"Gossiping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... comprise what may be called the Strawberry Hill group. It was at Walpole's famous villa that they liked best to meet, and it is by Reynolds that Walpole's "out-of-town party" has been handed down to us.** They were an odd coterie—cultivated, artificial, gossiping. None of them ever married; to do so seemed to have been unfashionable, if not unpopular; and when we see the results of many marriages among their friends, they were best, perhaps, as bachelors. They considered themselves free to act as they pleased; and this freedom ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... and the five patriotic emperors who succeeded them, we know less of the Roman princes through centuries after the Christian era, than of the Roman Consuls through a space of three centuries preceding the Christian era. In fact, except for a few gossiping and merely personal anecdotes communicated by the Augustan History and a few other authorities, we really know little of the most illustrious amongst the Roman emperors of the West, beyond the fact (all but invariable) that they perished by assassination. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... little in a very safe boat, and stood on the little bridges, and watched the rushing water, and then walked slowly beside the still stream higher up as the light began to fade, and surprised the water-rats feeding or gossiping on the banks—none of which things could they have done had Moses had the poor sense to retain his ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... he hears the voice of his Belle Dame ringing light across the garden; while he sits here, a prey to every distress, she is gaily gossiping with her next-door neighbour Brown. At once the unhappy Keats is tormented by a thousand jealous fears. Fanny is transferring her affection to Brown: of that he is quite certain. He rushes out: his black looks banish the much-amused ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... merriment seems latent behind a demure look. At any rate, her countenance was what might be called a speaking one. 'Poor Fanny!' said her father, 'her face tells what she thinks, whether she will or no. I long to see her honest face once more.' 'Poor Fanny' lived to a good old age, and her gossiping diary is a mine of wealth as regards the Royal Family, and Johnson, and Mrs. Thrale, and the cleverest men and women ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... of destruction, were cawing and gossiping outside in the park. At dusk the fragile new moon rose for a brief while. The frosty night was crisp and sparkling. The stars shone diamond-bright in the vast, all-embracing vault of blue; the snow ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... lurking in a neighboring gulch. On the upper plains, not far away, were her young companions, all busily employed with the wewoptay, as it is called—the sharp-pointed stick with which the Sioux women dig wild turnips. They were gayly gossiping together, or each humming a love-song as she worked, only Snana stood somewhat apart from the rest; in fact, concealed by the crest of ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... to be violent towards your mother, I had better go," she said, with an attempt at dignity. "I suppose Letty has been gossiping with her servants about me. Oh! I knew what to expect!" cried Lady Tressady, gathering up fan and handkerchief from the sofa behind her with a hand that shook. "I always said from the beginning that she would set you against me! She ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Howard, my boy. You're going to escape from the scandalmongers and the gossiping busy-bodies. Forgive me for speaking plainly, but you're going away because your wife's conduct is a topic of ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... soon became a sociable centre for the whole idle place. Any one who chose came into it in a friendly way, and lounged about, gossiping, and inspecting the works in progress. Women brought their babies, and sat about on the stones suckling them and talking to the men—a proceeding which filled Beth with disgust, she thought it ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... been educated to submit to any. To dress with the most careful attention to neatness, though there was "nothing but a pack of women to look at her"—to listen to "a prosy book"—a book, I forgot to say, was read aloud in the work-room—instead of gossiping and having a little fun; and to walk out on Sundays under the wing of that old, hideous harridan, Mrs. Sterling, instead of going with her companions where she pleased. In short, it was worse "than negro slavery," but there was no help for it—there she was, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... and keep your father and me company. We've been gossiping all afternoon. Nobody to bother ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... with a young friend—such a young friend as Caroline Percy. Early as it is with her in life, she has so cultivated her understanding, so regulated her mind, that she cannot consider friendship merely as a companionship in frivolous amusement, or a mixture of gossiping confidences and idle sentiment; therefore, I am proud enough to hope that she can and will be the friend of such an old woman as ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... their past life with horror. When my husband speaks of his youth, the tears come into his eyes. I must tell you; that he has not always been as he is now; he was a gay boy in his youth, poor fellow. I do not detest a man because he knows life a little, do you? But I am gossiping and time passes; I have a call to make yet on Madame W. I do not know whether she has ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... gossiping; and when she does not understand what you say, she gives others distorted ideas of ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... by way of illustration, and at the risk of gossiping, which, after all, is not the worst of things, a brief notice of my very first journey. I might be then seven years old. A young gentleman, the son of a wealthy banker, had to return home for the Christmas holidays to a town in Lincolnshire, distant from ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... obtain access to the Snow Queen, and remove the glass fragments from little Kay, we can do nothing to help her. Two miles from here the Snow Queen's garden begins; you can carry the little girl so far, and set her down by the large bush which stands in the snow, covered with red berries. Do not stay gossiping, but come back here as quickly as you can." Then the Finland woman lifted little Gerda upon the reindeer, and he ran away with her as quickly ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... out for the scene of trouble, rowing lustily. Nobody could beat him to his garlands now; that was clear; clear, too, that there really wasn't much peril, after all. So the motley gathering of idlers became content to stand upon the edge of the boat pavilion, gazing most eagerly, gossiping not ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... would come to me with such stuff or mention it before me; but it's presumably true—I suppose it is. I've seen Fanny with Mrs. Johnson quite a lot; and that old lady is a notorious gossip, and that's why she ordered you out of her house when you pinned her down that she'd been gossiping. I have a suspicion Mrs. Johnson has been quite a comfort to Fanny in their long talks; but she'll probably quit speaking to her over this, because Fanny told you. I suppose it's true that the 'whole town,' a lot of others, that is, do share in the gossip. In this ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... very simple. When I visit people whom I like, such as Madame de Sallus and yourself, I do not expect to meet the Paris that flutters from house to house in the evening, gossiping and scandalizing. I have had my experience of gossip and tittle-tattle. It needs only one of these talkative dames or men to take away all the pleasure there is for me in visiting the lady on whom I happen to have called. Sometimes when I am anchored perforce upon my seat, I feel lost; I do ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... was set going by Marfa Petrovna who managed to slander Dounia and throw dirt at her in every family. She knows everyone in the neighbourhood, and that month she was continually coming into the town, and as she is rather talkative and fond of gossiping about her family affairs and particularly of complaining to all and each of her husband—which is not at all right—so in a short time she had spread her story not only in the town, but over the whole surrounding district. It made me ill, ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... dreadful winters, with a perseverance which leads the good woman of the house to suspect her neighbor of being better off than herself, in one particular at least, for the coming Sabbath. But just now the door opens—the gossiping neighbor springs up with a laugh—the bundle is untied—the children scream, and the wife jumps about her husband's neck as if he had been absent ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... a position where there will be nothing to envy, and then, possibly, I may escape the gossiping rack. Eugene may think me a fool, if he likes; but support myself I will, if it costs me my life. What difference should it make to him, so long as I prefer it? One more year of study and I shall be qualified for any situation; then ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... Kate, I don't care for 'people,' as you call them. I only know that I am utterly weary of this petty visiting and gossiping, this round of parties, concerts, and lectures, where we meet the same faces. There is no harm in it that I know of, but it is simply so stupid. If we met new people, it would be something; but the same girls, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... charge. Men, women, and children sit on the ground near the fires. Many on horseback have ridden up, and form a veritable phalanx back of the sitting spectators. The dance does not begin at once, and those assembled spend the time telling stories, jesting, and gossiping. Belated arrivals make coffee, or do ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... almost like his servants, the king like his henchman! Bruno was proud, under his stern, calm, lofty bearing, which would not change, and would not let him smile, or seem so womanish-weak as to be glad for all the gossiping. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... however, were indispensable to the success of the opera, and probably the ridiculous affectations of the one and the abominable manners of the other were not without their attraction to a public which could enjoy all the pleasure of gossiping about them without having to put up ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... he was at the ramparts, or was supposed to be there; but his wife, his children, his bonne, and his kitchen wench issued forth, oblivious alike of dull care and of bombarding Prussians, to enjoy themselves after their wont by gossiping and lolling in the sun. The Strasburg fetish had its usual crowd of admirers. Every bench in the Champs Elysees was occupied. Guitars twanged, organs were ground, merry-go-rounds were in full swing, and had it not been that ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... cows, reared on the sweet herbage and clear waters of bonny Airedale; and very proud she was of their sleek aspect and high condition.) Seeing now the state of matters, and that it was desirable to effect a clearance of the premises, Shirley stepped in amongst the gossiping groups. She bade them good-morning with a certain frank, tranquil ease—the natural characteristic of her manner when she addressed numbers, especially if those numbers belonged to the working-class; she was cooler ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... work two days out of the seven, he has enough to supply all his necessities, and can enjoy what is to him a high degree of pleasure and amusement,—the training of a cock for the cockpit, sleeping a long siesta, gossiping with his neighbour, and chewing buyos, or smoking cigarillos, quite at his ease, during the rest ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... carrying pitchers of beer were often to be seen hurrying to and fro on their miserable errands. But there were very few children in Minerva Court, thank God!—they were not popular there. There were frowzy, sleepy-looking women hanging out of their windows, gossiping with their equally unkempt and haggard neighbors; apathetic men sitting on the doorsteps, in their shirt-sleeves, smoking; a dull, dirty baby or two sporting itself in the gutter; while the sound of a melancholy accordion (the chosen instrument of poverty and misery) floated ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... various boats and vessels at anchor in the bay, were seen the tapering masts of a British war-steamer. The Senhorina and her sire were engaged in a gossiping criticism of the officers of this vessel when Yoosoof was announced. Audience was ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... late at breakfast, and sat there so long talking, for Maxwell said he did not feel like going to work quite so promptly as usual, that it was quite ten o'clock when they came out of the dining-room, and then they stayed awhile gossiping with people on the piazza of the hotel before they went back to their cottage. When they came round the corner in sight of it they saw the figure of a man pacing back and forth on the veranda, with his head dropped forward, and swinging a stick thoughtfully ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... (since her mother's death such a time had now elapsed) had little inclined her to submit to rules as to hours and associates, to regulate her dress by a mistress's ideas of propriety, to lose the dear feminine privileges of gossiping with a merry neighbour, and working night and day to help one who was sorrowful. Besides all this, the sayings of her absent, the mysterious aunt Esther, had an unacknowledged influence over Mary. She knew she was very ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... doorways, its shops offered East End food—mussels and whelks, "two-eyed steaks," reeking fish-and-chips, and horsemeat for the cheap foreign element. There were several public-houses with groups of women outside drinking and gossiping, all wearing the black shawls which are as emblematic of the lower class London woman as a chasuble to a priest, or a blue tattooed upper lip to a high-caste Maori beauty. A costermonger hawked frozen rabbits from a donkey-cart, with ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... to go home for a mouthful of warm food, while some went to the beer-cellars of the neighborhood. Those who lived far from their homes sat on the lathe-beds and ate their food there. When the food was consumed they gathered together in groups, gossiping, or chaffing one another. Pelle often made use of the midday rest to run over to the "Ark" in order to greet Father Lasse, who had obtained work in one of the granaries and was now able to ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Baudoyer, after idling and gossiping since the death of Monsieur de la Billardiere, were now recovering their usual official look and the dolce far niente habits of a government office. Nevertheless, the approaching end of the year did cause rather ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... Bennett's opportunity of getting his head a little above water. He filled the place one winter of Washington corespondent to the New York "Enquirer;" and while doing so he fell in by chance in the Congressional library with a volume of Horace Walpole's gossiping society letters. He was greatly taken with them, and he said to himself: "Why not try a few letters on a similar plan from Washington, to ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... spent in gossiping with all the blacks which could be found lounging round the streets. Suddenly one of the negroes called out, "Ho, Rondeau! Thar's yer old marster Lace comin'. You'd better cut stick for home, or ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... looking his gossiping staff officer straight in the face, "did you get that story from a gentleman ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... course of the week after the Sunday on which several elders of an Aberdeen parish had been set apart for parochial offices, a knot of the parishioners had assembled at what was in all parishes a great place of resort for idle gossiping—the smiddy or blacksmith's workshop. The qualifications of the new elders were severely criticised. One of the speakers emphatically laid down that the minister should not have been satisfied, and had in fact made a most unfortunate choice. He was thus answered by another parish ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... street corner that commanded a view of the Palace Road, Nanna caught Esmay by the arm and bade her look. Towering head and shoulders above the throng of idle men and gossiping women strode Prosper, the priest, and as he went he proclaimed the woe that must shortly come upon the city, a message to which none gave heed. But for all their mocking he would not forbear, and long after he had passed out of sight Esmay could distinguish the accents of his powerful ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... for she looked upon him as a mirror of faith and integrity, and the mind being overcharged with woe, naturally seeks some confidant, upon whose sympathy it can repose itself. Indeed, his great aim was to make himself necessary to her affliction, and settle a gossiping correspondence, in the familiarity of which he hoped his purpose would certainly ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... from himself the danger which the secrecy of his connection with her must incur by his communicating with her, even through a public office, where their letters might be permitted to lie longer than the gossiping inquisitiveness of a country town would warrant ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... "Look at him, the dumb devil, the wood-demon!" they all muttered in undertones, while the wardrobe-maid got up and went out into the maid's room. Another time, noticing that Kapiton—the same Kapiton who was the subject of the conversation reported above—was gossiping somewhat too attentively with Tatiana, Gerasim beckoned him to him, led him into the cartshed, and taking up a shaft that was standing in a corner by one end, lightly, but most significantly, menaced him ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... holidays, there's naught I take delight in, Like gossiping of war, and war's array, When down in Turkey, far away, The foreign people are a-fighting. One at the window sits, with glass and friends, And sees all sorts of ships go down the river gliding: And blesses then, as home he wends At night, our ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... there's no tale to tell," cried the maid. "We are not of the gossiping sort, my lady, neither me nor Mr. Brown." Lady Mary laughed, and watched while the candles were put out, the fire made a pleasant flicker in the room,—it was autumn and still warm, and it was "for company" and cheerfulness ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... no one at the desk where the floor clerk usually kept vigil, gossiping affably with such employees as passed. The place seemed deserted; no doubt all the guests were downstairs. Treading lightly on the thick carpet, I went down the hall to Room four hundred and three, and found the door ajar and a ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... considered as the worshippers of water. The old fountain, at which the nymphs of the island assembled in the earliest ages, exists in its original state; the same rendezvous as it was formerly, whether of love and gallantry, or of gossiping and tale-telling. It is near to the town, and the most limpid water gushes continually from the solid rock. It is regarded by the inhabitants with a degree of religious veneration; and they p reserve a tradition, that the pilgrims of old time, in ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... cheerful faith of the race. It was a domestic sanctuary, very native to the soil; the folks would hold converse with the Black Virgin standing there on an altar, tell her all their little concerns, make themselves at home there in confidential gossiping prayer, ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... youngest imp was "delivered." The poor woman, crazed with all this pother,—if in her right mind before,—and defending herself unskilfully in her foreign gibberish and with the volubility of her race, was interpreted as making some confession. A gossiping witness testified that six years before she had heard another woman say that she had seen the accused come down a chimney. She was required to repeat the Lord's Prayer in English,—an approved test; but being a Catholic, she had never learned it in that language. ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... common failing—if it is a failing—curiosity. McMurtrie, with Smith at his elbow, had scrupulously refrained from explaining what the petrol was wanted for; his assistant, Daniels, had been too busy seeing the special edition to press to run about gossiping; and Davis, the shorthand-writer, the third in the secret, had become so mechanical that nothing stirred emotion within him; he wrote of murders, assassinations, political convulsions, Rooseveltian exploits, diplomatic indiscretions, ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... note. He is good for twice that. Don't bother him with it, but make it out for ninety days, and by that time we can make another turn. But that note must be in there. Your check won't do any longer. The inspector has been gossiping about us up here—and about that check of yours. For God's sake, don't hesitate, but ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... to do your anger and vexation for you, in the second place. And Jonathan Walker is a sinner, because he is sent to prison. But here am I, half way, having but a poor kind of disposition at best, and yet hating sin, and all that leads to it, such as wasting, and extravagance, and gossiping,—and yet all this lies right under my nose in the village, and I am not saint enough to be vexed at it; and so I scold. And though I had rather be a saint, yet I think I ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... was a very lively person, daughter of the man who shot President Lockhart in the dark because he had infuriated him in an arbitration case in the court. This great family attracted the boyish wonder of young Carlyle, and some of the gossiping stories that he heard in his father's house made his juvenile ears tingle. Poor Lady Grange! Quarrelling with her husband one day, on his return from London, where pretty Fanny Lindsay, who kept a coffee-house in the Haymarket, had bewitched him, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... in these; and now and again, when the booming of the mill-wheel ceased for a moment, the sound of the hones on the sickles could be heard clinking musically in the still heavy air. Two or three old women alone stood in their porches, with their sun-bonnets over their neat white caps, gossiping as they knitted, and speaking an occasional word to an old, old man who sat in a high-backed chair basking in the sun. The children were all down in the meadow below, the little maids mostly sitting in the shade and making nosegays of forget-me-nots; ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... make her learn to love if he were to try," said Mrs Hume to herself. "But he must not try unless—And if he should say or do anything likely to bring watchful eyes or gossiping tongues upon Allison, I shall have something to ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... shoulders. "Because everybody is more or less of a gossiping fool, I should say. Still," he threw up his head with a laugh, "notions of that sort have their uses. My grandfather for instance is firmly of the opinion that I have come home to be married. ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... Jerusalem, accompanied by a large number of disciples. On nearing the dwelling of his devoted wife he caught the sound of voices in eager conversation. He paused awhile and listened at the door, and overheard a gossiping neighbor blaming Rachel for her mesalliance, and twitting her with marrying a man who could run away and leave her as a widow for a dozen of years or more on the crazy pretext of going to college. He listened in eager curiosity, ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... the gossiping abilities of most people, she drove up the long driveway and entered the house. The long hall with its wide staircase and large, splendidly furnished rooms opening on either side, struck her as being cold and gloomy. The polished chairs and ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... dear! I can leave you in comfort now, and indeed I've stayed too long already gossiping. Go out and have a walk—take Cynthia with you, if you like. I must be off. Good-by, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... always fond of poking your nose into other people's business, sir, and I daresay you'd like to know why I did it. Oh yes. You know everything, you do,' says John, growing very white, and speaking angry and quick, 'with your writing, and your snuff, and your gossiping with the servants, which no gentleman would do, and your nasty, sneaking, Jaeger-felt boots, and your silly old tub of a wife. I knew that smooth-spoken man of yours would believe anything against her, and I knew he would never marry ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... he was born at the beautiful rural town of Stratford, on the little river Avon, on the 23d of April, 1564. His father, who was of yeoman rank, was probably a dealer in wool and leather. Aubrey, a gossiping chronicler of the next generation, says he was a butcher, and some biographers assert that he was a glover. He may have exercised all these crafts together, but it is more to our purpose to know that in his best estate he was a property holder and chief burgess of the town. Shakspeare's ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... tools and the calf-bound volume she had been working on, and shut and locked her desk. Then she rose. Her eyes swept over the long room, its lower end packed with giggling, whispering, squabbling, listening, gossiping, or reading girls. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... pink lights and mellow tints of golden green blending with the blue of the deep vault overhead, scores of swift-darting birds were wheeling about in the still air, uttering sharp clear cries, as though calling one another to rest below, women stood at their house-doors gossiping with their neighbours; peals of laughter and the incessant chatter of feminine voices mingled with the din of horses' hoofs on the hard road and with the never-ending jingle of the harness-bells. Gazing lazily down into the street, my attention ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... truly a splendid lad. As to archery, he need not go far to learn it, since your apprentice, Will Parker, last year won the prize as the best marksman in the city bounds. Trust me, if his tastes lie that way we will between us turn him out a rare man-at-arms. But I must stand gossiping no longer; the rumours that we are likely ere long to have war with France, have rarely bettered my trade. Since the wars in Scotland men's arms have rusted somewhat, and my two men are hard at work mending ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... friends or kin, without the religion of love, without faith in any affection. Yet however slightly she might feel the need to pour out her heart, a craving that every human being feels, it could only be satisfied by gossiping with her maid, by trivial and indifferent talk.... I grieved ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... travelling, if the mind were free. The grander and more distant features of the landscape we may see well enough from the window of the railway-carriage; but it is the foreground that interests and instructs us, like a pleasant gossiping history; and that we had, in old days, from the post-chaise window. It was more than travelling picquet. Something of all conditions of life—luxury and misery—high spirits and low;—all sorts of costume, livery, rags, millinery; faces buxom, faces wrinkled, faces kind, faces wicked;—no end ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... exchanged. The woods were fairly ablaze with bonfires and hanging lanterns, making a strangely brilliant and fantastic scene. Here and there rugs were spread out on the grass for the older people to congregate upon in gossiping groups, while the young ones had speedily converted a large, smooth spot of lawn into an impromptu dancing-ground, and were whirling merrily away to the music of the band, in the very face of the scandalized Mrs. Upjohn. This last field of action was the first ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... seem to sit up late, short though our nights are. A chilly little group gathers sleepily round the embers, watching mess-tins full of nondescript concoctions balanced cunningly in the hot corners, and gossiping of small camp affairs or large strategical movements of which we know nothing. The brigade camp-fires twinkle faintly through the gloom. A line of veldt-fire is sure to be glowing in the distance, looking like the lights of a sea-side town as seen from the sea. The only ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... one, in travelling, could fail to be struck with the predominance of the military element among the population. It was unpleasant to observe, at every railroad station, at every wayside grocery store, groups of idle, lounging soldiers, smoking and gossiping, and having, apparently, no earthly object except to kill time; and to know that these men, wearing their country's uniform, and drawing their pay from her exhausted exchequer, were lingering at home on various pretexts, and basely and deliberately shirking their duty, while rebellion still ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... . I suppose that what you call "my fame within these four years" comes from a little of this gossiping and going about, and showing myself to be alive: and so indeed some folks say—but I hardly think it: for remember I was uninterruptedly (almost) in London from the time I published 'Paracelsus' till I ended that string of plays with 'Luria'—and I used ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Corcoran house, which was achieved by dodging around groups of untidy women gossiping with their neighbors, and children playing on the dirty pavements, with the occasional detour caused by a heap of old tin cans, and other debris, Mr. King drew a long breath. "I don't know that ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... fix the suspicion already struggling into strong life within her breast, that neither for the moment realised the strangeness of the situation or that it was in connection with a crime for which the husband of one of them had suffered, they were raking up this past, and gossiping over its petty details. Possibly recollection returned to them both, when Mrs. Scoville ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... her head. "That is if you mean making clergymen work like other people, instead of spying and gossiping and playing games as they ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... felt deserted, he felt as if every one else were linked with life, while he stood entirely alone. Hermione was travelling to her friend. Lucrezia and Gaspare had gone to their festa, to dance, to sing, to joke, to make merry, to make love—who knew? Down in the village the people were gossiping at one another's doors, were lounging together in the piazza, were playing cards in the caffes, were singing and striking the guitars under the pepper-trees bathed in the rays of the moon. And he—what was there for him ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... asked whether this is not a mere matter for the craft: in reality the public is concerned. The letter written by one friend to another, gossiping about a play or a book or a picture, exposes the writer to an action for libel unless it can be protected on the ground of truth, privilege or fair comment; and casually written remarks concerning any matter of public interest may result in damages and costs. Indeed, to put the matter simply, the ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... neighborhood, who has been caught out in the tempest. But you had better go and change your clothes than to stand here gossiping," said the ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... whilst she listened attentively. In the vestibule it was the night watchmen who were talking, discussing, no doubt, the many events of the day: and that sound—like the buzzing of bees—showed that the women were awake and gossiping, and that up in the slaves' quarters tongues were still wagging, despite Blanca's assurance and the overseer's sharp discipline. But on the other side of the atrium, where were the reception halls and the studio, ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... "rules not only over a fickle, but a gossiping (bavard) people, whom he has prudently forbidden all conversation and writing concerning government of the State. They would soon (accustomed as they are, since the Revolution, to verbal and written debates) ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the father of the family was more and more out at nights, and less and less agreeable when he was at home. He and his friend Lumber helped each other in mischief: they went together to Jackson's shop and spent time in lounging and gossiping and talking politics there; and what was worse, they made the time and the politics go down with draughts of liquor. Less and less money came to Mrs. Mathieson's hand; but her husband always required what he called a good ...
— The Carpenter's Daughter • Anna Bartlett Warner
... her supper of half-cooked corn meal and tea, she went instantly to work at washing out clothes. Mrs. Tucker spent the evening gossiping with the janitress, came in about midnight. As usual she was full to the brim with news of misery—of jobs lost, abandoned wives, of abused children, of poisoning from rotten "fresh" food or from "embalmed" stuff ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... It was his habit whenever he had a spare hour (and this was rather often, for it must be understood he was not any too industrious), to go at one time into the house of neighbour A., and at another time into the house of neighbour B. Sometimes he would sit gossiping in these houses for hours together. He managed to keep on good terms with both of them, although between B. and A. there existed anything but a good feeling. And, by-the-by, Eadie was the agent of producing it, through carrying tales to each respecting the other. If A. ever happened to show temper ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... door in no dulcet tones, "and he said if you didn't come, he'd fetch you. You were safe to be gossiping somewhere, he said, ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... of Johnson by this Lady and her late biographical helpmate, than his most avowed enemies have been able to effect: and if his character becomes unpopular with some of his successors, it is to those gossiping friends he is indebted for ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... of her turn just now," said Brother Copas sternly. "Her behaviour to Nurse Turner was quite atrocious. . . . Now either she has picked this up at school, or—the thought occurs to me—she has been loafing around the laundry, gossiping with the like of Mrs. Royle and Mrs. Clerihew, and letting their evil communications corrupt her good manners. This seems to me the better guess, because the women in the laundry are always at feud with the nurses; it's endemic there: and 'a nasty ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and it occurs to me, Major Stannard, that you look vastly as though you wish Mrs. Turner had come with the details. That's just the way with you men. You rail at our sex for gossiping, and growl when we can't or won't tell you anything. Luce! Luce! How consistent!" And in her enjoyment of her burly lord's discomfiture, Mrs. Stannard forgot for the moment her many anxieties and ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... had never had such a thing, not from the day she was born! To be sure, the whole affectionate household knew that there was some cloud over Miss Nelly. They didn't talk much about it. Pat and Bridget knew better than to have the servants' hall gossiping over the master and Miss Nelly. A new under-housemaid, who was greatly addicted to the reading of penny novelettes, suggested that Miss Nelly was being forced into marrying her cousin by the machinations of his mother, who was not persona grata with the servants' hall. ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... women, holding still more poorly clad, fretful children, sat on the door-step, hung out of the open windows and over the balusters, gossiping and slandering their neighbors quite as energetically as the petted wives of the Four Hundred on the fashionable ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... sometimes, then, when I was frae hame, oor courtin' days not being so far behind us as they are noo. (Ah, she travels wi' me always the noo, ye ken, sae she has nae need to write to me!) Suddenly I heard my own name as I passed a bunch o' women gossiping. ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... a pity people do not let others alone and attend to their own affairs," remarked Keith, grimly. "I believe more than half the trouble is made by the meddlers who go around gossiping." ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... a subject to be canvassed in a gossiping village! Conjecture was at its busy work. I was quite satisfied with the place that the imaginations of my hospitable patrons had given me in the social scale. Nor in the country only did I experience this friendly feeling; most of my vacations were spent in town, at the houses ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... down the stairs, made his way swiftly by the revolving door into the street, crossed it, and walked towards the harbor of Santa Lucia, where quantities of pleasure-boats lie waiting for hire, and the boatmen are gathered in knots smoking and gossiping, or are strolling singly up and down near the water's edge, keeping a sharp look-out for ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... too late, and woke up completely as he saw Ricardo retract his lips in a cat-like grin; but the companion of "plain Mr. Jones" didn't alter his comfortable, gossiping attitude. ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... affair, began to assume a more serious form; the rector went oftener to Prospect Hill, while the carriage from Prospect Hill stood daily at the gate of the rectory, and people said it was a settled thing, or ought to be, gossiping about it until old Captain Humphreys, Anna's grandfather, conceived it his duty as senior warden of St. Mark's, to talk with the young rector and know ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... my good Lysander, would be severe indeed if you were to notice, with minute exactness, all the book-anecdotes of the middle ages. You have properly introduced the name and authority of Warton; but if you suffered yourself to be beguiled by his enchanting style, into all the bibliographical gossiping of this period, you would have no mercy upon your lungs, and there would be no ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... others what you know; but, by learning to control these desires, you can wonderfully strengthen your powers of concentration. Remember, you have all you can do to attend to your own business. Do not waste your time in thinking of others or in gossiping about them. ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... of the Mississippi is by no means of a curious disposition—malgre the statements of gossiping tourists—the unexplained and forlorn appearance I presented on my return was enough to excite a degree of interest even among the most apathetic people; and a number of the guests of the hotel had gathered ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... to prate of his family affairs. He mocked at an old aunt of his, who was wont to cover her hair with roses the better to conceal bald spots, and added that this aunt was a great favourite at the Court of the Tsar, on account of her incomparable gossiping stories. It apparently never occurred to him that such intimate family relations were a rather strange subject for conversation ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... cool of the morning. The pigeons were gossiping under the barn eaves. In the apple-tree a robin's song thrilled at intervals, and the jays were chattering incessantly in the cherry-trees by the fence. The dew was still on the grass that lay in the parallelogram ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... "Oh, they were gossiping about some woman, as far as I could make out—a woman Micky had been rather friendly with, from what I gathered—they didn't mention her name, but——" he hesitated. "They spoke of her as a girl from ... I've forgotten the name, but I think it was ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... the lad. "I must not stand gossiping here. The news you have told me, as you know, touches me closely, for I would not that harm should ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... though he had suddenly recollected something extraordinarily amusing or important, then he would open his mouth, let off a few rings of smoke, and utter the most commonplace remarks, or even keep silence altogether. After gossiping a little with Ivan Afanasiitch about the neighbours, about horses, the daughters of the gentry around, and other such edifying topics, Mr. Bublitsyn suddenly winked, pulled up his shock of hair, and, with a sly smile, approached the remarkably dim looking-glass ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... behest. So the herald called again. And the servants cowered in very shame, but none came forth. But the third blast of the herald struck upon a woman's heart, afar. And the woman straightway left her baking and sweeping and the rattle of pans; and the woman straightway left her chatting and gossiping and the sewing of garments, and the woman stood before the King, saying: "The servant of ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... day, if you had walked down the court, you would have seen groups of women standing round the doors gossiping, with their sleeves rolled up to their elbows, and nothing on their heads. This was the way they all spent their time when they were not in the beershops, one of which stood, as usual, at each corner of the court. These women never had time ...
— Willie the Waif • Minie Herbert
... show-cases, and many a sad romance of won and lost grows out of the latter too. The shop-girls have nearly got through their work now, and they lean against the door-posts or stand out on the sidewalk, gossiping in groups of twos and threes. You will observe that there is not a single milliner's shop on the other side of the street. The dealers there are mostly in the hardware and grocery lines, or they represent commerce as tobacconists, confectioners, and such like; but they have nearly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... domestic circle, and would much rather bestow my wisdom and tediousness upon the world at large, I have always sought to ease off this surcharge of the intellect by means of my pen, and hence have inflicted divers gossiping volumes upon the patience of the public. I am tired, however, of writing volumes; they do not afford exactly the relief I require; there is too much preparation, arrangement, and parade, in this set form of coming before the public. I am growing too ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... through the ward at this. Old Maggie's gossiping tongue had been busy during the hour. From pity the ward ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... everything was in order, she asked me in a supplicating voice, to give her a wardrobe with a looking-glass in the doors. I promised her one, and then I left her squatting on the carpet from Djebel-Amour, with a cigarette in her mouth, and gossiping with the old Arab woman I had sent for, as if they had known ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... at Nideck was becoming dull and monotonous. Every morning there was the doleful bugle-call of the huntsman, whose occupation was gone; then came a visit to the count; after that breakfast, with Sperver's interminable speculations upon the Black Plague, the incessant gossiping and chattering of Marie Lagoutte, Maitre Tobias, and all that pack of idle servants, who had nothing to do but eat and drink, smoke, and go to sleep. The only man who had any kind of individual existence was Knapwurst, who sat buried up to the tip of his red nose in old ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... go into the Rathaus, followed by all the men. Exit ANSELM with the Holy Book into the Minster.—The children play Mouse, to and fro, round about the PIPER.—The women, some of them, spin on the doorsteps, with little hand distaff's, or stand about, gossiping. ...
— The Piper • Josephine Preston Peabody
... rough-looking men were lounging about, gossiping over their absinthe or aperatif. Monsieur Podvin was already, at this early hour in the day, on his second bottle of ordinaire. Opposite, as ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... chat away comfortably through the evening with you, beloved one, as though we were sitting on the sofa in the red drawing-room; and with sympathetic attention to my desire the mail kept for my enjoyment precisely at this gossiping hour your letter, which I should have received by good rights day before yesterday. You know, if you were able to decipher my inexcusably scrawled note [3] from Schlawe, how I struck a half-drunken crowd of hussar officers ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... Give us a kiss, my girl. You have the right spirit in you. I'll let you know when the train goes to-morrow, and I will write to my father to expect you. Now, off with you, or you'll have them gossiping downstairs. Good night." ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... intimate friends of the court. Half jocosely, half seriously, amid the rounds of applause with which the royal actress is greeted, he hisses. It was deemed extremely derogatory to the dignity of the queen that she should indulge in such amusements, and every gossiping tongue in Paris was soon magnifying ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... smiled the Duchessa, "I'm sure he didn't. Nobody thinks you're a gossip. Gossiping is talking about things people don't want known, and generally things that are rather unkind, to say the least of it. You're the soul of honour and charity, and Father Dormer knows that as well as ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... so happened that day, that Neykia, she of woodland grace and beauty, was strolling in the sunshine with her Little Pine; while on every side the trees were shaking their heads and it seemed gossiping about the hunting plans of that reckless little elfin hunter, Hymen, who was hurrying overland and shooting his joyous arrows in every direction, till the very air felt charged with the whisperings of countless lovers. It made me think of the shy but radiant ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... no gossiping among the servants. Everything should be done decently. From the park she could take the suburban and go quietly into town. From there—the world was wide. There was a note on his dresser, he would read it to-night and understand—no, not understand, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various |
