"Gossip" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bear this libellous gossip least patiently of all with birds. If a ninny have some stories about a wonderful goose, let him out with them, and then waddle away with his fat friend into the stackyard—where they may take sweet counsel together ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... with cushions and shawls, the day was bright and warm, Lettice was full of light gossip and cheerfulness, and Alan had reason to think that he had never had a more ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... herself on a divan, and proceeded to plunge into all the flying gossip of the day. Incidentally she managed to hint that Servius Maccus, her devoted admirer, had told her that the night before Lucius Ahenobarbus and some of his friends had attacked and insulted a lady on her way ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... fixed for the twentieth; it was to take place at the Madeleine. There had been a great deal of gossip about the entire affair, and many different reports were circulated. Mme. Walter had aged greatly; her hair was gray and ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... creatures of society. It is a privilege not to have to reproduce the common small-talk of ball-rooms and garden-parties, nor to be obliged to make the most, after a semi-libellous fashion, of after-dinner scandals, or gossip in the smoking-room. Not having heard them he cannot well report racy anecdotes, whereof sundry memoirs have been too full. In the happier condition of a partial anchoritism I have escaped clubs, London seasons, and country ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... other story of what has occurred being told on board ship, will you please do your best to contradict it? A ship is a hopeless place for gossip. However, I am afraid Yvonne will scarcely be fit for the work our Red Cross unit expects to undertake. I must find some one to befriend the child ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... German phrase rings out, "Was wir haben bleibt Deutsch"—"What we are now holding by force of arms shall remain forever German"—there is an answering thrill in the heart of every Antwerp clerk who for years has been leaking Belgian government gossip into German ears in return for a piece of money. Secret sin was eating away Belgium's vitality—the sin of being bought by German money, bought in little ways, for small bits of service, amiable passages ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... attempt to analyze the twisted motives that made Clare belittle what she professed to love. And she did not ask what the gossip was. Half way up Palmer Lane she turned in at the cement path between borders of early perennials which led to the white Wheeler house. She was flushed and angry, hating Clare for her unsolicited confidence and her malice, hating even Haverly, ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... makes me, in any situation, just inordinately and submissively see things. I shall see them even here and shall come down very often and tell you about them. You're not interested today, but you will be tomorrow, for a ship's a great school of gossip. You won't believe the number of researches and problems you'll be engaged in by the middle ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... been sentenced for ten years. I have enough of the woman in me to love minding other people's business, and, as far as I can find out, that's about all journalism amounts to. Sewing societies aren't to be mentioned in the same day with a newspaper for scandal and gossip, and, besides, I'm an ardent advocate of men's rights—have been for centuries—and I've got my first chance now to promulgate a few of my ideas. I'm really a man in all my views of life—that's the inevitable ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... hut village appeared in a clearing on the right bank. This was Dos Hermanos (Two Brothers), where people who left Gatun early in the morning usually stopped for breakfast, and their boatmen stopped for gossip. But Maria only shook his head at sight of it, and he and Francisco paused in their paddling not an instant. So Dos Hermanos ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... Royal of Great Britain IN England is too absurd, to say the least. The Queen must say that there never was even the shadow of a doubt on Prince Frederick William's part as to where the marriage should take place, and she suspects this to be the mere gossip of the Berliners. Whatever may be the usual practice of Prussian Princes, it is not every day that one marries the eldest daughter of the Queen of England. The question therefore must be ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... news of the Auld Laird's death reached the village, and on the following Sabbath there was not an empty seat in the kirk, for every one was anxious to hear the latest gossip about the event which meant so much to every one in the region. There was no newspaper in the village, and the news of the week was passed about by word of mouth in the kirkyard after service, or on week days was retailed over the counter at the village post-office, which was ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... are gossips. But I get business by gossip as well as lose it. By gossip, sir, and perfumed soap. The art of perfuming dogs has a great future. It's an undeveloped field. I'm just beginning ...
— Class of '29 • Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings
... cloves, and nuts, the Mullah drones the evening prayer. Few white men have seen, and returned to tell the tale. But we may imagine the conversation passing from the prices of arms and cattle, the prospects of the harvest, or the village gossip, to the great Power, that lies to the southward, and comes nearer year by year. Perhaps some former Sepoy, of Beluchis or Pathans, will recount his adventures in the bazaars of Peshawar, or tell of the white officers he ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... back with the station-master, and between the two, Hilda's trunk was hoisted into the cart. Then the good woman climbed in over the wheel, settled her ample person on the seat and gathered up the reins, while the station-master stood smoothing the mare's mane, ready for a parting word of friendly gossip. ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... the Lady Elizabeth to call on My Lord at Bowhill! What do you think of that? And she leads Agnew Greatorix about like a lamb, or rather like a sheep. He gets just one glass of sherry at dinner," said Winsome, who loved a spice of gossip—as ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... of the details of his search, even to Carlia's parents. Any unpleasant disclosures would have to come from her to them, he reasoned. Not being able to get Dorian talking about the case, the good people of Greenstreet soon exhausted their own knowledge of the matter, so in a short time, the gossip resumed its ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... various places on the road between Ollantaytambo and Torontoy, I finally left the cool shade of the pleasant little hut and climbed farther up the ridge and around a slight promontory. Arteaga had "been here once before," and decided to rest and gossip with Richarte and Alvarez in the hut. They sent a small boy with ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... 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 ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I hope Trebell will believe I have no personal feelings in this matter, but we may as well face the fact even now that O'Connell holding his tongue to-morrow won't stop gossip in the House, club gossip, gossip in drawing rooms. What do the Radicals really care so long as a scandal doesn't get into the papers! There's an inner circle ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... to Camilla, "come in and we'll have tea and gossip, English fashion. And I'll tell you about my new duties at the Home for Destitute Children—every morning from ten to twelve, my dear, in their horrid old infirmary—the poor little darlings!—and I would be there all day if I wasn't a selfish, indolent, pleasure-loving creature without an ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... land, she would never suffer any evil or immodest talk to be held in her presence; and those who wished to learn aught of the wickedness of the town and the scandals of High Life were fain to go elsewhere for their gossip. ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... gossip about, for Day's wife had been sent from the asylum as cured, and her husband had been permitted to take her home again on condition that no young or weak person should remain in the house with her. He had sent his ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... residence at the French court the two had been inseparable, living together, going to the same festivals, tournaments, and masquerades, and even sleeping in the same bed. "My master," was ever Guise's address to Henry; "my gossip," the young King of Navarre's reply. But the crafty Bearnese had made use of the intimacy only to read the secrets of the Balafre's heart; and on Navarre's flight from the court, and his return to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... prolong until night. That is the reason, doubtless, why he passes the sumptuous establishment where he usually takes his bath; nor does he pause at the Chinese Baths. He is too well known hereabout. All Paris would know what had happened the same evening. There would be a lot of ill-bred gossip in clubs and salons, much spiteful comment on his death; and the old fop, the man of breeding, wishes to spare himself that shame, to plunge and be swallowed up in the uncertainty and anonymity of suicide, ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... hours ago it was money and madness, bankruptcy and divorce courts, the automobile pace—the devil's own. Now, it was quiet and gentility, easy-living and refinement. Had he been in Hampton a little longer, he would have added: gossip and tittle-tattle, ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... of his prestige, Napoleon was aware that he added to it by treating rather worse than stable lads the great personages around him, and among whom figured some of those celebrated men of the Convention of whom Europe had stood in dread. The gossip of the period abounds in illustrations of this fact. One day, in the midst of a Council of State, Napoleon grossly insults Beugnot, treating him as one might an unmannerly valet. The effect produced, he goes up to him and says, "Well, stupid, ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... his humour, was capable of sinking into a theatrical mannerism and cockney vulgarities of wretched taste; Disraeli, with all his wit and savoir faire, has printed some rank fustian, and much slip-slop gossip; and George Meredith at times can be as jerky and mysterious as a prose Browning. Charlotte Bronte and Kingsley could both descend to blue fire and demoniac incoherences. Macaulay is brilliant and emphatic, but we weary at last of his everlasting staccato ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... tempting Leander into the paths of gossip, undoubtedly his besetting sin, but she could not resist the temptation to linger. He had disposed of his last dish-cloth, and he withdrew the remaining clothes-pin from his mouth in a way ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... love to picture—straight, prim, opinionated, with a sharp tongue that wrought discord wherever it went. She dealt in other people's shortcomings, and if Burleigh had not known her too well to give her false tales credence, she might have worked some serious mischief. As it was, everyone took her gossip with a grain of salt, remarking, with a smile and a shrug after she had gone away, "Of course, that may be true, but remember, ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... his profile was very like Granville Barker's. 'I am told,' he said, in grave, quick, low tones, 'that you are saying things about him rather indiscriminately. Bringing, in fact, charges against him—suspicions, rather.... I hardly think you can be aware of the seriousness of such irresponsible gossip, such—I can't call it anything but slander—when it is widely circulated. How it grows—spreads from person to person—the damage, the irreparable damage it ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... what pleased me mightily. Thence to the Duke's playhouse, and saw "Macbeth." The King and Court there; and we sat just under them and my Lady Castlemaine, and close to a woman that comes into the pit, a kind of a loose gossip, that pretends to be like her, and is so something. And my wife, by my troth, appeared, I think, as pretty as any of them; I never thought so much before; and so did Talbot and W, Hewer, as they said, I heard, to one another. The King and Duke of York minded me, and smiled ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... talk such gossip to you, Celia?" said Dorothea, indignantly, not the less angry because details asleep in her memory were now awakened to confirm the unwelcome revelation. "You must have asked her ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... what is common gossip; but Charlton himself put the story about. And the papers said a lot about the elopement of the wife of a ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... has no sort of connection or kindred. It may be some oddity in the manner, or incident in the life, of the author that is whispered over before his book comes out. This often macadamizes the way to popularity, for gossip is a mighty spell in the literary world, and a concealment of the author's name often creates an anxiety in the public mind, for it leaves room for guesses and conjectures, and as some are very fond of appearing ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... Madeline, nor was he at Fanny Miller's teaparty. Of the rapidly progressing flirtation between his sweetheart and the handsome drug-clerk he had all this time no suspicion whatever. Spending his days from dawn to sunset in the shop among men, he was not in the way of hearing gossip on that sort of subject; and Laura, who ordinarily kept him posted on village news, had, deemed it best to tell him as yet nothing of her apprehensions. She was aware that the affection between her brother and Madeline was chiefly on his side, and knew enough of her wilfulness ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... inaugurated a new era in novel-writing with his "Castle of Otranto," but it is by his "Letters" he will live in English literature, which, "malicious, light as froth, but amusing, retail," as Stopford Brooke remarks, "with liveliness all the gossip of the time"; he is characterised by Carlyle as "one of the clearest-sighted men of his century; a determined despiser and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... nothing?" she thought. And a passion of secret anger woke up in her. "Am I to have nothing at all? May I not even speak to this boy, in whom I have seen Maurice for a moment—because if I do I may disturb some childish gossip?" ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... ashamed of you, Jennie," said father, "to listen to such scandalous gossip! How—how unmaidenly of you! I dare say he was a little wild,—forty years ago. Most young fellows are, and he was rich and handsome. But he has been a shining light in this community for forty ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... started for a little walk. He was quite happy if some shopkeeper standing on the threshold of his door would stop him and say, "Well, pere Rogron, how goes it with you?" Then he would talk, and ask for news, and gather all the gossip of the town. He usually went as far as the Upper town, sometimes to the ravines, according to the weather. Occasionally he would meet old men taking their walks abroad like himself. Such meetings were joyful events to him. There happened to be in Provins a few men weary of Parisian ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... repugnance and disgust. Between people holding these diverse opinions discussions would sometimes arise, especially at meetings of the Dorcas Society, when neither Laura nor Mrs. Jaynes was present. But, just at this juncture, an event occurred which gave a new direction to the current of village gossip, setting every member of the Dorcas sisterhood all agape with wonder and surprise, and all agog with excitement and curiosity. Of this strange and memorable affair I will presently give a veritable account, and even ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... afternoon, and then only for an hour. Mrs. Toplady took her leave before mid-day. Miss Bride showed herself only at breakfast and luncheon, when she was friendly, indeed, but not much disposed for talk. Dyce had anticipated a growth of intimacy with Constance; he was prepared for long, confidential gossip in the library or the garden; but his friend briefly excused herself. She had a lot of reading ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... usual. We talked war and hospital and local gossip for a while and then she seemed to take refuge at the piano. We had one red-letter day, when a sailor cousin of hers, fresh from the North Sea, came to luncheon and told us wonders of the Navy which we had barely imagined and did not dare to hope for. His tidings gave subject ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... our way eastward. As the morning was unusually fine I diverged towards one of the more fashionable localities to deliver a note with which I had been charged. Young Slidder's spirits were high, and for a considerable time he entertained me with a good deal of the East-end gossip. Among other things, he told me of the great work that was being done there by Dr Barnardo and others of similar spirit, in rescuing waifs like himself from ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... neighbours round, and they are running hither like a pack of hounds to see what is going on. They know this pretty girl has a young man in here talking with her, and already they are calling for her old gossip of a mother. When her mother comes ye will catch it finely. ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... yesterday evening in the little French cafe—a soul-withering resort, furnished with a few cast-iron tables and uncomfortable chairs that repose on a flooring of chill cement tiles—where, in sheer desperation, two or three of us, muffled up to our ears, congregate before dinner to exchange gossip ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... had wonderfully brought all these manifold activities into being had its talisman in the word "Gold"; but, since Pesquiera had come neither as a prospector nor investor, he heard with only half-concealed impatience the easy gossip of his fellow travelers about the famous ore ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... 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 ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... A picture-paper gossip states that Mr. CHURCHILL enjoys very good health. Just a touch of writer's cramp now and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... by her husband's side to begin the heavy work of the banquet, and she did so in some measure of restored tranquillity, but nevertheless she shook her head at her gossip to show that in this instance she did not quite ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... began bustling about preparing to receive the evening mail, always an event for him as well as for the villagers, who ordinarily flocked into the office, hoping to catch sight of a familiar handwriting or hear a name mentioned that would give them foundation for a bit of gossip. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... little. We had some difficulty in collecting our party, and finally discovered Francis, Ctesse de Gontaut and Christiani having chocolate and cakes in the back parlour of the grocer's shop (nothing like equality on these occasions), who was telling them all the little gossip of the town, and naming the radicals who wouldn't ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... employed as a motorist; it was necessary that he should obtain the latest models, and it suited him that the Government, not haggling over the price, should take over his discarded vehicles. Similar hostages to gossip were given by Mirko, his younger brother; one remembers the smiles of the diplomatic corps at Cetinje when this young man dispatched, at the cost of the Government, a telegram of about 500 words to Austria, concerning ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... Henrietta, the young Duchess of 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 ...
— The Library of William Congreve • John C. Hodges
... with some pieces of wool off the sheeps' backs which she had collected from the bushes in the other. It was Dame Hursey, the wool-gatherer, well known to John Shelley and every other shepherd in the neighbourhood, with all of whom she often had a gossip, and celebrated in the district as the mother of an unfortunate son, a fine, promising young sailor, who, having been convicted of robbery some years ago, and served a long sentence in Lewes gaol, had never been heard of since, unless his mother ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... district into the old Equerries' quarter lying behind, and west of, the Kremlin hill. It was possible that he had some hazy idea of startling his wife's family by an unwelcome visit; and from them gaining the latest gossip concerning last night's ball. But the idea remained nebulous. Nicholas had responded too readily to his touch, the few lines of cipher on his map had proved too disturbing to the royal mind, for the tormentor's pride not to have been restored by such ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... was only good for a few months more at the most, and I would soon be a helpless burden. Besides, I have heart trouble that will account for this sudden taking off, so you can escape any unpleasant gossip. ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... found his lunch waiting for him. He sat down and ate with a good appetite. After finishing, he had another drink, and sat sipping it slowly and smoking his pipe; going over the story Gladys Fleming had told him, and the gossip he had gotten from Carter Tipton, and the other statements which had been made to him by different people about the death of Lane Fleming, and the conclusions he had reached about the theft of the pistols, and the killing of ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... without being a regular customer, went occasionally to the tavern of La Fillon. It was quite fashionable at that time to go and drink at her house. D'Harmental was to her neither her son, a name which she gave to all her "habitues," nor her gossip, a word which she reserved for the Abbe Dubois, but simply Monsieur le Chevalier; a mark of respect which would have been considered rather a humiliation by most of the young men of fashion. La Fillon was much astonished ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... playfellow, rather than spiritual adviser, he had always been to her, Kate's need seeming rather more for playfellows than for spiritual advisers. But the trouble that morning was that the things of which she was wont to gossip and jest seemed remote ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... terrible than the one which confronted Israel. Duty lies on the other side, and I am going over! 'Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward.' The crimson waves of scandal, the white foam of gossip, shall part before me and heap themselves up as ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... This bit of gossip fell upon my ear without producing the slightest impression, for I cared little for dancing, and less for grand balls; in early youth I had liked both; but ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... generously—for she thinks of me, dear creature—that he may come, that he may stay, for my sake, he spends most of his time only hovering at her door, prowling through the rooms, trying to entertain me, in that ghastly saloon, with the gossip of Venice, and meeting me, in doorways, in the sala, on the staircase, with an agreeable intolerable smile. We don't," said Susan Shepherd, "talk ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... contemporary gossip-writer that Count PLUNKETT has definitely decided not to take his seat in the House of Commons until after the War. This will be a relief to the authorities, who had feared that the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... what wit, what profundity, what vastness of knowledge, what a grand gossip concerning all things, and more beside, did we anticipate, only to find the promise broken, and a big impostor with no more muscle than the black drone who fills the pipes and sentries the seraglio of the Sophi or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... else's home and so on, until everyone had a sufficient amount of bed-clothing made for the winter. Besides, this was an excellent chance to get together for a pleasant time and discuss the latest gossip. Most friendly calls were made on Sunday, after securing a "pass". This "pass" was very necessary to go from one plantation ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... Eulenspiegel or Markolf, would hardly have been remembered so accurately by him in later years, if he had not familiarised himself with them in childhood. He would at times inveigh against the worthless, and even shameless tales and 'gossip,' as he called it, which such books contained, and especially against the priests who used to spice their sermons with such stories; but that he also recognised their value we know from his allusion to 'some people, who had ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... gouge and rend. "That's the proposition," he repeated to himself; "what will they-all do when the play is close and down to brass tacks?" He felt unwarrantably suspicious of them. "They're sure slick," was his secret judgment; and from bits of gossip dropped now and again he felt his judgment well buttressed. On the other hand, they radiated an atmosphere of manliness and the fair play that goes with manliness. They might gouge and rend in a fight—which was no more than natural; but he felt, somehow, that ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... characterize M. Franklin and to serve as an inscription for his portrait." These Memoirs, as is well known, are the record of conversations and news gathered in the circle of that venerable Egeria of gossip;[30] and here is evidence of the publicity which this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... falcon, signifies those whose "feet are swift to shed blood" (Ps. 13:3). The plover [*Here, again, the Douay translators transcribed from the Vulgate: charadrion; charadrius is the generic name for all plovers.], which is a garrulous bird, signifies the gossip. The hoopoe, which builds its nest on dung, feeds on foetid ordure, and whose song is like a groan, denotes worldly grief which works death in those who are unclean. The bat, which flies near the ground, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... old Merrie England in be-hollyed and be-mistletoe'd homes enjoying your turkeys, puddings, and all that goes to make Christmas the festive season of goodwill, when families and friends re-unite for a short while, and eat, drink, and gossip generally, will, I am sure, amidst the festival, pause now and again to think of the wanderers on the veldt, and more than likely toast them in champagne, port, sherry, elder, or orange wine. That is if we are not home. ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... pay to me. You can, if you like, publish this little story about Florence and myself in some of your society gossip—I do not mind at all—or you can keep it quiet. You have but to say in one of your issues that the nom de plume under which your talented author wrote is, for reasons of her own, changed. You can give me a fresh title. The world will suspect mystery and run ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... "I have heard no gossip, I assure you. In our province how could we? But the world speaks of her. What can there be in common in a lady of that sort and an ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... will." Horatio Fielding's shifty brown eyes looked for a moment into John Maxwell's relentless gray ones, then dropped uneasily. "What in the devil is all this about, anyhow? You come in on a fellow with some damned gossip a lot of old cats have been telling in their sewing society and accuse him of it before he knows what you're talking about. I don't even ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... required of him. Nor did he doubt the discretion of his friend Fitzgibbon;—if only his friend might not damage the secret by being too discreet. Of the silence of the doctor and the captain he was by no means equally sure; but even though they should gossip, the gossiping would take so long a time in oozing out and becoming recognised information, as to have lost much of its power for injuring him. Were Lady Laura to hear at this moment that he had been over to Belgium, and had fought a duel with Lord Chiltern respecting Violet, she ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... had gone in a blaze of glory, and that he must waste no further time in prolonged gossip, he dipped his blade into the still water, and turned the head of the boat for the Graysroof bank; and for the things ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... by no means powerless. Yet, in the depths of her heart, Cleopatra desired nothing more ardently than to rid herself of her dangerous rival. But he knew the great ones of the earth. If he acted energetically and brought matters to a speedy close, the Queen, to avoid evil gossip, would burden him with her own act. Antony's mood could not be predicted, and the Syrian's weal or woe depended on his favour. Besides, the execution of the singer at the last Adonis festival might have a dangerous effect upon the people ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... become engaged to such before, and had actually married them. It was not altogether for this reason, therefore, that the minds of the Forsytes misgave them. They could not have explained the origin of a misgiving obscured by the mist of family gossip. A story was undoubtedly told that he had paid his duty call to Aunts Ann, Juley, and Hester, in a soft grey hat—a soft grey hat, not even a new one—a dusty thing with a shapeless crown. "So, extraordinary, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... touch of it life would be unendurable prose. If I have called the world to which he transports us a world of unreality, I have wronged him. It is only a world of unrealism. It is from pots and pans and stocks and futile gossip and inch-long politics that he emancipates us, and makes us free of that to-morrow, always coming and never come, where ideas shall reign supreme.[318] But I am keeping my readers from the sweetest idealization ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... inhibited, and where woozled tongues will wag, she acquired her historical knowledge of things never otherwise whispered and rarely guessed. And her tight tongue had served her well, so that, while the old-timers knew she must know, none ever heard her gossip of the times of Kalakaua's boathouse, nor of the high times of officers of visiting warships, nor of the diplomats and ministers and councils of the countries of ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... lasting friendship. I know not a more interesting or a more historically valuable volume than these epistolary collections of Archdeacon Peter. They seem to bring those old times before us, to seat us by the fire-sides of our Norman forefathers, and in a pleasant, quiet manner enter into a gossip on the passing events of the day; and being written by a student and an amator librorum, they moreover unfold to us the state of learning among the ecclesiastics at least of the twelfth century; ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... to evening parties and dances which poured upon him. I have said evening parties, for though there was no day, yet still the division of the hours was regularly kept, and parties began at five P.M., to end at ten. There was singing and dancing, and gossip and tea, of which each individual would consume ten or twelve large cups; in fact, despite the primitive state of the inhabitants, and the vicinity to the Polar Sea, these assemblies very much resembled in style those of Paris ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... the manufacture of epigrams and jokes at the end of the paper; and the associates smoked and chatted over the day's adventures, over the foibles of some among their number, or some new bit of personal gossip. From their witty, malicious, bantering talk, Lucien gained a knowledge of the inner life of literature, and of the manners and ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... me? That is a fire one could roast an ox by! Does wood cost nothing?" If the servants were standing by their wash-tubs and laughing, and telling each other all they knew, he scolded them, and said, "There stand the geese cackling, and forgetting their work, to gossip! And why fresh soap? Disgraceful extravagance and shameful idleness into the bargain! They want to save their hands, and not rub the things properly!" And out he would run and knock a pail full of soap and water over, ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... gossip, Thankful," said Capt. Brewster with the faintest appearance of self-consciousness; "the assembly balls are conceived by the general to strengthen the confidence of the townsfolk, and mitigate the rigors of the winter ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... as their name suggests, the supposed correspondence of two rich Persians, Usbek and Rica, traveling in France and exchanging letters with their friends and their eunuchs in Persia. The letters which the travelers receive, containing the gossip of their harems, form but the smaller portion of the book, and are evidently intended to give it variety and lightness. In the letters which they write to their Persian correspondents we have the satirical picture of French society. How far had the ruling, infallible church ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... companions. The annals of "Boxiana" and "Pedestriana" and "The Cricket-Field" are as pathetic records of monomania as the bibliographical works of Mr. Thomas Dibdin. Margaret Fuller said truly, that we all delight in gossip, and differ only in the department of gossip we individually prefer; but a monotony of gossip soon grows tedious, be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... what every gossip is blabbing—that you are the son of the man who left you his fortune. Well, then—a decent man does not take money which brings dishonor ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... tried sometimes in 1915 having working parties in her house or in the studio; and if she could attract workers gave them such elaborate lunches and plethoric teas that very little work was done, especially as she herself loved a long, aimless gossip about the Royal Family or whether Lord Kitchener had ever really been in love. Or she tried, since she was a poor worker herself—her only jersey and muffler were really finished by her maid—reading aloud to the knitters or stitchers, preferably from the works of Miss Charlotte ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... both queen and court. Another thing happened about this time that rendered his relations at court exceedingly strained. The Earl of Leicester's secret marriage with the widowed Countess of Essex, a twelvemonth before, now came out in a storm of gossip, and threw the jealous queen into a rage. Leicester was dismissed from court; and Philip Sidney, as his nephew, though not actually exiled from the queen's presence, received treatment at her hands that was far more ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... to draw forth his historical reminiscences, if any such were in his mind, and it gratified me to discover that, between memory and tradition, the old gentleman was really possessed of some very pleasant gossip about the Province House. The portion of his talk which chiefly interested me was the outline of the following legend. He professed to have received it at one or two removes from an eye-witness, but this derivation, together with the lapse of time, must have ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... received her, soothed and pleased Miss Ethel. She came and reposed in Madame de Florac's quiet chamber, or sate in the shade in the sober old garden of her hotel; away from all the trouble and chatter of the salons, the gossip of the embassies, the fluttering ceremonial of the Parisian ladies' visits in their fine toilettes, the fadaises of the dancing dandies, and the pompous mysteries of the old statesmen who frequented her grandmother's apartment. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... slippered out of the room, and the man and the woman sat on, gazing into each other's eyes. To her it was an experience keen with enjoyment, and in her mind was the gossip of her crowd, and she saw notes in the society weeklies of the beautiful young Mrs. Setliffe capturing an armed robber single-handed. It would create ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... usual, because they were cut off from society, even from the society of their native villages. They did not study, or read, or write; they had no worldly life to occupy them—there was no means for it. They could gossip—yes, but I doubt if they even did that. Assuredly ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... love, that, if we did not go, we should give some excuse for scandal-mongers to gossip. Yet, should you not like it, you know that there is no need for us to go. Do not think of me, for I prefer our pleasant chat in this room to the heavenly ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... charms of the landscape or the pleasures of locomotion that they chiefly discoursed. Their talk took a more closely personal turn. It was a year since they had met, and there were many questions to ask and answer, many arrears of gossip to make up. As they stretched themselves on the grass on a sun-warmed hill-side, beneath a great German oak whose arms were quiet in the blue summer air, there was a lively exchange of impressions, opinions, speculations, anecdotes. Gordon Wright was surely ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... History of France; Macaulay thinks no custom or economy of a reign insignificant in the great historical aggregate. Topography, botany, artistic knowledge are not less parts of the chronicler's equipment than philology, rhetoric, and philosophy; a newspaper is not beneath nor a traveller's gossip beyond his scope; architecture reveals somewhat which diplomacy conceals; an inscription is not more historical than the average temperature or the staple productions. Whatever affects national character and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... sat down to luncheon together. The Mole found himself placed next to Mr. Badger, and, as the other two were still deep in river-gossip from which nothing could divert them, he took the opportunity to tell Badger how comfortable and home-like it all felt to him. "Once well underground," he said, "you know exactly where you are. Nothing can happen to you, and nothing can get at you. You're ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... influence that was not of the best. People quoted texts about him; kept when possible out of his way, and avoided his house after dark. None understood him, but though the majority loved him, an element of dread and mystery became associated with his name, chiefly owing to the ignorant gossip of the few. ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... and sometimes the Juniors quarrelled among themselves and began going to law, and their factory did not work for a month or two till they were reconciled again, and this was an entertainment for the people of Ukleevo, as there was a great deal of talk and gossip on the occasion of each quarrel. On holidays Kostukov and the Juniors used to get up races, used to dash about Ukleevo and run over calves. Aksinya, rustling her starched petticoats, used to promenade in a low-necked dress up and down the street near her shop; the Juniors used to snatch her ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... he averred, was the gossip of the village that the pig was dead, and that somebody would have to die for it. It was all right, he said, in reply to a query from the steward. It was the custom. Whenever a loved pig died its owners were in custom ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... acknowledged; it is the first grade wherein the embryo society belles are initiated into all the intricacies of high life. It has its own peculiarities, its flutters of excitement, its rounds of pleasures, and distractions of every kind, aye—it has even its gossip, although the whisperers are but budding misses with golden or raven locks floating down ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... 'Varsity, and of mutual friends. It was like listening to the reading of a diary to hear Jane bring up to date the doings and goings and happenings in the lives of their mutual friends for the past year. Gossip it was, but of such kindly nature as left no unpleasant taste in the mouth and gave no unpleasant picture of ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... his censure instantly becomes personal injury, his sarcasms personal insults. He ceases to be a critic, and takes on him the most contemptible character to which a rational creature can be degraded, that of a gossip, backbiter, and pasquillant: but with this heavy aggravation, that he steals the unquiet, the deforming passions of the world into the museum; into the very place which, next to the chapel and oratory, should be our sanctuary, and secure place of refuge; offers abominations ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... though in a dream. I talked to my sister and her husband, and exchanged the usual gossip with their callers. I even paid a call or two on my own account; but I have no recollection of whom I went to see or what we talked about. I had no chance to visit either Mr. Parker or Eve, for neither of them left their places and they were in the middle of a row; but I took ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the compliment of having his first-born named for him. But Uncle Zib's moral character was of such a nature that his name seemed to my mother as hardly a fit association for an infant of my tender years. He was known to be addicted to pinochle to a degree that had caused no end of gossip at the Ararat Woman's Club, and before he had reached the age of three hundred he had five times been successfully sued in the courts for breach of promise. Indeed, if Uncle Zib had had fewer material resources he ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... garden, possessing its well, its green paddock, and its own overshadowing tree or trees. They were quaintly built, with timbered fronts, and great projecting porches where the inhabitants gathered at the close of the day, to discuss the news and to gossip ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... cast up by the sea upon a strange shore. Here he meets Nausicaa (pronounced Nau-si'-ca-a) who offers to show him the way to the palace of her father, the Bang. But as she is betrothed she fears that if she is seen in the company of an unknown man some scandalous gossip may be carried to her sweetheart. So she directs that when they near the town Odysseus shall tarry behind, allowing her to enter alone. In this naive incident this much is told in detail by the poet. We are not told whether any gossip does reach the lover's ears. He does not appear in the story. ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... was pleasant, very pleasant. She looked so beautiful, she smiled so kindly, always with her eyes, sometimes with the perfect, high-bred mouth; she entered so gaily into his gossip, his fancies, his jokes, allowing him to hold her parasol and arrange her shawls with such sweetness and good-humour, that Dick felt quite sorry to reach the Portugal laurels and trim lawns of their destination, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... Over night, you know, before the hunt, when the fox is out, stopping up the earths of the cover we mean to draw, and all the rest for four miles round. Next morning we assemble at the cover's side, and the huntsman throws in the hounds. The gossip here is no small part of the entertainment; but as soon as we hear ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... the monster boar the day's hunt comes to an end. The spot is close to the rendezvous, and most of the parties have arrived, or are not far off. There is an interchange of gossip over the doings of the day among the various groups; and, by-and-by, a count up of the number of pigs killed. Ears and tails are produced as vouchers, and about three hundred and fifty pigs, big and little, ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... henceforth?—to think always, from sun to moon, and from moon to sun, of one only thing—and that thing an object for the microscope?—to become a sneaking Paul Pry to spy upon the silly movements of one little sparrow, like some fatuous motiveless gossip of old, his occupation to peep, his one faculty to scent, his honey and his achievement to unearth the infinitely unimportant? ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... to 'im there can't be much more zed. Anyhow, everybody believed it but Miss Ruth. She stuck out that 'twadn' Maaster Roger, and wudd'n go to the funeral. Of course, there were a lot of talk, but we people only heerd jist bits of gossip like. For my oan paart, I 'greed with her. I knawed that Maaster Roger knawed too much 'bout the cliffs not to vall over um, while as fur killin' hisself, he wadn't the sort of chap to ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... fastened—must I tell it? with a pair of antique monogram studs, the plump little handmaiden of four years back. As it was, she only waited on day after day, to hear Mr. Joseph speak. Instead of Mr. Joseph however appeared another and less welcome confidante. This was the most malignant gossip in the village, Mrs. Woods, the wife of the butcher, a tall red faced woman with high cheek-bones on which the color seemed to have been badly smirched, watery eyes and a couple of protruding yellow teeth. She looked more like a butcher than the butcher himself who was a mild little man with ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... length. Defoe's incomparable clearness of statement would alone betray him; that was a gift of nature which no art could successfully imitate. Contemporaries also were quick at recognising their Proteus in his many shapes, and their gossip gives a strong support to internal evidence, resting as it probably did on evidences which were not altogether internal. Though Mr. Lee may have been rash sometimes in quoting little scraps of news as Defoe's, he must be admitted to have established that, ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... were about over. The Concho men, camped round their wagon, were fraternizing with visitors from the Blue and T-Bar-T. Every kind of gossip was afloat. The Government was going to make a game preserve of the Blue Range. Old man Dobson, of the Eight-O-Eight, had fired one of his men for packing whiskey into the camp: "Dobson was drunk hisself!" was asserted. One sprightly and inventive ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... but there is reason to believe that she had never seen him till her arrival there. Just now Casterbridge was so deeply occupied with its own sad affairs—a daily burying of the dead and destruction of contaminated clothes and bedding—that it had little inclination to promulgate such gossip as may have reached its ears on the pair. Nobody long considered Laura in the tragic cloud which ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... of course it's true." Mrs. Madgwick, having a mind which delighted in gossip, did not quarrel with the source of information. "But I don't yet see why Mr. Rose married this girl. Surely there must have been plenty of ladies he ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... whom I know are degraded by their sympathies, their native aims being high enough, but their relation all too tender to the gross people about them. Men cannot afford to live together on their merits, and they adjust themselves by their demerits,—by their love of gossip, or sheer tolerance and animal good-nature. They untune and dissipate the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... self-control is not so apparent in his social intercourse; and before he has been three months in Ashfield, he has given tongue to gossip, and all the old ladies comment upon his enslavement to the pretty Rose Elderkin. And they talk by the book; he is desperately enamored. Young clergymen have this way of falling, at sight, into the toils, which is vastly refreshing to middle-aged observers. But we ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... thy head for likening his father to a singing man of Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then, and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us, she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee, they were ill for a green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... contained so much deep misery and so many heroic virtues, and recalling the saying of Louis XI, his political predecessor, as he himself was the predecessor of Robespierre, he repeated this maxim of Tristan's gossip: "Divide in ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Guards, inseparable friends, came to gossip with us, and read the papers, and drink a little whisky in the evenings, and pick the raspberries. They were not professional soldiers. One of them had been a stock-broker, the other "something in the city." They disliked the army ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... an orgie at Bombay or Calcutta, or Pulu Penang. 'Ho! you fat black barrel, you're eating my food!' said Pambe, in the Other Lingua Franca that begins where the Levant tongue stops, and runs from Port Said eastward till east is west, and the sealing-brigs of the Kurile Islands gossip ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... involuntary yearnings after whatever in any manner powerfully and directly reminds us of it. His Muse is not one of the Daughters of Memory, but the old toothless, mumbling dame herself, doling out the gossip and scandal of the neighbourhood, recounting totidem verbis et literis, what happens in every place of the kingdom every hour in the year, and fastening always on the worst as the most palatable morsels. But she is a circumstantial old lady, communicative, scrupulous, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... gossip was raised by her commission, which, after all, she did not understand, since she had no suspicion, even now that Evadne's visitor was Lord Raymond. Perdita dreaded a fall from his horse, or some similar accident—till the woman's answers woke other fears. From ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... "Don't you think I'm giving a man away, Mr. Trent," he said. "Marlowe isn't that kind. Celestine just took a fancy to him because he talks French like a native, and she would always be holding him up for a gossip. French servants are quite unlike English that way. And servant or no servant," added Mr. Bunner with emphasis, "I don't see how a woman could mention such a subject to a man. But the French beat me." He ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... me a little that Mrs. Strickland should be concerned with gossip, for I did not know then how great a part is played in women's life by the opinion of others. It throws a shadow of insincerity over their ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... These are all at your choice; and Life is short. You have heard as much before;—yet have you measured and mapped out this short life and its possibilities? Do you know, if you read this, that you cannot read that—that what you lose to-day you cannot gain to-morrow? Will you go and gossip with your housemaid, or your stable-boy, when you may talk with queens and kings; or flatter yourself that it is with any worthy consciousness of your own claims to respect, that you jostle with the hungry and common crowd for ENTREE here, and ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... redeemed her promise, throwing in for good measure many choice bits of gossip and scandalous anecdotes about the Russian nobility, which are not relevant to the present narrative. Her story, as ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... for the most part, is our ordinary conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is, that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... a feather will flock together. The robin sings to his ruddy mate, And the chattering jays, in the winter weather, To prate and gossip will congregate; And the cawing crows on the autumn heather, Like evil omens, will flock together, In extra-session, for high debate; And the lass will slip from a doting mother To hang with her lad on the garden gate. Birds of a feather will flock together,— 'Tis an adage old,—it is nature's ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... "to return to our gossip. Here's Rick, a fine young fellow full of promise. What's to ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... from the room, in would come the parlourmaid. The table was cleared, the fire was stirred, two leather arm-chairs were pushed up to the hearth. Watts-Dunton wanted gossip of the present. I wanted gossip of the great past. We settled down for ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... Hal. "The cases in Guarez's barn, it may be, are only dummies, put there with a good deal of display, so that if troops came their commander would be sure to hear about them. The Mexicans probably imagined that, after an American military commander came here, heard the gossip about boxes in Guarez's barn, and then guarded that barn, that the commander would then feel that all needed precautions had been taken. That was Mexican craft, but Guarez failed to understand that he was dealing ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... doorway. It was the home-coming hour after the usual spectacle on the Place de la Rvolution. The men had paused at the various drinking booths, crowding the women out. It would be the turn of these Amazons next, at the brandy bars; for the moment they were left to gossip, and to ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... finally compelled to strike my colours; and under pretence of gaining information concerning the necessities of my establishment, I desired Mrs. Dean, when she brought in supper, to sit down while I ate it; hoping sincerely she would prove a regular gossip, and either rouse me to animation or lull me to ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... appetites behind us; and the dry loaf, which offended you, now comes in at night unaccompanied." You were sure of a welcome at his house; sure of easy, unfettered talk. After supper you might smoke a pipe with your host, or gossip (upon any subject) with him or ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... the same I'm not going to have Amy running that girl down. She's been against her from the first. What I want to know is has Amy been to father with this? Because if she has I'm going to stop it. I'm not going to have her bothering father with bits of gossip that she's picked up by listening behind ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... observer the hills seemed to have gleefully clasped hands and formed a half-circle, shutting the place in for a quiet breezy communion with garrulous ocean, whose waves ran eagerly up the strand to gossip of wrecks and cyclones, with the staid martinet poplars that nodded and murmured assent to ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... the great medium of communication within the city, and it is on the basis of the information which it supplies that public opinion rests. The first function which a newspaper supplies is that which was formerly performed by the village gossip. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... joint-editor of the Mirror, which, a year later, was changed from a weekly to a daily paper. His contributions to the journal consisted of stories, poems, letters, book-notices, answers to correspondents, and editorial gossip of all kinds. ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... spring; drink to the music of the band; walk around the park—bow to gentlemen; chat a little; drink again; breakfast; see who comes in on the train; take a siesta; walk in the parlor; bow to gentlemen; have a little small talk with gentlemen; have some gossip with ladies; dress for dinner; take dinner an hour and a half; sit in the grounds and hear the music of the band; ride to the lake; see who comes by the evening train; dress for tea; get tea; dress ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn
... with their friends the Flemings. The Flemish wool trade was at this time a main source of English wealth, so Edward III of England, than whom ordinarily no haughtier aristocrat existed, made friends with the brewer Van Artevelde, and called him "gossip" and visited him at Ghent, and presently Flemings and English were allied in a defiance of France. By asserting a vague ancestral claim to the French throne, Edward eased the consciences of his allies, who had sworn loyalty to France; and King Philip had on his hands a far more ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... dip more deeply into the Greek moralists, can read the accounts of the ancient egoists, Aristippus and Epicurus, in the Lives of the Philosophers by that entertaining old gossip, Diogenes Laertius. The translation in Bohn's edition ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... Tired of her hole, the world would see. Prone are all such, self-banish'd, to roam— Prone are all cripples to abhor their home. Two ducks, to whom the gossip told The secret of her purpose bold, Profess'd to have the means whereby They could her wishes gratify. "Our boundless road," said they, "behold! It is the open air; And through it we will bear You safe o'er land and ocean. Republics, kingdoms, you will view, And famous cities, old and new; ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... the gossip headquarters of the world. Some years ago the whole town was invaded by a mania for anonymous letter writing, and when the smoke had cleared away few were ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... whose verse often has the flavor of sweet cream, has written some lines called "Rumination," in which the cow is the principal figure, and with which I am permitted to adorn my theme. The poet first gives his attention to a little brook that "breaks its shallow gossip" at his feet and "drowns the ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... and particularly in psychometry we obtain communications between one subconsciousness and another and revelations of unknown, forgotten or future incidents which are equally striking, though stripped of the vapid gossip and tedium reminiscences with which we are overwhelmed by defunct persons who are all the more jealous to prove their identity inasmuch as they know that they do ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck |
