the way. The lady listened nearly in silence; for Mrs. Arnold was generous in conversation, and spared her companion all expense of words. At length, however, something she said seemed to rouse her mistress, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... removed her wraps, and finally descended together, Mrs. Randal turning at the head of the stairs to whisper: "There's that horrid old gossip, Major Shirley. I know he will fall to my lot. He always does. How shall I direct the ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... returned to our hotel, a very nice one, and found the street of Dumbarton all alive in the summer evening with the sports of children and the gossip of grown people. There was almost no night, for at twelve o'clock there was still a golden daylight, and Yesterday, before it died, must ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... gave her picnic in the valley of Jehoshaphat and talked London gossip under the olives, it was an odd picture; it is strange to see the irrepressible English riding hurdles in the Campagna, and talking of ratting in the shadow of the Parthenon, as though within the beloved chimes of Bow; but it was stranger still to see those roughened, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... of worthies in loose brown holland coats and straw-hats, talking over every passing occurrence. The banker's office, too, is situated here, and that is a lounge in itself—a sort of private committee-room for the discussing of any fresh piece of gossip, ere it is submitted for dissection to the public at large. The English banker has now become an important feature in all continental circles. The unsophisticated beings who, perchance, imagine his duties simply limited to cashing travellers' ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... attend the transacting of business at Bonsecours Market are in a subdued tone. The fat huckster-women drowsing beside their wares, scarce send their voices beyond the borders of their broad- brimmed straw hats, as they softly haggle with purchasers, or tranquilly gossip together. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... newspaper office, and on other occasions, and again on the night of their arrival at Brighton. But surely not lately! Or did he look at her 'like that' behind her back? Was it possible that people noticed it?... Absurd! His explanation of the origin of the gossip did not convince her. She had, however, suddenly lost interest in the origin of the gossip. She was entirely occupied with George Cannon's tone, and his calm, audacious reference to a phenomenon which had hitherto seemed to her to be far beyond ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... Taylor, October 20, 1878, he said: "Indeed, I have been so buried in study for the past six months that I know not news nor gossip of any kind. Such days and nights of glory as I have had! I have been studying Early English, Middle English, and Elizabethan poetry, from Beowulf to Ben Jonson: and the world seems twice as large."* No sooner had he begun this work than he desired to communicate ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... The explosion of the hand-grenade; shattered hopes and happiness.—A winter evening's gossip at the Aubrey Arms, among Yatton villagers, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... of bees, a strange hum mixed of walking tongues and feet, a kind of still roar or loud whisper." He describes the crowd of young curates, copper captains, thieves, and dinnerless adventurers and gossip-mongers. Bishop Corbet, that jolly ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... wait, I broider;—the clock strikes;—at the last stroke I hear,—for now I never turn to look— Too sure to hear his cane tap down the steps; He seats himself:—with gentle raillery He mocks my tapestry that's never done; He tells me all the gossip of the week. . . (Le Bret appears on the steps): Why, here's Le Bret! (Le Bret descends): How goes ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... he mind? and the pleasant girlish friendliness, without any arriere pensee, of Ursula, was enough to have set any man at his ease; the facts of the case being that Mrs. Hurst was away upon a long visit, and that, having no other gossip within the range of her acquaintance, Ursula did not know. Reginald, who did, had the same sense of magnanimity as his father had, and began to like the society of the congenial yet different spirit which it was so strange to him to find under a guise ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... don't gossip about each other's affairs.—By the way, isn't our friend in there (nodding towards the door on the right) going to be told about it? This seem, ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... subject of conversation with the burning of Moscow and the passage of the Berezina. We cannot wonder that this was so. In the Parisian drawing-room of those days the letters of Madame du Deffand must have exercised a double fascination—on the one hand as a mine of gossip about numberless persons and events still familiar to many a living memory, and, on the other, as a detailed and brilliant record of a state of society which had already ceased to be actual and become historical. The letters were hardly ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... said Mary, with a brightening countenance. "But what ground is there for the idle, ill-natured gossip that ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... scraps of gossip about Captain Warkworth which the Duchess—who had disliked the man at first sight—gathered from different quarters and confided to Jacob were often disquieting. It was said that at Simla he had entrapped this little heiress, and her obviously foolish and incapable mother, ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... her Boston cousins, nor the gossip of the Lewinsons at Florence had left any very clear impression. She remembered well her first and only sight of Miss Manisty at Boston. The little spinster, so much a lady, so kind, cheerful and agreeable, ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... be seen carried along its streets in an old arm-chair, laughing heartily,—or when hastening to arrest the massacre at the Hotel de Ville, she stops to look at Madame Riche, the ribbon-vendor, talking in her chemise to her gossip, the beadle of St. Jacques, who has nothing on but his drawers,—the reader is always reminded that he sees and hears the granddaughter of Henry IV.—a Parisian with a touch of the princess in all she says and does, and he cannot help asking himself momentarily ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... the sorrow of leaving Madame Hanska, disappointment, and deferred hopes were too much for his nervous system. His letters to Madame Hanska were, if possible, filled with greater detail than ever concerning his debts, his household and family matters, his works and society gossip. The tu frequently replaces the vous, and having apparently exhausted all the endearing names in the French language, he resorted to the Hebrew, and finds that Lididda means so many beautiful things that he employs this word. He calls her Liline or Line; she becomes his Louloup, ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... beyond the limits of formality—my hostess had attended quite thoroughly to my being entertained. And at this point the other, the more severe and elderly lady, made her contribution to my entertainment. She had kept silence, I now felt sure, because gossip was neither her habit nor to her liking. Possibly she may have also felt that her displeasure had been too manifest; at any rate, she spoke out of her silence in cold, yet rich, ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... very little trouble. But he was the last person in the world upon whom a garrulous woman could venture to inflict her rambling discourse; as Nancy Woolper—by courtesy, Mrs. Woolper—was fain to confess to her next-door neighbour, Mrs. Magson, when her master was the subject of an afternoon gossip. The heads of a household may inhabit a neighbourhood for years without becoming acquainted even with the outward aspect of their neighbours; but in the lordly servants' halls of the West, or the modest kitchens of Bloomsbury, there will be interchange of civilities ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... time to rebuild and transform the house. The high walls prevented any one from seeing what was being done there. This aroused the curiosity of the townsfolk and caused all sorts of malicious gossip. The working men did not belong to the place, but were brought from a distance. Dark and short and rather gruff-looking, they did not understand the local speech, and seldom showed themselves ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... easy manner of treating and dismissing the subject was a tacit reproach to me. I let the matter drop; we had much more serious topics afloat than gossip about our neighbours. ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... where he could, the money screw. Strickland had listened to his Edinburgh informant, but had never divulged the news given. No more had he told another bit, floated to him again by that ancient Edinburgh friend and gossip, who had young cousins at college and listened to their talk. It pertained to a time a little before that of the shared income. This time it had been shared blood. Strickland, sitting with his book in the quiet room, saw in imagination the students' chambers ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... and matrons of Granby, who had mourned for the elder Browning as people mourn for a good man, felt themselves somewhat consoled from the fact that his successor was young and handsome, and would doubtless prove an invaluable acquisition to their fireside circles, and furnish a theme for gossip, without which no village can well exist. But in the first of their expectations they were mistaken, for Mr. Browning shunned rather than sought society, and spent the most of his leisure hours in the seclusion of his library, where, as Mrs. ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... day at the Point, thoroughly enjoying a long gossip, and, after an early dinner, proposed a walk around the grounds and a look at ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... forced to the final resort of the unaccompanied traveler, she welcomed the advent of an acquaintance possessed of volubility of an ejaculatory, eruptive variety. After many gentle jets and spurts of gossip much remained to be told, as the lady hastily gathered up her impedimenta preparatory to alighting ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... and we have to lend a hand wherever hands are needed. So I am getting five times my fifteen dollars a week in experience, and I am singing inside every minute I feel so good about everything. The workers are all efficient and enthusiastic, and we are great friends. We gossip affectionately about whoever is absent, and hold a jubilee at the restaurant down-stairs when any one gets ahead with an extra story. No other publishers have come rapping at my door in a mad attempt ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... But all this gossip about the moral condition of the adjacent colonies of New York and New England is leading me from the narrative, and does not promise much for the connection and interest of the remainder of ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... Stair-Case, but told me that if I was Speculating he would stay below till I had done. Upon my coming down, I found all the Children of the Family got about my old Friend, and my Landlady herself, who is a notable prating Gossip, engaged in a Conference with him; being mightily pleased with his stroaking her little Boy upon the Head, and bidding him be a good Child and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... were last, my gentle Maid, In love's embraces twining, 'Twas Night, who saw, and then betray'd! "Who saw?" Yon Moon was shining. A gossip Star shot down, and he First told our secret ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... weak sides of his character, may perhaps, after sufficient effort, end by losing all taste for his poetry. In place, then, of artistic enjoyment, we may acquire a knowledge of the man in his 'totality.' What a pity that Petrarch's letters from Avignon contain so little gossip to take hold of, and that the letters of his acquaintances and of the friends of these acquaintances have either been lost or never existed! Instead of Heaven being thanked when we are not forced to inquire how and through what struggles a poet has rescued something immortal ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... Fra Rinaldo lies with his gossip: her husband finds him in the room with her; and they make him believe that he was curing his godson of worms ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Close where they lived in England was not highly exhilarating, and when its duties were over it contained only mild gossip and endless tea-parties and ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... bursting into instantaneous radiance from behind the great barrier of craggy hill, lights up the town and bastions and moles, until the boom of the sunset-gun gives signal for the gates to be closed. Every tavern looks like a canteen; the gossip is of things martial; the music is that of the reveille or tattoo—the blare of brass, the rub-a-dub of parchment, or the shrill sound-revel of Highland pipes (for there is usually a Scotch regiment here). The ladies one ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... for fifty thousand francs, the suspicions attaching to his former opinions lessened, and the community of Arcis gave him credit for intending to recover himself in public estimation. Unfortunately, at the very moment when public opinion was condoning his past a foolish affair, envenomed by the gossip of the country-side, revived the latent and very general belief in the ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... wisely in allowing Mr. Robertson to speak so fully for himself, and in blending his letters with his narrative, and arranging them in chronological order. These letters are in themselves a mine of intellectual wealth. They contain little of table-talk or parlour gossip: but they abound with many of his best and most ripened thoughts on multitudes of subjects, political, literary, and scientific, as well as theological. We wish we could present our readers with extracts from them; ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... he ate grimly as long as there was anything on his plate; but there was nothing to drink. After the meal he sat still disconsolately and did not know what to be at. Nothing to drink, nothing to smoke, no one to gossip with! For the weaver was working busily by lamplight, paying ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... a little strange, the momentary irruption into other people's lives, the friendly gossip with persons of a different tongue and country, whom I had never seen before, whom I should never see again; and were I not strictly truthful I might here lighten my narrative by the invention of a charming and romantic adventure. But if chance brings us often for ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... by one morning before sunrise, riding like the wind. A little later she repassed, whipping her horse at every gallop. Fong Wu, called to his door by the clatter, saw that her face was white and drawn. At noon, going up to the post-office, he heard a bit of gossip that seemed to bear upon her unwonted trip. Radigan was rehearsing it excitedly to his wife, and the Chinese busied himself with his mail ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... poetic to his more utilitarian duties. His going out was an euthanasia, for he was in love and heard nothing. Out in the clearing the blackcocks with their wide-spread spotted tails were fighting, while the hens strutting near, craning and chattering, probably some gossip about their fighting swains, watched and were delighted with them. From the distance flowed in a stern and deep roar, yet full of tenderness and love, the mating call of the deer; while from the crags above came down the short and broken voice of the mountain buck. ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... this important and highly interesting work consists of letters, that we venture to say will bear a comparison for sterling wit, lively humour, entertaining gossip, piquant personal anecdotes, and brilliant pictures of social life, in its highest phases, both at home and abroad, with those ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... drawled. "I knew the government was looking for somebody to steer the interstellar ship that's been gossip for decades. That job," he said distinctly, "is one I would give ...
— Measure for a Loner • James Judson Harmon
... over the gate, Mrs Swadling caught sight of her, and, throwing her apron over her head, crossed the street, bent on gossip. Then Mrs Jones, who had been watching her through the window, dropped her ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... her to look at him in wonder; instead of the stern rebuke she expected, his voice was almost wheedling. "I cannot very well take Mrs. Brewster to a cafe at this hour without causing gossip." ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... raiders had unwittingly followed his trail, only to turn in flight as if the devil was nipping after them once they glimpsed his bulky figure, heard his whimpering or his loud laughter. The men followed him to the Davis Cabin, each eager to contribute to the general gossip concerning the ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... sure, my little one," the Dona Windham answered smiling. No doubt it was a foolish apprehension she decided. If only the Dona Briones who lived on a ranchita near the bay-shore did not gossip so of the Americano games of chance. And if only she might know what took Benito there ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... of you there may be; Twenty-nine are sure to buzz, And the single silent she Racks her brains about her coz:— Mrs. Buzz and Mrs. Huzz, Mind your work, my ditty saith; Do not gossip till your breath Fails and leaves ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... these joyous maids and matrons lead their own lives in their own community, rehearsing their songs, weaving chaplets of flowers, stringing pearls for their simple costumes, playing games and exchanging the badinage and gossip which are the life-breath of womanhood the world over. They are inordinately proud of their hair, as well they may be, and spend hours at a time dressing and ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... only in the way of men who carry sabres; and besides the less gossip the better. Good-by, till five," and the two saluted one another with grim ceremony; and ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... The gossip keekit in his loof, Quo' she, wha lives will see the proof. This waly boy will be nae coof, I think we'll ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... it. It is true that many of her diversions took on that religious or academic character natural to the place. Of village parish life we knew nothing, for our chapel was, like others of its kind, rather an exclusive little place of worship. We were ignorant of pastoral visits, deacons, parochial gossip, church fairs, and what Professor Park used to call "the doughnut business;" and, though we cultivated a weekly prayer-meeting in the lecture-room, I think its chief influence was as a training-school for theological students whose early efforts at public exhortation (poor ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... receiving the noon messages from London. The American operators had not yet come on, for New York business would not begin for an hour. Into these rooms is poured daily the news of the world, and these young fellows toss it about as lightly as if it were household gossip. It is a marvelous exchange, however, and we had intended to make some reflections here upon the en rapport feeling, so to speak, with all the world, which we experienced while there; but our conveyance was waiting. We telegraphed ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... journeyed on, to expect no appreciation of my country or its people. The English are strangely deficient in curiosity. I can scarcely imagine an Englishwoman a gossip. ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... club-house is usually to be found in the villages. It is the town hall, bazaar, market, lounging place, and social club combined. Perhaps a wedding and a funeral may be going on there at the same time. Men gamble, and women gossip and chew betel-nut; the peddler likewise shows his bargain-counter wares at ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... presently, my friend does understand that he has wronged me; that the gossip he repeated or the construction he put upon my actions was not fair or true. And immediately that I become aware of this, from him or from another, my resentment goes, if I have any natural virtue at all; it goes because my wounded pride is healed. I forgive him easily ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... Dalrymple was familiar. The letter is evidently a common newsletter, written by a scribbler, who had never seen the King and Queen except at some public place, and whose anecdotes of their private life rested on no better authority than coffeehouse gossip.] ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in brief, omitting the Psalms and lessons, and then after breakfast, with much gossip and ancient stories from Donald, the father and daughter went out to survey their domain, and though there be many larger, yet there can be few more romantic in the north. That Carnegie had a fine eye and a sense of things who, out of all the Glen—for the Hays had little in Drumtochty in those days—fastened ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... a bit of gossip, he told Aunt Peggy, swore her to secrecy, and rode away. But as there is often a point of honour about the thief and a whim of the Puritan about the immoral, Aunt Peggy could never be brought to say who it ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... of my departure drew near, the men of the community spent much of their leisure in discussing it and me. The social center of East Dennis was a certain grocery, to which almost every man in town regularly wended his way, and from which all the gossip of the town emanated. Here the men sat for hours, tilted back in their chairs, whittling the rungs until they nearly cut the chairs from under them, and telling one another all they knew or had heard about their fellow-townsmen. Then, after each session, they would return home and ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... especially prostitutes (cf. Lombroso, etc., etc.). All these people follow a calling perhaps much troubled, but they do no actual work and have chosen their profession to avoid regular, actual work. They have much unoccupied time, and when they are working, part of the work consists of gossip, part of loafing about, or of a use of the hands that is little more. In brief,—since they loiter about and make a profit out of it, it is no wonder that in giving evidence they also loaf and bring to light only approximate truth. Nor is it difficult to indicate analogous persons ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... Anne made some progress in the national restoration. But it was less by the influence of the Queen than by the work of time. The "gallants" of the reign of Charles were now a past generation. Their frolics were a gossip's tale; their showy vices were now as tarnished as their wardrobe, and both were hung out of sight. The man who, in the days of Anne, would have ventured on the freaks of Rochester, would have finished his nights in the watch-house, and his years in the plantations. The wit of the past age was also ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... shores, the woods, or the fields. In this way families are divided. Parents grow apart, and unconsciously the pearl of greatest price is thrown away. The wife ceases to be the intellectual companion of the husband. She reads the "Christian Register," sermons in the Monday papers, and a little gossip about folks and fashions, while he studies the works of Darwin, Haeckel and Humboldt. Their sympathies become estranged. They are no longer mental friends. The husband smiles at the follies of the wife and she weeps for the supposed sins of ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... to Abbie Baker at South Denboro. He made one flying trip to that village: "Just to prove to 'em that I'm still alive," as he explained it. "Some of those folks down there at the postoffice must have pretty nigh forgot to gossip about me by this time. They've had me eloped and married and a millionaire and a pauper long ago, I don't doubt. And now they've probably forgot me altogether. I'll just run down and stir 'em up. Good ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... suggested the idea of a series of similar letters to his own paper, and he at once put his plan into execution. His letters were written and published. They were "spicy," pleasant in style, full of gossip about the distinguished personages who thronged the capital every winter, and, withal, free from any offensive personality. They were read with eagerness, and widely copied by the press throughout the country. Yet he was poorly paid for them, and at ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... I learned to be interested in "society" news. From a weekly paper of gossip about the rich and great she would read paragraphs, explaining subtle allusions and laying bare veiled scandals. Some of the men she knew well, referring to them for my benefit as Bertie and Reggie and Vivie and Algie. She also ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... peg-top by one of the grooms in the stable yard, when the coachman, who had just driven my mother home, announced the historic news. In a few minutes four or five servants - maids and men - came running to the stables to learn particulars, and the peg-top, to my sorrow, had to be abandoned for gossip and flirtation. We were a long way from street criers - indeed, quite out of town. My father's house was in Kensington, a little further west than the present museum. It was completely surrounded by fields and hedges. I mention the fact merely to show to what age definite ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... friend," replied my host, "but the time will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others. Believe nothing you hear, and only one-half that you see. Now about our Maisons de Sante, it is clear that some ignoramus has misled you. After dinner, however, when you have sufficiently recovered from the fatigue of your ride, I will be ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... not at all, they might at least choose a vow which only hurts themselves. Now, papa"—Hetty shot a glance at her mother, who felt it, even in the dusk, and bent her eyes on the smouldering fire. The girl had heard (for it was kitchen gossip) that Mr. Wesley had once quarrelled with his wife over politics, and left Epworth rectory vowing never to return to her until she acknowledged William III. for her rightful king; nor indeed had returned until William's death made the vow idle and released him. ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... on which he came to "The Gables" Mr. Lenox always looked in on her for a little gossip; and this was called his "runcible spoon"—the joke being that Mr. Lenox and Runcie were ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... Gossip said that the young marquis visited the handsome shepherdess in her sheiling, and met her by appointment, when she was out ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... you haven't, of course," she went on. "But Coombe is such a place for gossip. Ever since you and he had that smash-up with the automobile, people have kind of got it into their heads that you're keeping company. But I said to Mrs. Miller, 'I know Esther Coombe better than you do and it isn't at all likely that a girl who can pick and choose will go off ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... time when the Wixon boy put Paris-green in the Trufants' well, because the oldest Trufant girl had given him the mitten, Marm Gossip gabbled in Smyrna until flecks of foam gathered in the ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... with comfortable beds, and chiffonniers or bureaus and adequate closet space were provided. Miss Hopkins and I did not sleep in, but had our beds assigned us, and used our dormitory rights merely for a cloak room. Here we lingered after hours to gossip, and here we often retired at noon to stretch out for a few minutes' relaxation of our aching muscles. The dormitories varied in size. Each hospital had several large and several small ones. In most cases these dormitories were on upper floors. ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... of negro troops had started the story on its rounds among the guileless French peasants that the white troops, who had just arrived, comprised the "Scum of America," and that they (the negroes) were the real Americans; the whites being the so-called "American Indians." As the flames of gossip spread from tongue to tongue, admonition was added that the white arrivals were dangerous and corrupt and the French should refrain from associating with ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... never completed. She clapped one hand swiftly before her scarlet face, and ran away to hide, and think of what she had done. It was full five minutes before she would bring her face under the eye of that young gossip in the drawing-room. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... source of much gossip and great speculation, of course, to the good people of Green Isle, (as we shall style this gem of the Pacific, in order to thwart the myrmidons of the law!) They found them so reserved and uncommunicative, however, on the subject of their personal affairs, that the most ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... objection to soil their hands with work that the men had to dirty theirs with commerce. The labors of the loom, which no Grecian princess regarded as unbecoming her rank, were despised by all Persian women except the lowest; and we may conclude that the same idle and frivolous gossip which resounds all day in the harems of modern Iran formed the main occupation of the Persian ladies in the time ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... look on here, as far as the cowboys were concerned, was mere pretense. In Belllounds's case, however, he had a profound interest. Rumors had drifted to him from time to time, since his advent at White Slides, regarding Belllounds's weakness for gambling. It might have been cowboy gossip. Wade held that there was nothing in the West as well calculated to test a boy, to prove his real character, as ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... back to their steamer chairs, glad of some new topic to discuss, for the gossip they had brought on board was threadbare now, as they were two days at sea. And the steamer sailed over the blue water that softly lapped the stout vessel's side, careless of the battle that had been waged for a life, even then holding by slender threads. And Fanny Vanderburgh, ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... woman's heart. She not only gave us bread and milk but sat down to gossip with us while we ate. She, too, had relatives "out there, somewhere in Iowa" and would hardly let us go, so eager was she to know all about her people. "Surely ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... that had been seen in the town. He had a parish in Lynn, and was afterwards settled in Brooklyn; but his habits became irregular, he remained but a short time in any place, and he separated from his wife in 1838. There was much gossip about her, owing to her beauty and her fondness for ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... miserable, and not by any means seriously displeased with the rawness and the snow. Straw wind-breaks are set up on the windward side of the tea-houses, and there is much stopping among pedestrians to gather around the tea-house braziers and gossip ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... Sir Philip," he said; "I am very poor company, and I shall be glad to be alone with the Times. You young men don't appreciate the Times. You want your newspapers filled with prize-fighting and boat-racing, and the last gossip from 'the Corner.' You'll find Miss Dunbar in the blue drawing-room. Speak to her as soon as you please; and let me know the result ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... bound to decide, did not bring this before him. And this rule, always binding, is, of course, never more so than in regard to a Court of Final Appeal, which should be careful not to conclude more than is regularly before it. Let me add that a just and considerate person will wholly disregard the gossip which flies about in regard to cases exciting much interest; passing words in the course of an argument, forgotten when the judgment comes to be considered, are too often caught up, as having guided ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... of the sheltered fireside in Baltimore whose seclusion had made the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass possible, the boarding-house with its hideous clatter, its gossip and its commonplaceness was the merest make-shift of a home. It was stifling. How was a dreamer to breathe in a boarding-house? He was even homesick for the purr and the comfortable airs ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... had just brought it from the spare room that there might be no more going back and forth through the halls to excite suspicion. She was determined that there should be no excitement or demonstration or opportunity for gossip among the guests at least until the ceremony was over. She had satisfied herself that not a soul outside the family save the two maids suspected that aught was the matter, and she ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... do all you can to put a stop to the worst and most disgusting gossip, now you know the true circumstances of the case. One more thing, in profound confidence, and on the understanding that you will not say a word about it to my husband: Joergen Malthe, dear fellow, formerly honoured me with his youthful affections—as ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... something strange—Sara Lee could find nothing else to talk about. The thing that she had looked forward so eagerly to telling—that was barred. And the small gossip of their little circle, purely personal and trivial, held only faint interest for her. For the first time they had no common ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was followed. Coke, very reluctantly, knowing well who had given it, and why, "not only weeping himself but followed by the tears" of all the Court of Common Pleas, moved up to the higher post. The Attorney Hobart succeeded, and Bacon at last became Attorney (October 27, 1613). In Chamberlain's gossip we have an indication, such as occurs only accidentally, of the view of outsiders: "There is a strong apprehension that little good is to be expected by this change, and that Bacon may prove a ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... "We must economize," he wrote to the priests of the seminary, "and have only watchful and industrious domestics. We must look after them, else they deteriorate in the seminary. You have the example of the baker, Louis Lemaire, an idler, a gossip, a tattler, a man who, instead of walking behind the coach, would not go unless Monseigneur paid for a carriage for him to follow him to La Rochelle, and lent him his dressing-gown to protect him from the cold. Formerly he worked well at heavy labour at Cap Tourmente; ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... upon the fragile form and features, which might be those of a dying man, and to hear such utterances as his—now the strangest comments and insignificant incidents; now pregnant remarks on great subjects, and then malignant gossip, virulent and base, but delivered with an air and a voice of philosophical calmness and intellectual commentary such as caused the disgust of the listener to be largely qualified with amusement and surprise. One good thing ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... stroke. Roldan, nothing loth, sailed round to that part of the coast where Ojeda's ships were anchored, and asked to see his licence; which was duly shown to him and rather took the wind out of his sails. He heard a little gossip from Ojeda, moreover, which had its own significance for him. The Queen was ill; Columbus was in disgrace; there was talk of superseding him. Ojeda promised to sail round to San Domingo and report himself; but instead, he sailed to the east along ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... crazy all morning. But I had to wait a decent time and listen to their gossip after breakfast," she told him, her face close to his as she came up the ladder. "And, besides, my father is snappy to-day. He scolded me last night for neglecting my guests. Just as if I were called on to sit all day and listen to Nan Burgess appraise her lovers ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... the conditions which will make of it the best that can be, is very necessarily ignored by philosophers who propose, as a beautiful fulfilment of human destinies, a life entertained by scientific gossip, in a cellar lighted by electric sparks, warmed by tubular inflation, drained by buried rivers, and fed, by the ministry of less learned and better provisioned races, with extract of beef, ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... the precautions she should adopt for concealing her money, and as she was to depart early in the morning, took leave of her very affectionately, taking her word that she would visit her on her return to Scotland, and tell her how she had managed, and that summum bonum for a gossip, "all how and about ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... other as Old Man and the women as My Dear. No one was mentioned except by his or her first name or by some intimate diminutive or abbreviation. It seemed to be assumed that the guests were only interested in personal gossip relating to the marital infelicities of the neighboring countryside, who lost most at cards, and the theater. Every remark relating to these absorbing subjects was given a feebly humorous twist and greeted with a burst of hilarity. Even the mere suggestion ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... the details of each other's daily life, income, and expenditure, and the day's doings of each member of the little circle are matters for conversation. Indeed, were it not for the volcano and its doings, conversation might degenerate into gossip. There is an immense deal of personal talk; the wonder is that there is so little ill-nature. Not only is what everybody does here common property, but the sayings, doings, goings, comings, and purchases of every one in all the other islands are common property also, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... was familiar with the lives of all his neighbors (he was that kind of person, not because he loved gossip but one never knew how such information might come in handy) and who knew to a penny the state of affairs in the Sparrow household, felt strong enough to insist upon certain terms. Sparrow could have all the money ...
— Ancient Man - The Beginning of Civilizations • Hendrik Willem Van Loon
... was both "extensive and peculiar," could retail much gossip and always brought plenty of news with him: to hear which Forster did seriously incline. The Poet, too, had a pleasant flavour of irony or cynicism in his talk, but nothing ill-natured. What a pleasant Sunday ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... of mechanical ability the rule of silence must have been very irksome; the student would be grateful for it. Alcuin forbade gossip to prevent mistakes in copying. Among the Cluniacs the rule was strictly enforced in the church, refectory, cloister, and dormitory. A chapter of the Cistercian order (1134) enjoined silence in all rooms where the brethren were ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... intervals at Kensington, scraps of his adolescence, as it were, lying amidst the new matter of his manhood, intervals during which he was simply an insubordinate and disappointing student with an increasing disposition to gossip. At South Kensington he dwelt with theories and ideals as a student should; at the little rooms in Chelsea—they grew very stuffy as the summer came on, and the accumulation of the penny novelettes Ethel favoured made a litter—there was his particular private ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... that that piece of gossip you mentioned to me is not repeated in this house? I strongly disapprove of talebearing of any sort, and wish to hear no more of this. Such stories are never true. Answer me—do you hear? Such stories ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... with some heat, "and therefore while the report of it will not injure your daughter, it may do irreparable harm to a girl who has her own way to make in the world. The gossip of Beaminster tea-tables is not to be despised. The old ladies of Beaminster are all turning their backs on Miss Colwyn, because common report declares her to have been expelled—or dismissed—in ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... beginning to burst forth, and it was there that the Blackbird joined him. Rooks' nests, made of rough-looking sticks, many of them containing one or more blue eggs, were to be seen dotted here and there along the avenue of elms, and the cawing and the gossip, to say nothing of the quarrelling, was almost deafening. The Blackbird settled on a bough close to the Rook, and as he did so he noticed some swallows skimming over the lawn far below them. They were ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... t' supper to-night?" said the Henry Clay; and so questions and answers flew back and forth. Men had met one another before, dory-fishing in the fog, and there is no place for gossip like the Bank fleet. They all seemed to know about Harvey's rescue, and asked if he were worth his salt yet. The young bloods jested with Dan, who had a lively tongue of his own, and inquired after their health by the town-nicknames they least liked. Manuel's countrymen jabbered at ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... tell, even when you know wife and husband. I was rather glad that I did not know this pair. If I had known them I should be looking at the casualty list for his name and I might not enjoy my faith that he will return alive. These two seemed to me the best of England. I used to think of them when gossip sought the latest turn of intrigue under the mantle of censorship, when Parliament poured out its oral floods and the newspapers their volumes of words. The man went off to fight; the woman returned to her country home. It was the hour of war, ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... heat of summer always brings with it, to the idler and the man of leisure, a longing for the leafy shade and the green luxuriance of the country. It is pleasant to interchange the din of the city, the movement of the crowd, and the gossip of society, with the silence of the hamlet, the quiet seclusion of the grove, and the gossip of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... the Summer, Full-leaved and strong, And gay birds gossip The orchard long,— Sing hid, sweet honey That no bee sips; Sing red, red ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... marked the patrician's disdainful disregard of his (Boone's) efforts to supplant him. Hatred of the Spragues became something like a passion in Boone. Sarcasms and disparagement leveled at his social and political pretensions he attributed to the Senator and his family. All sorts of slurs and gossip were reported to him by busybodies, until it became a settled purpose with Boone to make the Sprague family feel heavy heart-burnings for the sum of the affronts he had endured. It was to them he attributed the whispered gibes about his illiteracy; his shady ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... she (Report) were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapped ginger." (Merchant of Venice, ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... husband and wife. Else, how can they enjoy the society and conversation of each other, in those numberless hours, when they are sole companions? What a burden to a lady of cultivated mind, must be the society of one, who takes no pleasure in a book, and can appreciate only the gossip of the day, or ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... element in a canvas nearly always overshadows political doctrine, except when a new party or new measure is rising into prominence.] Our men brilliant, able, safe. Our opponents the opposite. [Public character only should be criticized. Gossip, scandal, slander are abominable, and seldom well received by any audience. Poison, the assassin's dagger, and the spreading of infamous stories do ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... Marlborough, who was much concerned with keeping intact (as she wrote in her will) "all Mr. Congreaves Personal Estate that he left me" in order to pass it along to her youngest daughter Mary. This daughter, said by gossip to have been Congreve's daughter also, married the fourth Duke of Leeds in 1740, and thus Congreve's books eventually found their way to Hornby Castle, chief seat of ...
— The Library of William Congreve • John C. Hodges
... This gossip, if old Walter heard, He checked it with a scornful word: I never durst such tales repeat; He was too serious and discreet To speak of what his lord might do; Besides, he loved my lady too. And many a time, I recollect, They were together in the wood; He, with an air of grave ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... organised conspiracy against the state. To any such movement my sympathies were early acquired, and I would not willingly let fall a word that might embarrass or retard the revolution. But to show that I speak of knowledge, and not as the reporter of mere gossip, I may mention that I have myself been present at a meeting where the details of a republican Constitution were minutely debated and arranged; and I may add that Gondremark was throughout referred to by the speakers as their captain in action and the arbiter of their disputes. He has taught his ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... . There are two old ladies (English) living here who may serve me for a few lines of gossip—as I have intended they should, over and over again, but I have always forgotten it. There were originally four old ladies, sisters, but two of them have faded away in the course of eighteen years, and withered by the side of John Kemble in ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... same way, when we gaze at the peaceful landscape of some hidden-away English countryside, we yearn to live among such peacefulness, forgetting that, though life in the country may look peaceful to the stranger's eye, experience teaches us that gossip and scandal and the continual agitation round and round the trivial—an agitation so great that the trivial becomes colossal—at last rob life of anything resembling dolce far niente mid country lanes and in the shadow of some country church. ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King |
