"Gossip" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not a whit wiser than their children, believed all the absurd tales they had been told; and Lady Cromwell, a gossip of Mrs. Throgmorton, made herself very active in the business, and determined to bring the witch to the ordeal. The sapient Sir Samuel joined in the scheme; and the children, thus encouraged, gave loose reins to their imaginations, which seem to have been of the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... there can be no doubt; for independently of all the gossip and quizzing upon the subject, to which Guy was exposed in the coteries, he made little secret of it himself—openly avowing that he did not consider a repulse a defeat, and that he resolved to sustain the siege ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... chooses, without the stupid and interfering intervention of a constable, or the slanderous pen of a Mr. Learned Bore, having the power to make a lovable and harmless action wear the appearance of a midnight frolic of bibulous recklessness, which, had it taken place, would have been only food and gossip for the senseless and shameful, and ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... we were surrounded by the families of those who followed the sea, and we endeavored to flatter ourselves with the idea, that idle tales of marvelous things are very common among that class of population; and that the stories we heard were mere gossip, as we whispered to ourselves, for fear of being overheard through the thin partition which divided us from the other tenant. But, 'No!' said one of our callers in a low voice—one of the Pearse girls ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... as elsewhere, and there are still occasional days when the deacon betakes himself to the front gate and sits like a nineteenth-century Simon Stilites on his pillar, contemplating the open palm of his own hand, while he enriches Mrs. Frequent's repertoire of gossip by ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... calm superiority, the only thing left for Petty was to leave. So far from going to Yuma, he had progressed only to Monterey, and there spent two or three days poking about the resorts around the plaza in search of gossip that was rumored to be in circulation at Loring's expense. He found the gossipers easily enough, but had greater difficulty in reaching their authorities. It proved disheartening work, for the further he went the less he learned—each tale ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... called sensational. It has enlarged the field of belles-lettres, certainly, but not permanently, I think, in the case of the artistic novel. As yet the women, who form the largest, if not the only cultivated class among us, have not taken very cordially to the Sunday edition, except for its social gossip; they certainly do not go to it for their fiction, and its fiction is mainly of the inferior sort with which boys and men beguile ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... no questions, but those prowls of Northrup's were putting his simple faith to severe tests. Peter was above gossip, but when it swirled too near him he was bound ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... from below, the whole society appeared rotten and corrupted, coarse to the last degree, and animated only by the lowest motives. This very gossip seemed in itself criminal to Felix, but he did not at the moment reflect that it was but the tale of servants. Had such language been used by gentlemen, then it would have been treason. As himself of ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... had a guest in the house," said Sarah, in a cold, low voice. Then John Mangam looked up with some show of animation. He had heard the gossip. ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... bleaker. He thought how the consciousness had stolen upon him that in teaching one, he was teaching two; and how he had almost insensibly adapted his explanations to both minds—that with which his own was daily in contact, and that which he only approached through it. He thought of the gossip that had reached him from the Nuns' House, to the effect that Helena, whom he had mistrusted as so proud and fierce, submitted herself to the fairy- bride (as he called her), and learnt from her what she knew. He thought of the picturesque alliance between those two, externally so very ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... chamber, partitioned off from the store by a wall of boards so thin that all conversation about buying and selling, with the gossip of the countryside thrown in, was plainly audible to the pupils, whose studies suffered in consequence. The stovepipe from the store went through this room, keeping it comfortably warm, and in winter 'Duke Radford ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... Sir William More about the matter. Farrant respectfully solicited the lease, and made the significant request that he might "pull down one partition, and so make two rooms—one." Neville, in a friendly letter beginning with "hearty commendations unto you and to Mrs. More," and ending with light gossip, urged Sir William to let the rooms to Farrant, and recommended Farrant as a desirable tenant ("I dare answer for him"). Neither letter mentioned the purpose for which the rooms, especially the large ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... was added to the riding party by the order of the colonel, and thereafter it consisted of three. One night, however, the riders did not appear at dinner, and there was considerable uneasiness mingled with some gossip throughout the garrison. It was already midnight before they arrived, and then with horses blown and trembling with exhaustion, and the whole party bearing every sign of fatigue and disturbance. The ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... and the attorney, even Sir Geoffrey Mardykes, did not disdain on this occasion to take chairs and smoke their pipes by the kitchen fire, where they were in the thick of the gossip and discussion ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... spoken by peons and some a grade higher up the ladder. He was not more than seventeen, and while Johnny recalled his instructions to put any greaser on the run, he took the liberty of interpreting those instructions to please himself. This kid was harmless enough. He talked the range gossip that proved to Johnny's satisfaction that he was what he professed to be—a young rider for Tucker Bly, who owned the "Forty-Seven" brand that ranged just east of the Rolling R. Johnny had never seen this Tomaso—plain Tom, he called him presently—but he knew ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... what they prepared at home themselves, and they were always glad for anything to eat they could get. This woman noticed the tendency of the children to seize upon any bit of food offered them, and formed her own conclusions. She was a woman who liked excitement, especially the kind caused by gossip, and, going about among the neighbors, she had circulated the reports which finally reached the officer with the result we ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... foreman in process of time. He had his pick of the farm-lads for this purpose; and, as the brightest and sharpest, although by far the raggedest and dirtiest, singled out Job Gregson's son. But all this—as my lady never listened to gossip, or indeed, was spoken to unless she spoke first—was quite unknown to her, until the unlucky incident took place which I ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... reader of to-day scarcely knows whom to believe. The time was when Vasari, in his important "Lives of the Painters," was the accepted source of information, and all current writers borrowed unquestioningly from him both facts and opinions; but the old chronicler was too often influenced by popular gossip and personal prejudice to be depended upon. Many of his stories are positively disproved by documentary evidence, and for some years he has stood in dust and disgrace on the upper shelves of the bookcase. From this exile a revised edition has ...
— Raphael - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... demeanor at the marriage of his mother told terribly against him, and the rumors of the previous quarrel when Ned had assaulted his stepfather, and which, related with many exaggerations, had at the time furnished a subject of gossip in the town, also told heavily ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... "planned" for some other place where Christianity did not matter as it did in Polpier. They gave various reasons for this: but their real reason (had they lived in a Palace of Truth) was that the Rev. Mark Hambly never spoke evil of any one, nor listened to gossip ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... speech. I, as you know full well, do not care for gossip in the bath nor for reclining long over a banquet. In the pauses of my work I am alone, with myself and with you, my very worthy Leukippe. So the hours of rest are not for me the fairest scenes, but empty waits between the acts of the drama of life; and no reasonable ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... encouragement is due to the cult of Alfred. Every nation requires to have behind it some historic personality, the validity of which is proved, as the validity of a gun is proved, by its long range. It is wonderful and splendid that we treasure, not the truth, but the very gossip about a man who died a thousand years ago. We may say to him, as M. Rostand ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... and greet each other, gossip, and the women inspect with critical eye the dresses of their neighbors, to see if they ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... me deeply, sir," said Errington; "but I assure you I never had any suspicions of you at all. I always disregard gossip—it is generally scandalous, and seldom true. Besides, I took your face on trust, as you ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... was belied; but if she did not "steam" the letters and confide their titbits to favored friends of her own sex, it is difficult to see how all the gossip got out. The school-master once played an unmanly trick on her, with the view of catching her in the act. He was a bachelor who had long been given up by all the maids in the town. One day, however, he wrote a letter to an imaginary ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... to any of the family: she therefore resolved to learn French immediately; for which purpose the interpreter, for whose child she had stood godmother during these stormy times, and who now, therefore, as a gossip,[Footnote: The obsolete word, "gossip," has been revived as an equivalent for the German, "/gevatter/." But it should be observed that this word not only signifies godfather, but that the person whose child has another person for godfather (or godmother) is that person's /gevatter/, or /gevatterin/ ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... ambition to teach as many years as it was necessary to obtain a pension. There were the superintendents, the supervisors, the special teachers, the principals—petty officers of a petty tyranny in which too often seethed gossip, scandal, intrigue. There were the "soft places"; the deceitful, the easy, the harsh principals; the teachers' institutes to which the poor teacher was forced to pay her scanty dollars. There were bulletins, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... a deeper and more personal significance in this dedication, for some of the stories were begotten in late gossip by your fireside; and furthermore, my little book is given a kind of distinction, in having on its fore-page the name of one well known as a connoisseur of art ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the great house and now he is a splendid big boy. From there they sent him to the school, and he can speak and write the Chinese language and also that of the West. Some day I shall go and get him and bring him back to live with our family.—Ah! here we stand and gossip like old women, while the sun is sinking. It is time to take the fish and the oysters to the market. Whose turn ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... of the large room. This hurried dialogue had taken place during the usual interval between two dances, in front of the fireplace of the great drawing-room of Gondreville's mansion. The questions and answers of this very ordinary ballroom gossip had been almost whispered by each of the speakers into his neighbor's ear. At the same time, the chandeliers and the flambeaux on the chimney-shelf shed such a flood of light on the two friends that their faces, strongly illuminated, failed, in spite of their diplomatic ...
— Domestic Peace • Honore de Balzac
... Ladles who yawn in their elegantly furnished parlors, among books and pictures, if they have not company, parties, or opera to diversify the evening, seem astonished and half indignant that cook and chambermaid are more disposed to go out for an evening gossip than to sit on hard chairs in the kitchen where they have been toiling all day. The pretty chambermaid's anxieties about her dress, the minutes she spends at her small and not very clear mirror, are sneeringly noticed by those whose toilet-cares take up serious hours; and the question has never ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Criddle—Jabez Wilberforce Criddle. He used to run the Gardening section of The Sunday Helio. Then the chap that was responsible for the 'Legal Advice' was called up, and Criddle got his column as well as his own. Next, the 'Poultry Gossip' man went, and they gave Criddle that, and when a week later the 'Cookery Notes' woman took up V.A.D. work he got her share too. He struggled along gamely enough until 'Auntie Gladys,' who ran 'Our Baby' column, became a tram-conductress; but, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 8, 1916 • Various
... was eccentric, it was clerical. There were other difficulties, She would have liked to join the women's charitable associations of the town, but they drew back, shrinking into themselves like sensitive plants at the touch of this woman, who had been the subject of so much gossip on account of Maironi, and who, though she did sometimes go to church of a Sunday, did not fulfil her Easter duties. And finally her habits, which were those of a woman of leisure, were reforming their ranks after the first defeat, ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... that your thoughts are under due control, your desires properly regulated, or your dispositions subject as they should be to Christian principle, if your intercourse with others consists mainly of frivolous gossip, impertinent anecdotes, speculations on the character and affairs of your neighbors, the repetition of former conversations, or a discussion of the current petty scandal of society; much less, if you allow yourself in careless exaggeration on all these points, and that ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... too good a cook and too much needed in this family until the new member arrives safely, to hurt her feelings with investigating any of Mrs. O'Hern's yarns. Just you refuse to listen to servants' gossip. If you'd been a little less of a darling, inexperienced school-girl, you'd have cut off such talk at the first words. Just you take my word for it, you dear, you sweetheart, you best of—" he ran on into ardent endearments, forgetting the story himself, blinding and dazzling ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... you is the whole history and mystery of the Russian Memorandum, Lord M. notwithstanding. This is not the only instance in which Lord M. has mixed up, in singular fashion, what he himself knew and what was the club gossip ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... Arlington Street in a condition not to be lightly spoken of. During that period I had committed an hundred silly acts, and incidentally learned the letter by heart. I was much distressed to think that she had heard of the affair of the horse, and more so to surmise that the gossip which clung to it must also have reached her. But I fear I thought most of her anxiety concerning me, which reflection caused my hand to shake from very happiness. "Y'r Flowers are beside me," and, "I beg you not Riske y'r ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... 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 ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... Sindbad the Sailor; except that the monsters which Sindbad met with in the course of his travels were not of such a kindly disposition as the Egyptian serpent: it did not occur to them to console the shipwrecked with the charm of a lengthy gossip, but they swallowed them with a healthy appetite. Putting aside entirely the marvellous element in the story, what strikes us is the frequency of the relations which it points to between Egypt and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... not stop at the men's workshop. She finds the steward, bobs her curtsy to him, and gives up her fowl and eggs, and then she hurries off to the women's part of the house, to gossip with the serfs there. The Franks used at this time to keep the women of their household in a separate quarter, where they did the work which was considered suitable for women, very much as the Greeks of antiquity used to do. If a Frankish noble had lived ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... been, I think, much exaggerated by common gossip. He wanted his clothes made big and easy, and he wore them a long time and somewhat negligently, but that was because he had other things to mind and not in the least because he affected singularity. I was with him a good deal as a boy and as ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... amuse and gain a few pence. We pass over any details of the persecution inflicted on him by English tourists, who, not actuated by sympathy, but out of sheer curiosity and eagerness to pick up all the gossip and idle tales in circulation, were wont to run after Lord Byron, intruding on his private walks, and even pressing into his very palace. Such conduct, of course, displeased him, and accordingly in the summer of 1818 we find traces of ill-humor ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... felt, ought to be informed of his mother's whereabouts, and of the whole state of affairs. She asked her messenger to tell him to come and speak to her; that his mother was at her house. She was thankful that her father sauntered out to have a gossip at the nearest coach-stand, and to relate as many of the night's adventures as he knew; for as yet he was in ignorance of the watcher and the watched, who silently passed away ...
— Lizzie Leigh • Elizabeth Gaskell
... find another blessed scrap of work to do, you little efficiency fiend," Dundee laughed, "Come on! Gossip some more. My Maginty case will wait till afternoon, to be mulled over while you're losing your hard-earned salary at bridge ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... return to our gossip. Here's Rick, a fine young fellow full of promise. What's to ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... sixty years old, but time has dealt lightly with him, and he is still hale and hearty. He knows all the gossip of New York for thirty years back, but also knows how to hold his tongue. To see him in his glory, one should wait until the breaking up of some great party. Then he takes his stand on the steps of the mansion, and in ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... which were dedicated to repose, I was never away from her. To this day I remember, with a tenderness which attaches to no other memories of mine, the books that I read to her, the sunny corner on the seashore where I sat with her, the games of cards that we played together, the little trivial gossip that amused her when she was strong enough for nothing else. These are my imperishable relics; these are the deeds of my life that I shall love best to look back on, when the all-infolding shadows of death are ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... were virtuous and easy of temper, but when I became acquainted with them I found that I must not expect from them any entertainment save the description of visits to the milliner, or schemes for parties, or the gossip of the country-side. I did not demand, Mr. Rambler, the critical acumen of Mrs. Montagu, or the erudition of Mrs. Carter, but I believe you will agree with me that a wife, and especially the wife of a clergyman ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... this insufficient force of men, the fight was not a complete victory for our troops, it was nevertheless a most stinging blow to the Nez Perces. They had never before engaged in a war with our soldiers, but Indian tradition and Indian gossip had told them that the pale-faced soldiers were slow riders, slow walkers, and poor fighters; that one Indian could whip five soldiers any day. But this fight proved to them the falsity of these stories. It taught them that even "walking soldiers" were swift pursuers, good hunters, and deadly ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... can not stir out of doors but she finds herself the gossip of the island, and the gaze of ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... therefore not as idle gossip, but only as a characteristic touch, that I mention that Frau Sophie even as "gracious lady" could not get rid of her early habit. Her clothes always fitted her as if they had been given to her by ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... Berlin is certainly 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 left ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... people in the Emperor; for only by diminishing the dignity of the monarch could the revolutionary cause make headway. And during and after the change all the official documents, school textbooks, press views and social gossip have always coupled the word monarch with reprobation. Thus for a long while this glorious image has been lying in the dirty pond! Leaving out the question that it is difficult to restore the monarchy at the present day, let us suppose that by arbitrary method we do succeed in restoring ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... call gossip, exactly. Only folks who had seen them riding and driving together a few times seemed to think that, while she was very much in love with him, he never made ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... gossip about the Proceedings by naming what, after all, seems to me the most important part of its contents. This is the long series of articles by Mr. Myers on what he now calls the 'subliminal self,' or what one might designate as ultra-marginal consciousness. The result of Myers's learned ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... consists of letters from Joan, a paying guest in the Manor House Farm at Pelton, to her brother Keith, a soldier in India, telling him all about her year of holiday and "soul discipline" in the country, the village gossip, her proposals and her one acceptance, and giving a sort of farmer's calendar of the seasons as interpreted by the guileless amateur. Joan has what is known as a nice mind. But to tell truth she has chosen a difficult and dangerous ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... family. Isabel was more slenderly portioned than her half-sisters; and she was one of the nearest surviving relations of her mother's cousin, Mr. Mansell, whose large comfortable house was always hospitable; and whose wife, a great dealer in goodnatured confidential gossip, used to throw out hints to her great friend Lady Conway, that much depended on Isabel's marriage—that Mr. Mansell had been annoyed at connexions formed by others of his relations—but though he had decided on nothing, the dear girl's choice might ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... money for this? Wee send them to learne their grammar and their Terence and they learne their play-bookes. Well they talk we shall have no more parliaments, God blesse us! But an we have, I hope Zeale-of-the-land Buzzy, and my gossip Rabby Trouble-Truth, will start up and see we have painfull good ministers to keepe schoole, and catechise our youth; and not teach 'em to speake plays and ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... believed she had sold her soul to the devil, and that he had claimed her fulfilment of the compact. But Mauryeen is an honest man's wife, and whatever people may conjecture in their inmost hearts as to the truth or falsity of her mother's tale, they say nothing, for did not Father Tiernay declare such gossip to be a sin? But for all that Mauryeen's ways are finer and gentler than those of ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... with both of them, and bellowed: "Lady telephoned along the line—great things for gossip, these rural telephones—said you was coming this way, and we're all watching out for you. You come right into the parlor. No booze served in there, Mrs. Smith. Make yourselves comfortable, and I'll have the Frau cut you up a coupla ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... because of that early history of his, which had come to my ears in college gossip, and because I like a man, if you will pardon me for saying so, Miss Laura, who shows that he can have a great unreasonable attachment for a woman. That was why we became friends—and are all friends here—for always, aren't we?" he added, in a lower voice, leaning over to her, ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... 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
... in what might only be, after all, a mere business arrangement, Greenfield contented itself with using its eyes, its ears, and its tongues, with one exception to the latter organ's clatter, in favor of Hitty Hyde; to her no one dared as yet approach with gossip or advice. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... spicy bit of gossip for Janet," mused Miss Ocky half to herself, then caught Creighton's raised eyebrow and explained her remark. "Janet Mackay is my maid, and she used to know Maxon in Scotland when he ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... making it a club of the lowest species. Here, in advance, we contemplate the ways of the future revolutionary inquisition. They welcome burlesque denunciations; enter into petty police investigations; weigh the tittle-tattle of porters and the gossip of servant-girls; devote an all-night session to the secrets of a drunkard.[2218] They enter on their official report and without any disapproval, the petition of M. Hure, "living at Pont-sur-Yonne, who, over his own signature, offers one hundred francs and his arm to become a killer of tyrants." ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... inclusion of his great contemporary, Francis Bacon. Aubrey in his laboriously compiled Short Lives, in which he shows a friendly and admiring attitude toward Bacon, definitely states that he was a pederast. Aubrey was only a careful gleaner of frequently authentic gossip, but a similar statement is made by Sir Simonds D'Ewes in his Autobiography. D'Ewes, whose family belonged to the same part of Suffolk as Bacon's sprang from, was not friendly to Bacon, but that fact will not suffice to account for his statement. He was ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... tongues, had never singled out these vestal ladies as objects of matrimonial schemes; no suitors darkened their doors or disturbed their peace; they made no enemies, and, perhaps, no very enthusiastic friends. They listened to the gossip retailed by their neighbours, as in politeness bound, but the imperturbable 'Really!' Indeed!' and 'Impossible!' gave no encouragement to gossip: they never asked questions, never propagated reports, but listened and ejaculated, and ejaculated ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... their voices. The tones were the tones that come from deep chests, and with a prolonged, sustained capacity for enduring the toil of men. But the high-pitched laughter proved them women, as did their loud and unceasing gossip. The battle of the voices rose above the swash of the waves, above, also, another sound, as incessant as the women's chatter and the swish of the water as it hissed along ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... night, a visit would be made to some one 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 ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... probably the only two who could even vaguely realize any of the inner motives of Con Darton's mind, as we certainly were the only persons who knew how great a wrong had been done to Margaret Carn's memory that day. To the rest she was stamped forever as a lying gossip, forgiven by the very man she had striven to harm. I shuddered; and Jim, feeling it, turned to me and drew me towards Lisbeth. Outside of the scattering crowd she saw us and greeted me gravely; then gave her hand to Jim with a little ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... But an ancient Irish MS. puts the matter much more clearly in the statement that the "descendants of the wolf are in Ossory,"[391] while the evidence of Spenser and Camden explains the popular beliefs upon even more exact lines. Spenser says "that some of the Irish doe use to make the wolf their gossip;"[392] and Camden adds that they term them "Chari Christi, praying for them and wishing them well, and having contracted this intimacy, professed to have no fear from their four-footed allies." Fynes Moryson expressly mentions ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... game played with counters. There was no simplicity of apprehension; the point seemed to be to apply a certain set of phrases as decisively as possible. I never heard a generous appreciation of a book; what I rather heard was trivial gossip about the author, followed by shallow, and I thought pedantic, judgments upon an author's lack of movement or aerial quality. If one of the approved authors under discussion seemed to me painfully sordid and debased, one was told to look out for his tonic realism and his virile force. How ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... failing, Which held aloft the ceiling So splendid o'er them, It downward loudly crash'd, The plates and flagons dash'd, And men who bore them; And, what was worse, Full vengeance for the man of verse, A timber broke the wrestler's thighs, And wounded many otherwise. The gossip Fame, of course, took care Abroad to publish this affair. 'A miracle!' the public cried, delighted. No more could god-beloved bard be slighted. His verse now brought him more than double, With neither duns, nor care, nor trouble. Whoe'er laid claim to noble birth Must buy ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... by the attitude of his friends. To be sure, they laughed, but in their laughter there was no trace of the ridicule he had feared. They took the situation as a very good joke on Henry, but at the same time, because gossip had already begun to build up a theory to explain that situation, there were several of them who wished that a similar joke, with a similar nubbin, might be played on themselves. They told this to Henry, they urged him to go ahead and become a strictly moral Wallingford, ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... my 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 happy to take you over the house, and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... he remained a minute or two. On such an occasion as this Sir Harry was all smiles, and quite willing to hear a little town gossip. "Come with the Altringhams, have you? I'm told Altringham has just sold all his horses. ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... the Tower of London. The names of several Volunteer Leaders are mentioned as being dead. But the surmise that steals timidly from one mouth flies boldly as a certitude from every mouth that repeats it, and truth itself would now be listened to with only a gossip's ear, but no person would believe a word ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... To gossip she never will roam, She loves, and she stays at, her home, Unless when a neighbour In sickness does labour, Then, kindly, she ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... of this bright chip of nature—this brave little voice crying in the wilderness—of observing his many works and ways, and listening to his curious language. His musical, piny gossip is as savory to the ear as balsam to the palate; and, though he has not exactly the gift of song, some of his notes are as sweet as those of a linnet—almost flute-like in softness, while others prick and tingle like ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... virtuous indignations of a hard propriety still bound their movements. "All that I can suggest," Daniel went on, "is that you return to Havana tomorrow evening; the company has offices there, and it will be easier for me to see you. Camagey is nearer, but gossip there would have you in the same bed no matter how far apart your rooms were. ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... in doubt. Some hours afterwards three black soldiers approached, carrying in a bloody cloth the head of General Gordon, which he identified. It is unnecessary to add the gruesome details which Slatin picked up as to his manner of death from the gossip of the camp. In this terrible tragedy ended that noble defence of Khartoum, which, wherever considered or discussed, and for all time, will excite the pity and admiration ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Parisians who will tell you pompously that the boulevards, like the political cafes, have ceased to exist, but this means only that the boulevards no longer gossip of Louis Napoleon, the Return of the Bourbons, or of General Boulanger, for these highways are always too busily stirring with present movements not to be forgetful of their yesterdays. In the ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... strong and manly characters. A poor man, who desires on his Sunday excursion to obtain moderate refreshment such as he likes for himself or his family, and who goes to the public-house—probably in most cases to meet his friends and discuss the village gossip over a glass of beer—is in no degree interfering with the liberty of his neighbours. He is doing nothing that is wrong; nothing that he has not a perfect right to do. No one denies the rich man access to his club on Sunday, and it should be remembered that the poor man has neither ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... girls, very much so, and by no means unconscious of their beauty. He could always, and easily, break down their reserve, and was soon apparently on terms of absolute friendship, exchanging all sorts of small gossip and news with them about this, that and the other person about whom they knew. Indeed he was such a general favorite and so seemingly impartial that it was hard to say how he came close to any, and yet he did. At odd tete-a-tete moments he was always making confessions ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... can be done, to secure to fastidious people some show and shadow of privacy in their homes. The silly and vulgar passion of people for knowing all about their neighbors' affairs, which is bad enough while it takes shape merely in idle gossip of mouth, is something terrible when it is exalted into a regular market demand of the community, and fed by a regular market supply from all who wish to print what ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... deffende. Et particulierement ce fut en un jardin qui est a l'un des fauxbourgs de la ville." Some tale-bearers, putting the worst construction on their behaviour, gave information to Lisandre, the husband of Sylvie, but he refused to credit anything to the dishonour of his wife. To stop gossip, however, he took her with him to a house he had not far from the town. But the lovers communicated with one another by messengers, till Lisandre's departure on a journey removed all obstacle to their intercourse. "Ce Seigneur avait des affaires hors de la province ou il faisoit ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... pursuit came stamping round the corner behind him; he heard their cries as he slipped in through the half-open gate of the arch. The chance that had brought him hither was true to him yet, for there was no dvornik on watch; the man had chosen that moment of all others to step over to gossip with his neighbor of ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... had, however, unsuspected reserves of vitality. He crept out into the sunshine again, basking in the vernal warmth with a sense of luxury, and entering into the gossip of the ditchers with an ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Dosia's polite refusal; and the incident was not especially heart-racking at the time, though afterward it set her unaccountably trembling. Mrs. Leverich had in the carriage with her a small, thin, long-nosed man with a pale-reddish mustache and hair, who, gossip said, passed most of his time at the Leverichs'—he was seen out driving alone with Myra nearly every day. He was "an old friend from home." It had been gossip at first, but it was growing to be scandal now, with audible wonder as to how much Mr. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... former pupil, telling how Cardan was about to publish certain new mathematical rules in a book on Algebra, and hinting that in all probability these rules would prove to be Tartaglia's, whereupon he at once jumped to the conclusion that Maphio's gossip was the truth, and that this book would make public the secret which Cardan had sworn to keep. He left many of Cardan's letters unanswered; but at last he seems to have found too strong the temptation ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... the kitchen had long been supplied by a negress of the newer generation—"the worst gossip and tattler in town," if you might take her mistress's word for it. Mrs. Kendrick now made her way thither, ostensibly to superintend the preparation of the evening's refreshments, but in reality to try to fix up an explanation ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... vision into lost possibilities of character. And we may note in passing how even here, in the mere story of the men and women whom she met in London drawing-rooms, Harriet Martineau does not lose herself in gossip about individuals looked at merely in their individual relations. It is not merely the 'blighting of promise nor the forfeiture of a career' that she deplores in the case of a Bulwer or a Brougham; it is 'the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 6: Harriet Martineau • John Morley
... prevent extended communication, which would make it possible to form, in the course of ages, a mutual language. As we were the first to start it we propose to try to control the conversation, but if Saturn and Uranus choose to steal our idea and gossip between themselves, we know of no ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... trained in the study and worshipful meditation of subjects of commensurate mystery and sublimity. It is no wonder that when minds and hearts familiar only with houses and clothes and food, the trivial gossip and vanity of the hour, are summoned to grasp the idea of spiritual survival and an everlasting destiny of conscious adventures, they are overwhelmed and helplessly fail to represent to themselves the possibility of any such truth. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... off the subject, and talked college-talk, and told him about the probable appointments for commencement. He was one of our alumni, liked our gossip, and could supplement our stories with those of the jollier days twenty-five or thirty years before. Harry and I nearly died of suppressed laughter as he gravely informed us that he had expected the valedictory, and was served badly when it was given to another. It ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... no sign of Anderson. Yerkes was only able to tell them that he had seen Anderson go into the station-master's private room with a couple of the Mounted Police. He might have come out again, or he might not. Yerkes had been too well occupied in exciting gossip with all his many acquaintances in the train and the station ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... counsel here since his boyhood, had been one of the procession that passed through the door in search of wisdom and cheer. All the gossip of the town came to the priest: he knew of Terry's hunting trip and of the climax which had scandalized the sterner factions of the community. He was of those who knew Terry best, and entertained no misgivings about the state of ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... in after her arbitrary manner, and establishes Friday and Sunday afternoons as the "swell" days for riding or driving on the avenue. But we started for the Khedive's Palace, and have stopped to gossip by the way. ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... Carter! I'm so sorry, but I'm sure you can trust Mark. He's a man you know and he's always been an unusually dependable boy, especially to us who know him well. He'll come back all right. What? Oh, Mrs. Carter! No, I haven't heard any such reports, but I'm sure they're just gossip. You know how people will talk. What do you say? They phoned you from Economy? Who? The police? They asked for Mark? Well, I wouldn't let that worry you. Mark always was helpful to the police in finding people, or going with them after a lost car, you know. I wouldn't worry. ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... shame for his low estate, he was so ravished with the young man's cleverness, that he asked him why he had aspersed the queen with the reproach that she had demeaned herself like a slave? But while resenting that the courtliness of his wife had been accused in the midnight gossip of guest, he found that her mother had been a bondmaid. For Amleth said he had noted in her three blemishes showing the demeanor of a slave; first, she had muffled her head in her mantle as handmaids do; next, that she had gathered up her gown for walking; and thirdly, that she had first picked ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... Mary, with a brightening countenance. "But what ground is there for the idle, ill-natured gossip that has got on ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... not only the thought but the actual words she spoke had been inspired, and he fancied he heard in them an echo of Blanche Carbury's tones. Though Bessy's intimacy with Mrs. Carbury was of such recent date, fragments of unheeded smoking-room gossip now recurred to confirm the vague antipathy which Amherst had felt for her ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... by a ball-and-socket joint, I suspect the Duke would find it very difficult to give any reason against the belief that the wing strikes the air more or less obliquely. I have been very glad to see your article and the drawing of the butterfly in "Science Gossip." By the way, I cannot but think that you push protection too far in some cases, as with the stripes on the tiger. I have also this morning read an excellent abstract in the "Gardeners' Chronicle" of your paper on nests. (203/6. An abstract of a paper on "Birds' Nests and ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... the comradeship which had been established between them, the faithful under-keeper resolved to maintain a strict watch over his gossip Tomkins, and be in readiness to give the alarm should occasion arise. True, he thought, he had reason to believe that his said friend, notwithstanding his drunken and enthusiastic rants, was as trustworthy as he was esteemed by Dr. Rochecliffe; yet still he was an adventurer, the ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... girls strolling by the window at evening, and strumming on the banjo,—the only vestige of tropical life that haunts our busy Northern zone. But he liked just as well to note the ways of well-dressed girls and boys at croquet parties, or to sit at the club window and hear the gossip. He was a jewel of a listener, and was not easily bored even when Philadelphians talked about families, or New Yorkers about bargains, or Bostonians about books. A man who has not one absorbing aim can get a great many miscellaneous things into each twenty-four hours; and there was not a day in which ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... waiter. The man had been to the street door again, and by this time the sidewalk excitement had subsided sufficiently to make room for an approach to the truth. The story of an armed band surrounding the bank had been a canard. There had been but one man concerned in the robbery, and the sidewalk gossip was beginning to describe him ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... news, but pretended that we knew without his telling us which was impossible in so short a time. And if we had known it, we could not possibly have refrained from mentioning it till he introduced the subject. Besides, he could not have heard yet that the town was "ringing with gossip" about the marshal's wife in so short a time. Besides, he had once or twice given a vulgar, frivolous smile as he told the story, probably considering that we were fools and ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... our enemy in my house?" thundered Kali, glowering at the chattering women. "Bend to your tasks and have done with idle gossip." ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... May, with Mr. Shipley," says our gossip, "to the Exchange about business; and there, by Mr. Rawlinson's favour, got into a balcone over against the Exchange, and there saw the hangman burn, by vote of Parliament, two old acts: the one for constituting us a Commonwealth, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various
... and Maggie had seen their father considerably agitated by an item of gossip, casually received, to which it seemed to them he attached an excessive importance. Namely, that old Shushions, having been found straying and destitute by the authorities appointed to deal with such matters, had been taken ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... Dowson she at once affiliated with. She knew the excellence of her type as it had revealed itself to her in the best peasant class. Trustworthy, simple, but of kindly, shrewd good sense and with the power to observe. Dowson was not a chatterer or given to gossip, but, as a silent observer, she would know many things and, in time, when they had become friendly enough to be fully aware that each might trust the other, gentle and careful talk would end in unconscious ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... family. The chicken curried, and don't forget the chutney." Then, after a mumbling interval, "and, if anybody calls, I won't see 'em—except Notley, who comes at eleven. And, when he comes, send him up at once—no kitchen gossip! I don't pay lawyers to come here and amuse kitchen wenches. Why don't you ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... appeared with his wooden shoes filled with straw, shuffling about on the marble floor like a mangy dog on a Gobelin tapestry. One of them recognised Noel as the visitor of the previous Sunday; and that was enough to set fire to all these gossip-mongers, thirsting ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... intricate, by reason of the fact that murder or double suicide was suspected. The following are the details of this case: A young man of eighteen kept company with a young woman about the same age, from another town. The girls of the town were jealous of her and began to gossip about her to the extent of casting aspersions upon her character, etc. The young man's father, without investigating this case, forbade his son to marry her. However, the two lovers would have frequent secret rendezvous, and his fiancee became depressed over this scandalous and ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... her bereavement had died or moved to that Mecca of the New World, Harlem. And their successors were not kindly disposed towards a family comprising a silent man, a half-grown girl, and two twin demons who made the block a terror to the nervous and the stairs a menace to the unwary. No one came to gossip with Leah. She was too young to listen understandingly to older women's adventures in sickness or domestic infelicity, and too dispirited to make any show of interest in the toilettes or "affaires" of the younger. For what were incompetent doctors, habit-backed dresses, wavering husbands, ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... the French ships under Baudin, had created uneasiness in Governor King's mind, rumour and gossip had magnified their intentions into a sinister claim being about to be established upon Van Dieman's Land or the south coast of New Holland. In 1802, King had sent home to Sir Joseph Banks his ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... Theologian shook his head; "These old Italian tales," he said, "From the much-praised Decameron down Through all the rabble of the rest, Are either trifling, dull, or lewd; The gossip of a neighborhood In some remote provincial town, A scandalous chronicle at best! They seem to me a stagnant fen, Grown rank with rushes and with reeds, Where a white lily, now and then, Blooms in the midst of noxious weeds And deadly nightshade on ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Let him coom. He is welcome an' he minds his own business, and only dhraps in for a bit o' gossip; but an' he interferes in me private consarns, it's soon he'll find himself relaved o' all throuble on ...
— Live to be Useful - or, The Story of Annie Lee and her Irish Nurse • Anonymous
... her as Edmund's wife, in spite of his queer miserly ways, ran again lightly through a mind that often harboured such dreams before—in vain. Her brow cleared. She made Thyrza leave the curtains, and sit down to gossip with her. And Thyrza, though perfectly conscious, as the daughter of a hard-working race, that to sit gossiping at midday was a sinful thing, was none the less willing to sin; and she chattered on in a Westmoreland dialect that grew steadily broader as ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the youngest of three brothers, who were all distinguished men. The eldest was the well-known Earl of Buchan, one of the founders of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, whose eccentricities formed the subject of much gossip in the Scottish capital. To an English nobleman he declared: "My brothers Harry and Tom are certainly remarkable men, but they owe everything to me." Seeing a look of surprise upon his friend's face he added: "Yes, it is true; they owe everything to me. On my father's death they pressed ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... or two passed quietly, and the damaged man already was little the worse of his adventure. Then, however, the rumour quickly spread that not only had the Captain been assaulted, but that he had been robbed. Gossip flew from tongue to tongue, and folk began to look askance on Wallace and Hislop, muttering that "they aye kenned what was to be the outcome"; for who, thought they, but Wallace and Hislop could have been the robbers? They had found him lying, the worse ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... the simple matter of camp gossip. Here he learned, through the ridicule bestowed upon Montana Ike and Pete, who were always trying to outdo each other in their rivalry for the favors of Joan, and who never missed an opportunity of visiting the farm when they knew they would find her there, of Buck's constant ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... in the thought of Hermann's future espousal, When he should bring his bride to be the light of our dwelling! Over and over again the matter we pondered: this maiden Fixing upon for him first, and then that, with the gossip of parents. But that day is now come; and Heaven at last has the maiden Brought to him hither, and shown him; and now his heart has decided. Said we not always then he should have his own choice in the matter? Was it not just now thy ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... called "gaberlunzie men," were still common. They wore a blue coat, with a tin badge, and wandered about the country, knew all that was going on, and were always welcome at the farm-houses, where the gude wife liked to have a crack (gossip) with the blue coat, and, in return for his news, gave him dinner or supper, as might be. Edie Ochiltree is a perfect specimen of this extinct race. There was another species of beggar, of yet higher antiquity. If a man were a cripple, and poor, his ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... the white man. At the entrance of the meadow there was a cold spring among the rocks, completely overshadowed by tall trees and dense undergrowth. In this cold and shady retreat a number of girls were assembled, sitting together on rocks and fallen logs, discussing the latest gossip of the village, or laughing and throwing water with their hands at the intruding Meneaska. The minutes seemed lengthened into hours. I lay for a long time under a tree, studying the Ogallalla tongue, with the zealous instructions ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... in this matter the devil has hit on a fine measure, in tearing the Bible out of the hands of the laity,—and this is what he has thought: "If I can keep the laity from reading the Scripture, I will then bring the priests over from the Bible to Aristotle, so that gossip they what they will, the laity must hear just what they set forth; while if the laity should read the Scripture, the priests must study it too, in order that they may not be detected and overcome." ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... pleasantries, ironies, all these luxuries of gossip and philosophies of London and of life, and they became quickly, between the pair, the common form of talk, Milly professing herself delighted to know that something was to be done with her. If the most remarkable woman in ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... we're goin' to have a murricle," Sally Reverdy told Squire Braile, sitting early the next morning at the receipt of gossip on his cabin porch with his pipe between his teeth; her cow had not come up the night before, and Abel had not found her in the woods-pasture when he went to look. "An' I couldn't wait all day, an' I just slipped over to git some milk ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... 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 ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... thither we would talk over "The Rape of the Lock" and the heroine, Belinda, who was no other than Arabella herself. Arriving on the lawn in front of the decaying mansion, we would stop in the shade of a gigantic oak, and gossip about the times of Queen Elizabeth, for it was then the old house ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... that he had used in our pleasant talk—"if anybody knows I was born in a stable. A far better man than I once had that privilege. But as it happens that I am going out to command a brigade next week, it would be to the interest of my authority and therefore to that of the army, if no gossip led to the establishment ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... been wrought in the condition of the Malay on the West Coast, during the past twenty years of British Protection, that there one can no longer see him in his natural and unregenerate state. He has become sadly dull, limp, and civilised. The gossip of the Court, and the tales of ill things done daringly, which delighted his fathers, can scarcely quicken his slackened pulses. His wooings have lost their spice of danger, and, with it, more than half their romance. He is as frankly profligate as his thin blood permits, but the dissipation ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... talking at the gate, one of them carrying a spade in hands still crusted with the soil of graves. Their very aspect was delightful to me; and I crept nearer to them, thinking to pick up some snatch of sexton gossip, some "talk fit for a charnel,"[35] something, in fine, worthy of that fastidious logician, that adept in coroner's law, who has come down to us as the patron of Yaughan's liquor, and the very prince of gravediggers. Scots people ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Roy, looking earnestly at Biddy, "I want you to promise me another thing, and that is, never to stop and listen to any gossip when I send ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... 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' bills, and discounting circular-notes, have now an opportunity ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... Somers at the British Consulate, and revealed his real name and rank—Sir Alan Hume-Frazer, baronet, of Beechcroft, near Stowmarket, England. His lady adopted the infant girl as her own, and local gossip had it that this was a part of the marriage contract, whilst the ceremony took place at an early date to give colour to the kindly pretence. The pair lived in a distant suburb, at Donzelle here" (another church ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... seen four thousand summers and winters pass by. Whether their original purpose was temple, astronomical observatory, or both is one of the riddles of antiquarian research, for neolithic man left no record of his doings beyond the weapons buried with him in his barrow. Legend, however, like a busy gossip, had stepped in and supplied points upon which history was silent. Traditions of the neighborhood explained the menhirs as twelve giants turned into stone by the magic powers of good King Arthur, who, in defiance ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... 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
... poor emotional woman, whose everyday life was more like that of a Sister of Charity, more full of care and sorrow than of passion and pleasure. The grandfather took it upon himself to intervene and prohibit his wife's calls in order to quiet neighborhood gossip. ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... said, under my breath, "you know all the gossip of the country. Tell me, do you remember a young gentleman who used to come here before the war—a handsome, dark-eyed ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... compound of irony, satire, pathos, tenderness, and moral indignation. The general wretchedness of the serfs, the indifference of their owners to their condition, the pettiness and utter meanness of village gossip, the ridiculous affectations of small-town society, the universal ignorance, stupidity, and dulness—all these are remorselessly revealed in the various bargains made by the hero. And what a hero! A man neither utterly bad nor very good; shrewd rather than intelligent; ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... end to any thought of intimate alliance with "the Johns family." She even whispered in her most insidious manner into the ear of old Mistress Tew,—who, being somewhat deaf, is the most inveterate village gossip,—that "it was hard for the poor thing, when ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... and while the others laughed loudly she had gone out of the room crying. She would have little to say to me then. I began to play with boys and she with girls. And it made me miserable to hear the boys a bit older than I gossip of her beauty and accuse each other of the sweet ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... camp with reports of forays as far as the suburbs of Philadelphia, twenty miles away. Spies, disguised as farmers, returned with stories of visits into the heart of the capital city held by the enemy. This gossip and information, Which the young sentinel picked up bit by bit, he pieced together to make a picture of an invincible, veteran British army, waiting to fall upon the huddled mob of "rebels" at Valley Forge, and sweep them away like chaff. He heard it over and over again, that the Hessians, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... carry on the reader more pleasantly, whether we read them in the quaint French of the fourteenth century, or in the more modern French in which they have just been clothed by M. Natalis de Wailly. So vividly does the easy gossip of the old soldier bring before our eyes the days of St. Louis and Henry III., that we forget that we are reading an old chronicle, and holding converse with the heroes of the thirteenth century. The ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... was this sort of talk than the chatter and gossip of the Tabb and the Hoogencamp—than the Major's dissertations upon his everlasting circulars! My wife ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... silence. With Teddy's hand on the bar of his chair and Teddy's chatter in his ears, in a week he learned more of the town than he had done in the past three months, and he came home, hungry and eager as a boy could be, full of blithe gossip and fun, to enliven ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... arise, being given to understand that a substantial breakfast is the price of the extra "forty winks." Guests at a house-party are expected to entertain themselves, among themselves, to a considerable extent. They may walk, or row, or play croquet or tennis, or read or gossip or play cards, while the hostess attends to her domestic duties. If the party is large, or if but one or no servants are kept, the women should quietly attend to their own rooms, making up the bed and picking up their own belongings. Whether they may do ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... 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 ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey |
