"Tattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the style of the Mrs. Slipslop of a great artist whose works one would scarcely have expected to encounter among the paper-backed and grey-boarded volumes which lined the shelves at Edgeworthstown. Mrs. Theresa Tattle, again, in "The Mimic," is a type which requires but little to fit it for a subordinate part in a novel, as is also Lady Diana Sweepstakes in "Waste not, Want not." In more than one case, we seem to detect an actual portrait. ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... at Fort Snelling on February 11, 1842, pictures the usual winter life. "We of the garrison are as usual at this season rather dull, stale & unprofitable—small parties for Tea are a good deal the fashion, & tattle is used as formerly. Indian Ball plays are coming in season. One comes off today in which stacks of property are to be invested. The Sioux have been hunting about Rum River this winter and have killed great numbers ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... the sublime to the ludicrous, I would advise future travellers not to follow our example in respect of a woman-boatman. The good woman, who acted as guide to the Falls could not hold her tongue for a single moment, and her loud inharmonious tittle-tattle put us in ill-humour for the rest of the day. When you make a long journey to see such a phenomenon as this, you should see it alone, or, at least, in perfect quiet. We had come opportunely for the Falls, however, the enormous quantity of rain that had fallen within the last few ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... threwest away to go and seek in vain in sepulchers, mummy pits, and old bookshops of Asia Minor, Egypt, and England. It was the deep to-day which all men scorn; the rich poverty, which men hate; the populous, all-loving solitude, which men quit for the tattle of towns. He lurks, he hides,—he who is success, reality, joy, and power. One of the illusions is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... pint mug of coffee. As he was eating a paper-boy came in and laid an Echo on the table at which he was sitting. He took it up mechanically, and ran his eye carelessly over the columns. He was in no humour to be interested by the tattle of an evening paper, but in a paragraph under the heading of Foreign News a once familiar name caught his eye, and he read the paragraph ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... off the run in irons; he left it honourably for another run which he took up, and stocked with cattle bearing no brand but his own. Evil tongues might tattle, but no man could prove that Burridge ever broke ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... no worries," declared the man over his shoulder, a contemptuous sneer curling his lips. "I confess my own wrong-doing but I do not tattle the sins of other people. Your father will never be the wiser about you so far as I am concerned. Whatever you want him to know you will ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... by the actors did not much resemble those in Shakespeare; they were, in most cases, mere tattle, scarcely verses; rhyme and alliteration were sometimes used both together, and both anyhow. And yet the emotion was deep; in the state of mind with which the spectators came, nothing would have prevented their being touched by the affecting ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... I delight to chat, Elevating my brows Over this and that. Music tittle-tattle Never fails to thrall. But the picture prattle ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... under the worst colors. Switzerland was at that time overrun by the English, whom the recently-signed Peace had attracted to the Continent. The laureate took the lead of those who tried to make the good but bigoted people of Geneva believe in all the tittle-tattle against Byron which was passed about in London, and actually attempted to make a scandal of his very presence in their town. When he passed in the streets they stopped to stare at him insolently, putting up ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... certainly, in 1769-1771, when on a visit to England, gave out that d'Eon was received by Elizabeth in a manner more appropriate to a woman than a man. It is not easy to ascertain precisely what the tattle of the Princess really amounted to, but d'Eon represents it so as to corroborate his tale about his residence at Elizabeth's Court, as lectrice, in 1755. The evidence is of no value, being a biassed third-hand report ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... "Double Sixes." The story was well known at the time, though, of course, out of respect to the feelings of the two noble families, every attempt was made to hush it up, and a full account of all the circumstances connected with it will be found in the third volume of Lord Tattle's Recollections of the Prince Regent and his Friends. The ghost, then, was naturally very anxious to show that he had not lost his influence over the Stiltons, with whom, indeed, he was distantly connected, his own first cousin having been married en secondes noces to the Sieur de Bulkeley, ...
— The Canterville Ghost • Oscar Wilde
... the hope of a world to come. Amidst these equivocations and contradictions thought is blunted, and the sinews of the intellect are unstrung. The public, bewitched by talent and captivated by success, is deluged with writings which have the same effect as the talk of a frivolous man, or the showy tattle of a woman of the world. They give an agreeable exercise to the mind, without ever allowing it to form either a precise idea or a ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... farewell; fair weather after you. Your blessing, quotha? I'll not give a single halfpenny for't. Who would live under a mother's nose and a granam's tongue? A maid cannot love, or catch a lip-clip or a lap-clap, but here's such tittle-tattle, and Do not so, and Be not so light, and Be not so fond, and Do not kiss, and Do not love, and I cannot tell what; and I must love, an I ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... always act up to the strictest Rules of Reason himself, and knew how to look on the Foibles of others, with an Eye of Indulgence. Every one was surpriz'd to find, that notwithstanding he had such a Fund of Wit, he never insulted; nay, never so much as rallied any of his Companions, for that Tittle Tattle, which was so vague and empty, so noisy and confus'd; for those rash Reflections, those illiterate Conclusions, and those insipid Jokes; and, in short, for that Flow of unmeaning Words, which was call'd polite Conversation in Babylon. He ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... venerable tree, all ranks occasionally assemble in groups, from sun-rising to sun-set, and pass the time in chit-chat, or in conversation on public affairs. Their subjects are inexhaustible, and their tittle-tattle is carried on with surprising volubility, gaiety, and delight; their time thus occupied is so seducing, that they separate with great reluctance, sometimes passing the entire day in this, pratling, smoaking, and diversion: night, however, terminates ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... this advance was carelessly received, since it satisfied my conscience and her who stirred its depths—nor did my cheek flush at the derisive taunt that followed me from the room after this obligation to self was discharged—"Now tattle again, little prophetess," for thus she often alluded to my Hebrew name and its signification, "and produce my squirrel, or look well to ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... gentleman, the man of conversation and address, but he that hath the skill and confidence (O heavens! how mean a skill! how mad a confidence!) to lard every sentence with an oath or a curse, making bold at every turn to salute his Maker, or to summon Him in attestation of his tattle; not to say calling and challenging the Almighty to damn and destroy him? Such a conceit, I say, too many have of swearing, because a custom thereof, together with divers other fond and base qualities, hath prevailed among some people, bearing the ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... Dunripple. Twice or thrice in the year a letter would pass between Parson John and his nephew, Gregory Marrable, but such letters were very short, and the parson was the last man in the world to spread the tittle-tattle of a love-story. He had always known that that affair would lead to nothing, and that the less ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... his study, eagerly expecting a reply, but Cardan took no notice of the attack. Then one day some tale-bearer, moved either by the spirit of tittle-tattle or the love of mischief, brought to Julius Caesar the news that Jerome Cardan had sunk under his tremendous battery of abuse, and was dead. It is but bare charity to assume that Scaliger was touched by some stings of regret when he heard what had been the fatal result of his ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... was now raised to drag Bell out by the heels, when I reflected that what I had heard might be unfounded gossip, mere tattle, and that before I turned against an old acquaintance, it were well to set an inquiry afoot. First, however, I put him alongside Herbert Spencer. If it were Bell's desire to play the grandmother to him, he ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... hole or a rent in it: for one or another of them will with grinning and laughing thrust her finger through it, and then shew it to the rest, taking also the first opportunity she can lay hold of, when they are a little at liberty, to make a whole tittle-tattle about it, and very much admireth the carelessness and negligence of the Child-bed woman; as if she were a greater wast-all, and worse house-wife than any of them else when to the contrary, if you should ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... in preference to the plain. Frequent mention is made in the plays of this time of its use and varieties. In Congreve's "Love for Love," one of the characters presents a young lady with a box of snuff, on receipt of which she says, "Look you here what Mr. Tattle has given me! Look you here, cousin, here's a snuff-box; nay, there's snuff in't: here, will you have any? Oh, good! ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... into a snake. Thou wilt not, or thou canst not? Any of these things ought to be easy to thee; they relate much more wondrous miracles of thine." Then turning to the courtiers Herod said, "He does not stir. Ah, I see well that what has made him so notorious was only idle tittle-tattle. He knows nothing and ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... by his tattle has made the Marquise my mortal foe, I gained his good offices, and those of the Public Prosecutor, and Comte Octave de Bauvan; for Madame de Serizy told them the danger in which I stood in consequence of their allowing the source of their information ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... who had been kind to them and had protected them, but it was preposterous to suppose that without force they would obey any big boy who might choose to order them. It was some time before this scheme became known to Ernest Bracebridge and his friends. As he never listened to the tales and tittle-tattle of the school—indeed, he found that the current stories were generally absurd exaggerations of the truth—he might have remained some time longer ignorant, had not Bouldon come to him one afternoon, after school, in a state of great indignation, saying that Blackall ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... and the eminently Scots periphrasis means neither more nor less than excommunication, 'on account of the discordant and quarrelsome state of the families. The cause, when inquired into, proves to be tittle-tattle on both sides.' The tender comes round; the foremen and artificers go from station to station; the gossip flies through the whole system of the service, and the stories, disfigured and exaggerated, return to their own birthplace with the returning tender. ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Caleb wanted, and he kept her going by his evident interest. After she tired of providing more realistic details of the night's uproar, Caleb deliberately tapped another vintage of tittle-tattle in hope of further information ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the world, no chance for us young people to enjoy ourselves, without some penalty to pay, some drawback to worry us like these confounded 'all-rounders.' Even here, where all seems free and easy, there's no end of gossips and spies who tattle and watch till you feel as if you lived in a lantern. 'Every one for himself, and the Devil take the hindmost': that's the principle they go on, and you have to keep your wits about you in the most exhausting manner, or you are done for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... occupied himself for a couple of hours in going through his notes of the case. It was his intention to defer his visit to the bedroom in the left wing until the household had retired, so as to be free from the curious speculations and tittle-tattle of the servants. ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... sort of gossip. The greatest source of scandal upon which he drew was a woman named Geraldine Jewsbury, a curious neurotic creature, who had seen much of the late Mrs. Carlyle, but who had an almost morbid love of offensive tattle. Froude describes himself as a witness for six years, at Cheyne Row, "of the enactment of a tragedy as stern and real as the story of Oedipus." According to his ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... wild-cat, on the boy. "Now remember this; if you tell the least little thing that happens here to Gaucher, or to the Grouage and Bellache people, or even to Marianne who loves us, you will kill your father. Never tattle again, and I will forgive what you said yesterday." The child began to cry. "Don't cry; but when any one questions you, say, as the peasants do, 'I don't know.' There are persons roaming about whom I distrust. ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... mischief-making without punishment, in vogue? The fellows who like to borrow money but not pay it back, are surely such as these students here after they are graduated. What did these fellows come to this middle school for, anyway? They enter a school, tattle round lies, play silly jokes behind some one by sneaking and cheating and get wrongly swell-headed when they finish the school thinking they have received an education. A common lot of jackasses ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... promised his glorious teaching, and his warming, strengthening, sanctifying, and comforting presence to such as do so, Matt, xviii. 20. Church members find time enough to visit one another, and meet together to tell some idle stories, to tattle about other men's matters, which do not concern them, and perhaps to backbite some of their brethren, and to prejudice the minds of persons against their teachers and their work, if they do not please them. And will not such meetings have bitterness ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... the new power of nature. M. D'Eslon, a physician of great reputation, became a convert; and from that time, animal magnetism, or, as some called it, mesmerism, became the fashion in Paris. The women were quite enthusiastic about it, and their admiring tattle wafted its fame through every grade of society. Mesmer was the rage; and high and low, rich and poor, credulous and unbelieving, all hastened to convince themselves of the power of this mighty magician, who made such magnificent promises. Mesmer, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... plays, and at the same time more farcical. By 'more human' it is not meant that the characters are truer to life than those in The Way of the World, but that they are truer to average life, and therefore more easily recognisable by the average spectator. Tattle, for instance, is so gross a fool, that any fool in the pit could see his folly; Witwoud might deceive all but the elect. No familiarity—direct or indirect—with a particular mode of life and speech is necessary ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... do as she likes. I believe she told me she had come from a lonely part of Scotland, and wasn't used to living in a great city, and that crowds rather frightened her,' observed a girl who looked rather ashamed of having listened to this tittle-tattle. ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... Betty convoying her cousin young Mac-Lachlan to his wherry (he now took care to leave for home betimes), or with his sister going about the shops. It would be but a bow in the bye-going, she passing on with equanimity and I with a maddening sense of awkwardness, that was not much bettered by the tattle of the plainstanes, where merchant lads and others made audible comment on the cousinly ardour of ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... but one of the exiles from Athens," volunteered Dion, who kept all the tittle-tattle of the little city in stock along ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... to dispose of their old opinions, sentiments, feelings, and so forth, and also of the more interesting facts in their personal history, can obtain good prices for the same at No.— Tittle-tattle street. Inquire at the door ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... receive the impressions of philosophical precepts. For he will hereby be enabled to come to them not altogether destitute of some sort of relish of them, not as to things that he has heard nothing of before, nor with an head confusedly full of the false notions which he hath sucked in from the daily tattle of his mother and nurse,—yea, sometimes too of his father and pedant,—who have been wont to speak of rich men as the happy men and mention them always with honor, and to express themselves concerning ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... teheed and tittered whenever he passed through the town-square; and all were of one mind that Khalid was a worthless fellow, who had brought nothing with him from the Paradise of the New World but his cough and his fleece. Such tattle and curiosity, however, no matter what degree of savage vulgarity they reach, are quite harmless. But I felt somewhat uneasy about him, when I heard the people asking each other, "Why does he not come to Church like honest folks?" And soon I discovered that my apprehensions ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... known at the time, though, of course, out of respect to the feelings of the two noble families, every attempt was made to hush it up; and a full account of all the circumstances connected with it will be found in the third volume of Lord Tattle's Recollections of the Prince Regent and his Friends. The ghost, then, was naturally very anxious to show that he had not lost his influence over the Stiltons, with whom, indeed, he was distantly connected, his own first cousin having been married en secondes noces to the Sieur de Bulkeley, ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... Scotland in those days was simply frittered away in the tittle-tattle of cross and causeway, and the insipid talk of taverns. The most trifling incidents of everyday life were dissected and discussed, and magnified into events of the first importance. Many residents had no trade or profession whatever. Annuitants and retired merchants built ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... on to say, 'did much towards calming the confusing whirl necessarily incident to sudden mutations. I wept over them tears of happiness and gratitude.' He accordingly left the army, with its rough barrack-life and coarse mess-room tittle- tattle, and returned to Linden House, full of this new-born enthusiasm for culture. A severe illness, in which, to use his own words, he was 'broken like a vessel of clay,' prostrated him for a time. His delicately strung organisation, however indifferent it might have ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... as I can get out. I'm expected in New York within ten days at the latest. And then, Emma, the wide world! No more little-town tittle-tattle! All I've got to do, in the big world, is to deliver the goods. And I'm going to deliver ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... ["Women have an entertaining tattle, and sometimes wit, but for solid reasoning and good sense I never knew one in my life that had it, and who reasoned and acted consequentially for four and twenty ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... detestable to any one else's ideas; but it appears exactly suited to the coarse tastes and hearty appetite of their husbands. Being uneducated, and a large proportion unable to read, their chief intellectual amusement consists in tittle-tattle and gossip. They are generally inclined to be religious after a fashion, and frequent the chapel or the cottage in which the itinerant preacher holds forth. In summer this preacher will mount upon a waggon placed in a field by the roadside, and draw a large audience, chiefly ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... for I had seen insinuations to this effect in a newspaper. I was very young at this time, but I already had a certain disdain for tittle-tattle. ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... and scarcely knowing which of us she ought to make the most of, or which deserved most pity. Not that she had forgiven yet the rivals to her love—Tom Faggus, I mean, and Lorna—but that she was beginning to think a tattle better of them now, and a vast deal better of her ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... I assure you, Miss Newville. We have card parties, where we play high or low, just as we feel. We have assemblies, where we tittle-tattle and gossip. We gentlemen lay bets on the winning horse at the next Derby. We go to Drury Lane or Covent Garden, and clap our hands at the acting of Davy Garrick or Jimmy Quin. At the opera we go ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... at eighteen—the age when a boy really begins his training—their education is completed, they are told; and they are turned into the world to devote their time and talents to trimmings, novels, and idle tittle-tattle. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... of the dreaded three would come and fetch her out of the Land before she could find her parents. And here, at the very moment when she hoped to leave the worst of the trio behind, here was another!—to hamper and tattle ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... how many tongues you got, 'Les' shoes would talk an' wagons, too; An' all de bells would gabble a lot, An' tattle an' brag de long day th'ough; But it's gyardin' yo' tongue f'om talk dat's wrong, An' passin' a helpful word along, An' maybe singin' a hopeful song— Dat's de way my ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... trusty, stanch Abidan! You see, Abidan, I was thinking, my good Abidan, all this may be the frenzy of a revel. Tomorrow's dawn may summon cooler counsels. The tattle of the table, it is sacred. Let us forget it; let us pass it over. The Lord may turn his heart. Who knows, who ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... slightly. "I can tell you something about him," she said. "He's . . . you know the kind of boy who is forever tagging along—when you want to go anywhere, I mean? Who is forever disagreeing with you, and wanting things done in a different way? Who winds up by tattling? A tattle-tale I ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... loyalty, the sublime resignation to his oath, and the extreme sufferings of this internal passion. But as she still kept her love in the recesses of her heart, she died when Lavalliere fell before Metz, as has been elsewhere related by Messire Bourdeilles de Brantome in his tittle-tattle. ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... against their hearts and wills, and the love that they had to their sins: yet then they shall be convinced, that God was far from infusing anything into their souls, that should in the least hinder, weaken, obstruct, or let them in seeking the welfare of their souls. Now men will tattle and prattle at a mad rate, about election and reprobation, and conclude, that because all are not elected, therefore God is to blame that any are damned: but then they will see, that they are not damned because they were not elected, but because they sinned; and also that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... remained a week with St. Francis during the absence of the Virgin Mary, and pittered on his head. He grew so companionable with a nightingale, that when a nest of swallows began to babble, he hushed them by desiring them not to tittle-tattle of their sister, the nightingale. Attacked by a wolf, with only the sign-manual of the cross, he held a long dialogue with his rabid assailant, till the wolf, meek as a lap-dog, stretched his paws in the hands of the saint, followed ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... kiss me, wretch; thou—a neatherd? I never learned to kiss in country fashion, but to press lips with city gentlefolks. Never hope to kiss my lovely mouth, nay, not even in a dream. How thou dost look, what chatter is thine, how countrified thy tricks are, how delicate thy talk, how easy thy tattle! And then thy beard—so soft! thy elegant hair! Why, thy lips are like some sick man's, thy hands are black, and thou art of evil savour. Away with thee, lest thy presence soil me!' These taunts she mouthed, and thrice spat in the breast of her gown, and stared at me all over from ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... unmitigated horror of being a stranger in a strange town, forced to sit around hotel lobbies with drummers and other lost souls, and drew from Moira the assurance that it wasn't more distressing than having to sit around a boardinghouse night after night watching old women tat and tattle. ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... of the accusation. More than a year went by before Adelaide had a son. The Faubourg was annoyed; it could not admit that it was wrong, and determined to penetrate the supposed mystery; accordingly all the gossips kept a watch upon the Rougons. They soon found ample matter for tittle-tattle. Rougon died almost suddenly, fifteen months after his marriage, from a sunstroke received one afternoon while he was ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... lets a lover go, or a friend either," replied De Pean. "I have proof to convince Le Gardeur that Angelique has not jilted him. Emeric reports women's tattle, nothing more." ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... is, as you say, a long while since. But it's singular how that sort of thing is remembered. One would think people had something else to do than talk of one's private affairs for ever. For my part, I despise such tattle. But there are persons in the neighborhood who still say it was an awkward business. Amongst others, I've heard that this very Luke Bradley talks in pretty plain terms ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... charmed to hear La Cibot's tittle-tattle. Schmucke, Mme. Cibot, and Dr. Poulain meant all humanity to him now, when his sickroom became the universe. If invalid's thoughts, as a rule, never travel beyond in the little space over which his eyes can wander; if their selfishness, in its narrow sphere, ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... of evidence was peculiar. Knowing that there was no Court of Criminal Appeal, he set the rules of procedure at defiance. Any tittle-tattle was admitted, and postmen and servants were allowed to swear as to the directions on unproduced documents alleged to have been addressed to me. When, several weeks later, I was tried a third time in the ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... his eyes on the horizon. 'I don't know whether it's your business, what you are attempting to discuss; but it really appears to me it is none of mine. What have I to do with the tattle with which a pack of old women console themselves ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... 'In such a tittle-tattle place as Hollingford! Really, Molly, you are either very stupid or very obstinate, or else you don't care what hard things may be said about me: and all for a selfish fancy of your own! No! I owe myself the justice of acting in this matter ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... origin and the scandal of an undeserved punishment she was worthy—more than worthy; and for the Colonials, among whom alone that scandal would count against her, he had a habit of contempt. He could, and would in his humour, force Boston to court her salons and hold its tongue from all but secret tattle. The thought, too, of Lady Caroline at this moment crossing the high seas to be met with the news agreeably moved him ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... nothing for 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, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... difference. You can't live on it,—you can't ruin Eleanor's prospects for ever. In point of fact, you can't resign; the bishop wouldn't accept it; the whole thing is settled. What I now want to do is to prevent any inconvenient tittle-tattle,—any ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... by all the courtiers. These courtiers were filled with spite and malice, and bursting with envy at the kindness which the King showed to Corvetto; so that all day long, in every corner of the palace, they did nothing but tattle and whisper, murmur and grumble at the poor lad, saying, "What sorcery has this fellow practised on the King that he takes such a fancy to him? How comes he by this luck that not a day passes that he receives some new favours, whilst we are for ever going backward like a rope-maker, ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... know, because we're not even talked about. If your brother was in jail for stealing money it's the first thing the town would tattle of. But you've been back from your travels for a year or more, and you 'ain't even heard that our Matt is doing three ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... toil with the voice of song, and discharged the humblest duties as a sacrifice well-pleasing to God. Her conscientiousness in little things was remarkable. She was a determined enemy of all trifling and tittle-tattle, as not only unbecoming the Christian character, but destructive of religious feeling; and the consciousness of having uttered a useless word, or engaged in unprofitable conversation, always occasioned her pain. Among other ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... as John Gourlay to his ruin. But it did. The bodies of Barbie became not only the chorus to Gourlay's tragedy, buzzing it abroad and discussing his downfall; they became also, merely by their maddening tattle, a villain of the piece and an active cause of the catastrophe. Their gossip seemed to materialize into a single entity, a something propelling, that spurred Gourlay on to the schemes that ruined him. He was not to be done, he said; he would show the dogs what ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... both declared that they minded what the bailiff said, and never let a word escape from them about the old man's suspicions; but rumour is a sad spreader of news, and the result of some bit of tittle-tattle turns up in places ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... therefore, upon this subject, let you into certain Arcana that will be very useful for you to know, but which you must, with the utmost care, conceal and never seem to know. Women, then, are only children of a larger growth; they have an entertaining tattle, and sometimes wit; but for solid reasoning, good sense, I never knew in my life one that had it, or who reasoned or acted consequentially for four-and-twenty hours together. Some little passion or humor always breaks upon their best resolutions. Their beauty neglected or controverted, their ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... musty palace. She was always heretic at heart, the old gossip mumbled, with furtive glances from my gold piece to the pictured lords above her, as if afraid they would revenge themselves for this tittle-tattle, heretic and light. A servant or a duke, a flower-seller or His Eminence, all was one to her crazy English notions. And the truth—how the mad creature told it! Blurted it out to everyone, so that they had to keep her shut up, finally. And would have her dogs ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... writing her exercises between two bags of lentils, and finishing off her education on her father's doorstep, lolling about on the pavement, amidst the jostling of the throng, and learning all about life from the everlasting tittle-tattle of the cooks, who retailed all the scandal of the neighbourhood while waiting for five sous' worth of Gruyere cheese to be served them. Her mother having died, her father himself had begun to lead rather a gay life, in such wise that the whole of the grocery ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... all give her the laugh. The boys would make up rhymes and yell them at her from a safe distance. She could kill her father for being so mean to her. It was bad enough to hurt her as he did, but to go and tattle when her back was turned was simply awful. She could never go home now. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... Why, have you been listening to tittle-tattle as well as studying newspaper paragraphs! [He bows, good-humouredly.] My dear Philip, allowing for exaggeration, granting that my soupirants number half-a-dozen, which of them would enable me to fill my lungs with fresh air? Who are ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... The midnight oil he burns, But unto some near neighbour His fair young face he turns, To share the harmless tattle Which bejants love to prattle, As wise as infant's rattle Or talk ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... all sincerity. George Sand was quite indifferent about all the great events of Parisian life, about social tittle-tattle and Boulevard gossip. She knew the importance, though, of every episode of country life, of a sudden fog or of the overflowing of the river. She knew the place well, too, as she had visited every nook and corner in all weathers and in every season. She knew all the people; ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... of his for describing complicated legal and commercial undertakings came in too. Nor did he spare, in this wide-ranging book, to bring in other favorite matters of his, the hobereau—or squireen—aristocracy, the tittle-tattle of the country town ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... that neither she nor any of her immediate followers could speak English, told heavily against the lady in the estimation of the countryside. Then, hardly anyone ever saw her (which in itself was an offence, and the cause of still further tattle). She was very little, folk said who professed to be well informed, and her face and hands showed strangely brown against the white robes that she habitually wore; her eyes were like stars; her temper quick to blaze up without due cause. Backstairs gossip, no doubt; but there were ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... to pain and excite us; for sin must continue, and suffering must continue, and we can do no more than we have done. Example—a good example! We have only each to set one, and say nothing. Talk, talk, talk; I will listen no more to such tattle! It is mere pride of intellect, which is put to shame by the first gentle innocent girl who comes, strong in purity and faith, and simply bids us all look up! Did not our heart burn within us? Was not the worst among us and the most worldly moved to ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... of the plan of this work to repeat the gossip and tattle of private society, but occurrences happened to Lord Byron which engaged both, and some of them cannot well be passed over unnoticed. One of these took place during the spring of this year, and having been a subject of newspaper remark, it may with less impropriety be mentioned than others ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... there was no willingness to buy, I hastened to withdraw my hand, and, retying my little package, restored it to its place of security. After I had adjusted my waistband, again we spoke some tittle-tattle of the hour before I arose and, with a courteous salaam, ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... the republic peculiarly liable to impositions of this nature; and the mother who encourages those of her children who fetch and carry, will be certain to have her ears filled with complaints and tattle. Nevertheless, it is a fact beyond all dispute, that the commerce of the country was terribly depredated on by nearly all the European belligerents, between the commencement of the war of the French revolution ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... friends unless he is sure it is unobjectionable and he should regard this as a privilege rather than a masculine right. He will be taught to wear his coat at table and regard it also as a privilege if he appears otherwise. He will be taught that it is unmanly to tattle and gossip. ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... clergyman, he was solemn and fervent; and his preaching evinced "how forcible are right words." But in his daily intercourse with this heterogeneous population, he was not always aware that clerical intimacy should never descend to familiarity. He overheard rude speeches and gossipping tattle; and was made acquainted with some domestic bickerings and feuds; and kindly, though not always discretely, endeavored to check them; but his mediation was repelled as uncalled-for interference.[1] To use the words of his biographer, "he attempted the doubly difficult task of reforming the ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... would do some such fool thing. That Mrs. Hyphen-Bonds was giving a farewell dinner at the Waldorf, prior to her departure to Europe, interested my curiosity not in the least degree. It would be all the same to me if she never came back. None of the wishy-washy tittle-tattle interested me, in fact. There was only one little six-line paragraph that really caught me. On Friday night (that is to say, the night of my adventures in Blankshire), the Hunt Club was to give a charity masquerade dance. This grasped my adventurous ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... agree, not upon subjects which try the passions. But this good lady wants to see men chatting together upon the Pelagian heresy— to hear, in the afternoon, the theological rumours of the day—and to glean polemical tittle-tattle at a tea-table rout. All the disciples of this school uniformly fall into the same mistake. They are perpetually calling upon their votaries for religious thoughts and religious conversation in every thing; inviting them to ride, walk, row, wrestle, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... have a high spirit, and high religious sentiments: both would be mortified and shocked in a nunnery. Think you that convent-walls can shut out temptation? I know them better than you: they are strongholds of vanity, folly, tittle-tattle, and all the meanest vices of your sex. Nay, I forbid you to think of it: show me now your faith ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... According to the tattle of Aubrey the antiquary, publishing in 1680, an opinion concerning Shakspere's education reached him. It came thus; there had been an actor in Shakspere's company, one Phillips, who, dying in 1605, left to Shakspere the usual thirty-shilling ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... the clear sparkle of the stars seemed to fall on me cold and wetting. There was a sense of lurking gruesome horror somewhere in my mind, and it was mingled with clear and grotesque images. Schomberg's gastronomic tittle-tattle was responsible for these; and I half hoped I should never see Falk again. But the first thing my anchor-watchman told me was that the captain of the tug was on board. He had sent his boat away and was now waiting ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... gossip and spreading of tittle-tattle; avoided speaking before servants, or any one who would retail what was said. When there was any danger of this, he relapsed into total silence; and was, indeed, on some occasions over-cautious. He especially avoided ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... course, convince us of the fact. But this evidence is in itself a fact to be considered—'Why do these gentlemen tell this tale?' we ask; but Dr. Carpenter puts the testimony on the level of patristic tattle many centuries old, written down, on no authority, long after the event. Yet the worthy doctor calmly talks about 'want of scientific culture preventing people from appreciating the force of scientific reasoning,' and that after giving such examples of 'scientific reasoning' as we ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... gossip has usually the keenness and eagerness of the tattle of small villages, preserves at times, upon certain serious subjects, a silence which might be believed to be generous. Whether it is from ignorance or from respect, at all events it has little to say. There are vague suspicions of the truth, surmises are made, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... in the Rue Saint-Jacques, at which time he became acquainted with Florent and Quenu. In 1856 he retired from this business, and to amuse himself took a stall in the poultry-market. "Thenceforth he lived amidst ceaseless tittle-tattle, acquainted with every little scandal in the neighbourhood." Gavard was a leading spirit in the revolutionary circle which met in Lebigre's wine-shop, and was the means of bringing Florent to attend the meetings there. He was arrested at the same time as Florent ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... was proper to tell Gus (who, between ourselves, is rather curious, and inclined to tittle-tattle) all the particulars of the family quarrel of which I had been the cause and witness, and so just said that the old lady—("They were the Drum arms," says Gus; "for I went and looked them out that minute in the 'Peerage'")—that the old lady turned out to be ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cousin, saturated with all the prejudices and beliefs of his class, draw the insight or inspiration necessary to break up this life? It was a question of imagination, of projecting himself into the future beyond the unpleasant gossip, sneers, and tattle that followed on such separations, beyond the passing pangs that the lack of the sight of her would cause, beyond the grave disapproval of the worthy. But few men, and especially few men of Soames' class, had imagination enough ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... degree duped by them. He knew that their regard to his interests was all simulated; but, from a certain easiness which had no connection with humanity, he submitted, half-laughing at himself, to be made the tool of any woman whose person attracted him, or of any man whose tattle diverted him. He thought little and cared less about religion. He seems to have passed his life in dawdling suspense between Hobbism and Popery. He was crowned in his youth with the Covenant in his hand; he died at last ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... likeness with internal unlikeness; not rhyming, but strongly alliterative, and in every case with a change of the interior vowel from a weak into a strong, generally from i into a or o; as 'shilly-shally', 'mingle-mangle', 'tittle-tattle', 'prittle-prattle', 'riff-raff', 'see-saw', 'slip-slop'. No one who is not quite out of love with the homelier yet more vigorous portions of the language, but will acknowledge the life and strength which there is often in these and in others still current among us. But of the ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... IT IN THE PAPERS,' replied the dear little fashionable rogue of seven years old. She knew already her importance, and how all the world of England, how all the would-be-genteel people, how all the silver-fork worshippers, how all the tattle-mongers, how all the grocers' ladies, the tailors' ladies, the attorneys' and merchants' ladies, and the people living at Clapham and Brunswick Square,—who have no more chance of consorting with a Snobky than my beloved reader has of dining with the Emperor of China—yet watched ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wise, too, for had she been like most other good women she would have wanted her protege admired, and have rebelled in tears at the thought of placing him in a position where society would serve him up for tittle-tattle. Small men can be laughed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... fact the proprietor of the Star was not entirely disinterested in his kindness. He had been looking for some woman to take "Madame Alpha's" place and furnish the paper with that column of intimate social tittle-tattle about people the readers knew only by name, which every enterprising American newspaper considers a necessary ingredient of the "news." The estimable lady, who signed herself "Madame Alpha," had grown stale in the business, as such social chroniclers ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... that his marriage "was not, perhaps, in consequence of the attachment of romance, but I have no cause to repent it. If I have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with the multiform curse of boarding-school affectation; and I have got the handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and the kindest heart in the country." It was during the honeymoon, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... to avoid writing what is unnecessary is, in these days, no just plea for silence in a biographer, I have some apology to make for having strewed these pages so thinly with the tittle-tattle of anecdote. I am, however, too proud to make this apology to any person but my bookseller, who will be the only real loser by the 'Those readers, who believe that I do not write immediately under his pay, and who may have gathered from what they have already read, that I am ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell
... tired, standing up for a tattle-tale! Anyhow, you go on home. I'm goin' to hang round a while and see if Miss Lee ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... of reasons for believing that I complain of him justly. He's been long enough here to visit a certain family, fond of tittle-tattle, that I ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... against any one, his business, according to the "Book of Discipline," was not to go and preach against that person, even by way of insinuation. {216c} Mary's offence, if any existed, was not "public," and was based on mere suspicion, or on tattle. Dr. M'Crie, indeed, says that on hearing of the affair of Vassy, the Queen "immediately after gave a splendid ball to her foreign servants." Ten weeks after the Vassy affair is not "immediately"; and Knox mentions neither foreign servants nor ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... neighbours said this and that spiteful thing about his son Jack whom he had trained up to the business, making out that they knew more than they cared to say, that Jack was not John, that they had heard of Pride going before a fall, and so much tittle-tattle as jealousy will breed. But they were very much disappointed in their malice, for this same Jack went sturdily to work and trod in his father's steps, so that his wealth increased even beyond what he had inherited, and he had at last more risks upon the sea in one way and another than any ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... that there never was anything between Joan and that Hugh Alston. It was some foolish tittle-tattle, some nonsense, probably hatched by that stupid old ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... lots of lies and tattle In dispatches and on wire, But 'twas Mac who saved the battle When the word came to retire. "I'll no do it"—he cried, ready For what peril lay in store, With his ranks like steel and steady— "And I'll see them hanged before! O, ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... cultivate your acquaintance. Now as to Shekels, whenever you want to know about any private thing that is going on at this post or in White Cloud's camp or Thunder-Bird's, he can tell you; and if you make friends with him he'll be glad to, for he is a born gossip, and picks up all the tittle-tattle. Being the whole Seventh Cavalry's reptile, he doesn't belong to anybody in particular, and hasn't any military duties; so he comes and goes as he pleases, and is popular with all the house cats and other authentic sources of private ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... been Eliza who did it," replied the boy; "but I am no tattle-tale, uncle. Besides, I would have said nothing on Panoria's account. She ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... Medici, in his harsh but not unkindly voice, as he met the boys in the grand and splendidly decorated entrance-hall; "if ye do but make your ways in life with such determination as that, all offices needs must yield to you. A truce to tattle, though, my fair Giulio. Modesty best becomes the young; Giovanni's cardinalate, remember, has not yet been proclaimed, and 't is wisest to hold our tongues till we may wag them truthfully. But, come," he added in ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... him, is not now consulted, in consequence (Batchelor thinks) of some petty intrigue in some quarter. This O'Reilly, who has gradually insinuated himself into the King's confidence, and by constantly attending him at Windsor, and bringing him all the gossip and tittle-tattle of the neighbourhood (being on the alert to pick up and retail all he can for the King's amusement), has made himself necessary, and is not now to be shaken off, to the great annoyance of Knighton, who cannot bear him, as well as of all the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... they 'd have an answer If they asked of me these questions. I know how to treat such tattle: Leave them, sir, ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... (these ornaments are made in Venice, in profusion; she had her pocket full of them, and I used to find them on the floor of my apartment), and kept an eye on the maiden in the house. It was not for me of course to make the domestics tattle, and I never said a word ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... reserve which characterize the narratives of the first and third Evangelists. "The distinction between history and legend," says Dr. Fairbairn, "could not be better marked than by the reserve of the Canonical and the vulgar tattle of the Apocryphal Gospels."* ...
— The Virgin-Birth of Our Lord - A paper read (in substance) before the confraternity of the Holy - Trinity at Cambridge • B. W. Randolph
... Tattle got up and looked at his friend with an expression of mingled apology and triumph on his big, red face. "I 'm sorry I had to do it. Nick. You-all know that. But I had to, and you know that, too. We can't do another thing now till to-morrow, and you 're sober again. ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... continued Calvin Van de Lear, "was your weakness during that behavior! Do you know what the tattle of all Kensington is? That you favored both the father and the son! That you declined the son only because his father might disinherit him, and put off the father because the son would have the longer enjoyment of his ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... at the grocer's," she said. "Such messengers never know where they have to go. Of course he told that the 'young gentleman' was staying at Dr. Holsma's! And such a man always tattles; such people don't do anything but tattle. But, as far as I'm concerned, everybody can know it. I only mean that such people like to tattle. But—say, Walter, how did it happen that you went with the family? You're a nice rascal. Stoffel, what ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... hear his frenzied tattle? It was sorrow for his son Who is slain in brutish battle, Though ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... retaining all the energy, but not the rashness of youth; age with vigour instead of decrepitude, delighting in the words of sound wisdom rather than the usual tattle of second childhood; and, withal, an old man who is prone to moralise as old men are; a man able and willing to do his duty in the present though his heart is left in the past; such is the most prominent figure in these ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... an admiring circle, he betakes himself with infinite zest to the discussion of aesthetic tittle-tattle over a cup of tea and a toasted bun. "Dear fellow," his friends will say of him at such a moment, "he is so etherial; and his eyes, did you observe that far-away, rapt look in them?" They will then take pleasure in persuading one another without ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... has nothing left him, I cannot tell), for which I am much troubled, and so staid not long to talk with him. Thence to my mother's, where I found my wife and my aunt Bell and Mrs. Ramsey, and great store of tattle there was between the old women and my mother, who thinks that there is, God knows what fallen to her, which makes me mad, but it was not a proper time to speak to her of it, and so I went away with Mr. Moore, and he and I to the Theatre, and saw "The ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... recognize all the wisdom of your proceeding, although you will agree it has something offensive and humiliating for me, but after all, it is preferable that you should come and tell me this to my face, than that you should go and chatter in the village and tattle without ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... was getting old, and a time came when he sat more and more by the fire in winter, sipping his glass of grog and reading the country papers, or listening to his wife's acrid tattle. Mrs. Rooney hated with an extreme hatred all the good, easy-going neighbours who were so soft with their children, and encouraged dancing, and race-going and card-playing—the amusements of the Irish middle classes. She had a bitter tongue, and once ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... commanded Verschoyle—by suggestion—to marry a Mrs Slesinger, who was plain but almost as rich as himself, and in his distress he very nearly succumbed; but Clara swooped in to save him, and found that her position was made almost impossible by whispered tittle-tattle, cold looks, and downright rudeness. She was distinctly left out of picnic and boating parties, and almost in contempt she was partnered with Sir Henry who, after Lady Bracebridge's arrival, was no longer master in his own house.... When the Cabinet Ministers arrived the situation ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... we not abundant instances about us of the vulgar tittle-tattle and scandalous unfounded gossip which, born Heaven alone knows on what back-stairs or in what servants' hall, circulates currently to the detriment of the distinguished in every walk of life? And the more conspicuously great the individual, the greater the incentive to slander him, for the interest ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini |
