"Gossip" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... news of the Auld Laird's death reached the village, and on the following Sabbath there was not an empty seat in the kirk, for every one was anxious to hear the latest gossip about the event which meant so much to every one in the region. There was no newspaper in the village, and the news of the week was passed about by word of mouth in the kirkyard after service, or on week days was retailed over the counter ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... cannot be said that Canaan did not hear of him, for surely it could hear itself talk. The death of Jonas Tabor and young Louden's crime and flight incited high doings in the "National House" windows; many days the sages lingered with the broken meats of morals left over from the banquet of gossip. But, after all, it is with the ladies of a community that reputations finally rest, and the matrons of Canaan had long ago made Joe's exceedingly uncertain. Now ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... see about a church, whether living worshippers or dead men's tombs; you find there the deadliest earnest, and the hollowest deceit; and even where it is not a piece of history, it will be certain to leak out some contemporary gossip. It was scarcely so cold in the church as it was without, but it looked colder. The white nave was positively arctic to the eye; and the tawdriness of a continental altar looked more forlorn than usual in the ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Here is a gossip which Mr. Kenyon brought me on Sunday—disbelieving it himself, he asseverated, though Lady Chantrey said it 'with authority,'—that Mr. Harness had offered his hand heart and ecclesiastical dignities to Miss Burdett Coutts. It is Lady Chantrey's and ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... get out of here," Boylan whispered. Again as he spoke the orders to retire came quietly as a bit of garrison gossip, and as coldly. Horses came running down for the ammunition carts; every muscle of man and beast had ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... wonderfully brought all these manifold activities into being had its talisman in the word "Gold"; but, since Pesquiera had come neither as a prospector nor investor, he heard with only half-concealed impatience the easy gossip of his fellow travelers about the famous ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... her, Agnes, Anne, Marie, and Madeleine, but later her mother and her widowed sister, madame le Maitre. They were all happy to be together, though the rule of silence laid down by Angelique to prevent gossip must have stood in the way of much that would have been pleasant. By-and-by her nieces almost all entered the convent, and, what is still more surprising, her brothers and several of her nephews, most of them brilliant ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... the gossip headquarters of the world. Some years ago the whole town was invaded by a mania for anonymous letter writing, and when the smoke had cleared away few ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... Of silver on the brown grope of the flood. The stars are for me; the horizon wakes Its pilgrim chanting; and the little sand Grows musical of hope beneath my feet. The waves that leap to meet my swimming breast Gossip sweet secrets of the light-drenched way, And when the deep throbs of the rising surge Pulse upward with me, and a rain of wings Blurs round the moon's pale place, she stoops to reach Still welcome of bright hands across the wave, ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... picnickers. All over the paddock people were hastening through the business of the midday meal; the men anxious to get it over before the real excitement of the day began with the racing, the women equally keen to feed their hungry belongings and then settle down to a comfortable gossip with friends perhaps only seen once or twice in the twelve months. Children tore about wildly, got in the way of buggies and motors, climbed trees and clustered thickly round any horse suspected ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... a very serious subject of self-gratulation, for, besides my instinctive dread of becoming the topic of the speculations of gossip, I felt that if the situation which I occupied in relation to him were made publicly known, I should stand committed in a manner which would scarcely leave me the ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... returned from Klein's hotel. He was in an excellent humor, in high spirits, and very talkative. His entrance awoke his wife, who was in bed and fast asleep when he came in. He talked to her while he undressed, telling her anecdotes and bits of news and gossip that he had gathered during the day. From his trousers pockets he took a fistful of crumpled bank notes and a good deal of silver coin, which he piled on the bureau indiscriminately with keys, knife, handkerchief, and whatever else happened ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... also a reverse side. Perhaps the general absence of higher education among German women leaves them an especial prey to idle curiosity and gossip. Not only is one questioned freely as to the cost of any article of dress by comparative strangers, but questions as to one's family and private affairs are common, almost customary. Conversation which ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... brighter every day. There was the usual round of amusements —dinner-parties, amateur concerts, races, flower-shows, excursions to every point of interest within a day's drive, a military ball at the garrison-town twenty miles off, perennial croquet, and gossip, and afternoon tea-drinking in arbours or marquees in the gardens, and unlimited flirtation. It was impossible for the most exacting visitor to be dull. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... ladies, who had not much sociability among themselves; they waited a good while before paying visits at one another's rooms, and then were very punctilious not to go again until their calls had been returned. They were all doctoring themselves; they did not talk gossip or scandal much; they talked of their diseases and physicians, and their married daughters and of Mrs. Harmon, whom they censured for being too easygoing. Certain of them devoured novels, which they carried about clasped to their breasts with their fingers in them at the place where they were reading; ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... country gossip of the strange happening at Lynch which had caused so great a scandal, and led to the disappearance of the deaf old Vicar of that remote village, I collected all the reports I could about it, for I felt that at the centre of this uncomprehending talk and wild ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... Potts, printed elsewhere in this issue, is a sufficient refutation of the malicious gossip that has been handed back and forth lately that he had planned to leave Little Arcady. It looks now like certain busybodies in this community had over-stepped themselves and been hoisted up by their own petard. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... There were no newspapers to record his doings and, if he chanced to be an artist, it was nobody's business to set down the details of his life. Sometimes a diarist chanced to pass by and to jot down a little gossip, quite unconscious of the fact that it would serve to stimulate generations yet unborn, but, for the most part, artists who did great work in a retiring fashion and were not honoured by courts and princes as Rubens ...
— Rembrandt • Josef Israels
... being a surgeon in the service of the French garrison. For common morality there was little care. The sexual relations were flagrantly loose, and the scandal even of some of the great dignitaries was widespread. Antonelli's amours were the subject of common gossip, and most of the parish priests were in undisguised marital relations with their housekeepers; nor was this considered as at all to their discredit by the population at large. One of the leading Liberals, permitted to remain in the city on account of the importance of his industry, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... their earliest appearance in Upton, and she had the pedigree of all the families, high and low, at her finger-ends. New-comers she could only tolerate until they had lived respectably and paid their debts punctually for a good number of years. She had a kindly love of gossip, a simple real interest in the fortunes of all about her. There was little else for her to think of, for books and newspapers came seldom in her way, and were often far above her comprehension when they did, Upton news that would bring tears to her eyes or a laugh to her lips was the ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... the harbour-police, and I take notes of their doings. The school-ship is an object of interest to me, and I often perch on the mast-head, to see how the lads are getting on. Then I take a turn over the city, gossip with the weathercocks, pay my compliments to the bells, inspect the fire-alarm, and pick up information by listening at the telegraph wires. People often talk about "a little bird" who spreads news; but they don't know how that figure of speech originated. It is ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... good, and very pleasing, ten shall pronounce my friend too intellectual for their taste, eight shall find her not so clever as they expected, and, of the other two, one at least shall not be sure whether they like her or not. Be it granted that, of every five ladies assembled to gossip freely, and tell out their small cares and feelings to the sympathizing kindness of your friend, four shall become silent as wax-work on the entrance of mine. And be it granted that, of any ten gentlemen to whom yours would ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... Bedford attacked it first with great spirit and mastery, but had little support, though the Duke of Newcastle did not vote. The lawyers were all ordered to purse it through our House: but except the poor Attorney-general,(390) "Who is nurse indeed. to all intents and purposes, and did amply gossip over it, not one of them said a word. Nugent shone extremely in opposition to the bill, and, though every now and then on the precipice of absurdity, kept clear of it, with great humour and wit and argument, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... gossip possibly deserves little more acceptance than the later story, in the same key, which credits Shakespeare with the paternity of Sir William D'Avenant. The latter was baptized at Oxford, on March 3, 1605, as the son of John D'Avenant, ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... doubt useful, functions, Miss Delia Wall performed that of gossip and news agent-general to the village of Inkston. A hard-featured, swarthy spinster of forty, with a roving, inquisitive, yet not unkindly eye, she perambulated—or rather percycled—the district, taking stock of every incident. Not a cat could kitten or a dog have the mange without ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... with him again?" interposed Mrs. Furze. "I wish you would not stop on the bridge as you do. It does not look nice for a girl like you to stay and gossip with Mike." ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... to deceive the good woman that he had thus abruptly decided to deny her the knowledge of his find, but rather as a sensible precaution against mere idle gossip, which ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... when Jesus insisted on teaching the next day in the market place, where people gathered to gossip and buy food. ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith
... not? I'm not counselling you, laddie, to plunge into a course of sensual debauchery. But a wee bit gossip ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... startling news was abroad that Kimiko had at last shown a very soft heart. She had actually said good-by to Kimika, and had gone away with somebody able to give her all the pretty dresses she could wish for,—somebody eager to give her social position also, and to silence gossip about her naughty past,—somebody willing to die for her ten times over, and already half-dead for love of her. Kimika said that a fool had tried to kill himself because of Kimiko, and that Kimiko had taken pity on him, and nursed ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... first time the day following. The weather was soft and full of whispers of spring; the window was open and Philip sat with his face in the direction of the sea. Auntie Nan was knitting by his side and running on with homely gossip. The familiar and genial talk was floating over the surface of his mind as a sea-bird floats over the surface of the sea, sometimes reflected in it, sometimes skimming it, sometimes dipping ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... owners of the Quirt outfit were old bachelors who kept pretty much to themselves, went to town only when they needed supplies, rode old, narrow-fork saddles and grinned scornfully at "swell-forks" and "buckin'-rolls," and listened to all the range gossip without adding so much as an opinion. They never talked politics nor told which candidates received their two votes. They kept the same two men season after season,—leathery old range hands with eyes that saw whatever came within ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... fortunes of the two Tudor kings. He had shared the exile of Henry of Richmond; the treaty of Etaples, the Intercursus Magnus, the marriage of Henry's elder daughter to James IV., and the betrothal of his younger to Charles, were largely the work of his hands. Malicious gossip described him as willing to consent to his own father's death to serve the turn of his king, (p. 049) and a better founded belief ascribed to his wit the invention of "Morton's fork".[90] He was Chancellor of Cambridge in 1500, as Warham ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... of her marriage to a gentleman in power, Delilah was acquainted with the gossip of the hour; And many little secrets, of the half-official kind, Were whispered to Delilah, and she bore them ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... and with due deference to the amenities. There was gossip, of course—there always is gossip—and public opinion was many sided. Rumors circled around which played the whole gamut from infidelity to bankruptcy; these lived their brief span, and then gave ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... business never flows, all their dignities are gone. The men of foresight and enterprise have drifted away to new centres of influence. The bustling dames in starched caps have gone down childless to their graves, or, disgusted with gossip at second hand, have sought more immediate contact with the world. A German tailor, may be, has hung out his sign over the door of some mouldering mansion, where, in other days, a doughty judge ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... minute Fanny had left the room. It was one of the rules of the club that gossip, in the ordinary sense of the world, with regard to any member was strictly forbidden; so no one made any comment when Fanny had taken her departure. There was a sense of relief, however, felt by the girls who remained behind. The meeting was a sorrowful one, and broke ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... Torrealta and her distinguished mother, the widow of the famous diplomat of imperishable memory," and Dona Emilia, forgetting her situation, fancying she was in the good old times, went to everything, in the same black gown, annoying with her "my dears" and her gossip the great ladies whose maids were richer and ate better than she and her daughter. If some old gentleman took refuge beside her, the diplomat's wife tried to overwhelm him with the majesty of her recollections. "When we were ambassadors ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Down by the livery stable on Main street (there must be a livery stable on Main street) I can see the old creaky, cane-bottomed chairs (with seats punctured by too much philosophy) tilted against the sycamore trees, ready for the afternoon gossip and shag tobacco. I can imagine the small boys of Boonville fishing for catfish from the piers of the bridge or bathing down by the steamboat dock (if there is one), and yearning for the day when they, too, will be grown up and old enough to ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... eats, they gather round him at the board, and they tell him all the gossip of the neighborhood. He does not talk about the war, and, if they are curious—probably they are not!—they do not ask him questions. They think that he wants to forget about the war and the trenches ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... sure of that. The vile taste for satire and personal gossip will not be eradicated, I suppose, while the elements of curiosity and malice remain in human nature; but as a fashion of literature, I think it is passing away;—at all events it is not my forte. Long experience of what is called ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... disgust that, even in the language of men of the world, "his morals were not supposed to be very strict." He had been unhappy in his family life. The eccentricities and follies of Lady Caroline Lamb had formed the gossip of several London seasons long years before. Other scandals had gathered round his name, and though they had been to some extent disproven, it was indignantly asked, could there be a more unsuitable and undesirable guide for an innocent ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... was but little short of talking with elfin beings or seeing fairies flitting over flowers. Those who explain everything by "imagination" do not in the least understand how actual the life in Nature may become to us. Reflect for a minute, thou whose whole soul is in gossip and petty chronicles of fashion, and "sassiety," that in that life thou wert a million years ago, and in it thou wilt be a million years hence, ever going on in all forms, often enough in rivers, rock, and trees, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... ringing through the land, and been sounded with blessings in poor men's huts long before it got within the gates of Herod's palace. That is the place where religious earnestness makes its mark last of all. But it finally ran thither also; and light gossip went round concerning this new sensation. 'Who is He? Who is He?' Each man had his own theory about Him, but a sudden memory started up in the frivolous despot's soul, and it was with a trembling heart that he said to himself, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... and interesting. Few schools have libraries including the bound volumes of the magazines of the past quarter of a century. But what an aid such a collection is to the appreciation of literature! The dignified and abbreviated history of literature cannot indulge in such delightful gossip as is found in the freer essay and fuller biography. To show the excellences of the art and the lovableness of the artist rather than to hunt for defects is the duty and the delight of the teacher of literature. This does not mean, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... and saying he approved of the whole Government except of Poulett Thomson. In the evening Brougham, John Russell, and others arrived. I hear of Brougham from Sefton, with whom he passes most of his spare time, to relieve his mind by small talk, persiflage, and the gossip of the day. He tells Sefton 'that he likes his office, but that it is a mere plaything and there is nothing to do; his life is too idle, and when he has cleared off the arrears, which he shall do forthwith, that he really does not know how he shall ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... the last spark of forbearance in the King's breast, I have been here, there, and everywhere—Romney Marsh, Drury Lane, Paris, besides this place and Pilpignon, where I have a snug harbour for the yacht, Ma Belle Annik, as the Breton sailors call her. The crew are chiefly Breton; it saves gossip; but I have a boat's crew of our own English folk here, stout fellows, ready for anything by land ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... him if we were out of our course? I must say I thought it was a silly question to put. It was the same the other evening about the cargo. If the skipper says we're in ballast why not believe him? Why repeat steerage gossip, about mysterious cargoes, at the cuddy table? Captains are always touchy about that sort of thing. I wasn't ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... A gossip writer states that he saw a man carrying two artificial legs while travelling in a Tube train. There is nothing like being prepared for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... this bright chip of nature,—this brave little voice crying in the wilderness,—of observing his many works and ways, and listening to his curious language. His musical, piny gossip is as savory to the ear as balsam to the palate; and, though he has not exactly the gift of song, some of his notes are as sweet as those of a linnet—almost flute-like in softness, while others prick and tingle like thistles. He is the mocking-bird of squirrels, pouring forth mixed chatter and ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... in the great cause of his time,—as was Montaigne also,—that of the right of thought in all competent minds, unrestrained by any outward authority. Montaigne, moreover, contains more pleasant and lively gossip, and more distinct good-humored painting of his own character and daily habits, than any other writer I know. Sterne is never obscure, and never moral; and the costume of his subjects is drawn from the familiar experience ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... at the bait, and told them news, court gossip, bringing in great folks' names and his own, as often and as ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... very fact of living in isolated little communities of their own, are somewhat prone to gossip over purely garrison and regimental affairs. So some of the story would always have clung about Sergeant Overton's reputation among ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... no attempt to cut beneath these manifestations of social life to the creative impulses which produce them. The Economic Man—that lazy abstraction—is still paraded in the lecture room; the study of human nature has not advanced beyond the gossip of old wives. ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... Gossip accused him of being a counterfeiter, who made bad money in the abandoned house he had taken for his own, and that seemed to be the favorite theory. And whenever chickens were missed, dark looks were cast at Zara and her father. He looked like a gypsy, ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... expect me to read Miss Mayhew's secrets and gossip about them with you?" she answered with one of her ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... if he meant him, for you know Peter is a great gossip. But he didn't say anything, because he didn't know just what to say, and in a minute Grandfather Frog began the story Peter so ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... (115) Literally a "gossip"; but such are the changes which words undergo in their meaning as well as in their form, that a title of honour formerly implying a spiritual relationship in God, is now applied only to those whose conversation resembles the contemptible tittle-tattle ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... with which, according to use and custom, the Friday evening course at the Royal Institution was opened, has been the most noteworthy topic of scientific gossip since my last. The subject, 'Lines of Magnetic Force,' is one not easily popularised, otherwise, I should like to give you an abstract of it. One requires to know so much beforehand, to comprehend the value and significance of such a lecture. The learned professor's experiments, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... is like looking over the list of a good club. Men are companionable creatures; they love to get together and gossip. It is maintained, and with reason, that they are fonder of their own society than women are. Men delight to breakfast together, to take luncheon together, to dine together, to sup together. They rejoice in clubs devoted exclusively to their service, as much taboo ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... The gossip keekit in his loof, Quo' she, wha lives will see the proof. This waly boy will be nae coof, I think we'll ca' ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... merely, of course, touch the fringe of a vast subject. Many other holders of famous noms de guerre remain, such as "Mr. Gossip" and "Mrs. Gossip," and "Captain Coe" and "A Playful Stallite," and "Historicus" and "Atlas" and "Scrutator" and "Alpha of the Plough"; but only "Eve" has had the wit to include pictures of herself in every article; therefore only "Eve" can be instantly recognised. These others, if they wish to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... in such a degree from the world at large, to bear all the news we had brought—all the particulars of life and manners—the thousand little items that the newspapers of that day did not dream of furnishing—the fashions, and that general gossip, in short, which a lady is erroneously supposed more au ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... book. It occasioned not a little gossip, excitement, scandal, and even heart-burning. Though the author announced that the persons in the novel were composite characters, not to be taken as likenesses of real persons, and though no doubt there were ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... and how Robert and Arthur did devour the ill-printed provincial news-sheet issuing from the obscure Irish country town, and burning all through with political partisanship! Luckily Argent had the last received copy in his pocket, which detailed all the gossip of the election, with the familiar names, and ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... another's was A tyrant and a niggard, so close-fisted He parcelled out with his own hands the sugar For kitchen use; and how another's still, Though amply able to receive their mother, A widow now, had yet refused to do it, And even declined to make a contribution For her support. And so the gossip ran. The picture was not pleasant. With a sigh Not for herself, but others, Linda penned A letter to her aunt, relating all The events that made her powerless to aid Her needy kinsfolk. She despatched the letter, ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... Nothing except the constant presence of my sister wherever her husband and Mrs. Long were seen together, prevented the scandal from taking the most offensive shape. But Ellen was so wise, so watchful, that not even the most malignant gossip-monger, could point to anything like a clandestine intercourse ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... knew who she was. She had seen her in the neighbouring town that morning, and had heard much gossip about her. She was Miss Farrell, of Carton Hall, and that gentleman coming down the hill more slowly behind her was no ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... return to Cappadocia made a ripple of talk among the young women of the village, to whom he was at least a most interesting theme for gossip, he found the place duller than ever. His mind reverted to the great, dazzling spectacle of the thronged streets of the metropolis, with their unceasing processions of eager people. Since he had all the world to choose from, why not live in New York? But he did not care to go to ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... impair digestion, and leave one at the close of the meal worried and wearied rather than refreshed and strengthened. Let vexatious questions be banished from the family board. Fill the time with bright, sparkling conversation, but do not talk business or discuss neighborhood gossip. Do not let the food upon the table furnish the theme of conversation; neither praise nor apology are in good taste. Parents who make their food thus an especial topic of conversation are instilling into their children's minds a notion ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... excitement of the doctor's visit; and many there were who cried to themselves in the morning, "Would God it were evening!" and in the evening, "Would God it were morning!" But there was yet this other difference, that disease and doctor, fear and hope, gossip and grumbling, newspaper and Bible and tract, were all forgotten in the night, for some time at least, and Nature's kind restorer, sleep, went softly round among the beds and soothed the weary ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... the most perfect gossip I ever knew; though, I must say, it is the kind of life I have advised him to while he ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... emigrants to the new country. He then moved over to this thriving seaport, married and settled, leaving his wife a very young widow with three sons. One of them, John, went far from home to live, and his mother's letters to him contain a great deal of interesting gossip. In one she tells that Margaret McVean has gone to Baltimore to buy her wedding dress, and, horror of horrors, has allowed the groom, Dr. Louis Mackall, to accompany her. Of course a chaperone was in the party, but what an ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... tae that question, gi'en ye canna answer it for yersel'. It's NO! And it's sae, I'm thinkin', wi' most of you who read the words I've written. Ye'll mind yer own affairs, and sae muckle o' yer neighbors as he's not able to keep ye from findin' oot when ye tak' the time for a bit gossip! ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... like an Indian squaw with work in the fields, yet with a fine, well-made face, pushing a groaning wheelbarrow. A strap went from the handles over her shoulders, and, stopping now and then to ask the news, she would slip off this harness, gossip for a time, then push on again. That afternoon under my window there was a tall wagon, a sort of hay wagon, in which there were twenty-two little tow-headed children, none more than eight or ten and several almost babies in arms. By the side of the wagon a man, evidently father of ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... drained; "But ah! in luckless hour, this last December, "I wrote a book,[4] and Colburn dubbed me 'Member'— "'Member of Brooks's!'—oh Promethean puff, "To what wilt thou exalt even kitchen-stuff! "With crumbs of gossip, caught from dining wits, "And half-heard jokes, bequeathed, like half-chewed bits, "To be, each night, the waiter's perquisites;— "With such ingredients served up oft before, "But with fresh fudge and fiction garnisht o'er, "I managed for some weeks to ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the two, Hilda's trunk was hoisted into the cart. Then the good woman climbed in over the wheel, settled her ample person on the seat and gathered up the reins, while the station-master stood smoothing the mare's mane, ready for a parting word of friendly gossip. ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... much obliged to you. Items of gossip are victuals and drink to our sex, you know. Don't be in a hurry," she continued, seeing that he showed no signs of going. "Looking for your hat? Yes, here it is. Let me put it on for you," she added in her ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various
... the arrival and departure of the stages. Some remember, too, the loud snap of the whip which gave increased speed to the horses, as they dashed up in approved style to the stopping-place, where the loungers were collected to see the travelers and listen to the gossip which fell from their lips. There were no telegraphs then, and but few railroads in the country. The papers did not gather the news so eagerly, nor spread it abroad so promptly, as they do now, and items of intelligence were carried ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... Middleton, and Heywood sage, Th' apologetick Atlas of the stage; Well of the golden age he could entreat, But little of the metal he could get; Threescore sweet babes he fashion'd at a lump, For he was christen'd in Parnassus pump; The Muses gossip to Aurora's bed, And ever since that time, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... with their husbands, if they had just let prohibitions enough alone—if they had only not been swept away by the high sport of gossiping about our Wild Young People, which struck the country in the summer of 1920. This gossip was an intrinsic phase of the virtue wave which always immediately ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... short. She disliked newspaper gossip extremely, and an allusion so faintly veiled that everyone must understand, was under the circumstances most embarrassing, for the truth was she had not been asked. Her cheeks burned. Yet it was thanks only to some clever fencing on her part, and perhaps some ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... volumes of sermons and a few back numbers of the Congregational Magazine, no visitors, so far as she could make out, no newspaper but the Carlingford Weekly Gazette, nothing but her grandmother's gossip about the chapel and Mrs. Tom to pass the weary hours away. Even last night Mrs. Tozer had asked her whether she had not any work to beguile the long evening, which Phoebe occupied much more virtuously, from her own point of view, in endeavouring to amuse the old people by talking to them. ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... the young Duchess of Marlborough, who was much concerned with keeping intact (as she wrote in her will) "all Mr. Congreaves Personal Estate that he left me" in order to pass it along to her youngest daughter Mary. This daughter, said by gossip to have been Congreve's daughter also, married the fourth Duke of Leeds in 1740, and thus Congreve's books eventually found their way to Hornby Castle, chief seat of ...
— The Library of William Congreve • John C. Hodges
... heart. She not only gave us bread and milk but sat down to gossip with us while we ate. She, too, had relatives "out there, somewhere in Iowa" and would hardly let us go, so eager was she to know all about her people. "Surely you must have ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... mouth, gaining in authority. By the time they reach the friendly country at which they are directed, they have taken on the appearance of an opinion representative of a nation. The Hun is well aware of the value of gossip for the encouraging of divided counsels among his enemies. He invents a slander, pins it to some racial grievance, confides it to the fools among the Allies and leaves them to do the rest. Some of them wander about in a merely private capacity, nagging without knowledge, ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... supervisor-general of the domestic affairs of the community. The tea-drinkings in her parlor seem to be occasions of great social enjoyment to the fortunate neighbors invited. After the regular gossip of the day has been discussed, she entertains her company with the same old stories of her former life in Scotland, among its grand families, and to these she has added, for the benefit of those who have more recently come into the Settlement, accounts of the ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... affording the people of the community many profitable topics of conversation, and these readily supplant the futile and less profitable topics. It is easy to measure the intelligence of an individual or of a community by noting the topics of conversation. Gossip and small talk do not thrive in a soil that has been thoroughly inoculated with history, art, music, literature, ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... over the fence to investigate the colt, which was skittish under the ordeal. Even the turkey-gobbler, strutting on the outskirts of the assemblage, had an attentive aspect, as if he, too, relished the gossip. ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... Gossip in a country village travels fast and loses nothing in its passage. Over many a friendly cup of tea did the matrons and maids discuss the peculiarities of the wealthy and eccentric old man who had so suddenly appeared among them, while the male portion of the community speculated ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... when the fox is out, stopping up the earths of the cover we mean to draw, and all the rest for four miles round. Next morning we assemble at the cover's side, and the huntsman throws in the hounds. The gossip here is no small part of the entertainment: but as soon as we hear ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... near to the town thou must go more slowly and tarry behind a little, till we have reached my father's hall, because I dread the gossip of the baser sort of people whom we may meet. After thou hast seen us enter the city, then thou mayest enter it also and inquire the way to the king's palace. It is very beautiful. Thou mayest easily find it by thyself, for there ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... gossip fell upon my ear without producing the slightest impression, for I cared little for dancing, and less for grand balls; in early youth I had ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... and be sure and get something nice for your supper, and fresh butter and marmalade and things, and then go for a walk along Tweedside and let the wind blow on you, and then drop in and have a cup of tea and a gossip with one of the friends you've been neglecting lately, and you see if you don't feel heaps better.... Remember nobody knows anything about this but you and me. I shan't even tell Mr. Macdonald.... You will ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... far on into the small hours. Edward, who had suffered many hardships and privations since leaving the French court, was glad enough of a few days' rest in the hospitable farmhouse, and of the opportunity of hearing all the village gossip which the wedding festivity would give him. But after that event he desired to push on to London, to learn what he could of public ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... wish you to go to school. I refuse to tell you any more than you have already been told about your father. I have promised that you shall go into your mother's room and take possession of it on your fifteenth birthday. That is enough. I am grieved that you should have listened to vulgar gossip about our affairs; but I may tell you that your mother left money to provide for you ten times over, if ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... form was unique and exaggerated, with flaming eyes, and mouth of huge proportions, with long, pointed teeth, white and sharp. For weeks, this gorgon of my imagination constituted the theme of neighborhood gossip. Several negroes had seen it, and fled its fierce pursuit, barely escaping its voracious mouth and attenuated claws, through the fleetness of fear. The old hardshell Baptist preacher, of the vicinage, had proclaimed him from the pulpit as Satan unchained, and commencing his ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... successful, for Barbara talked with barely concealed desire to lay Grierson and Manders under her spell. By intuition or accident she gave them what tickled their interest most keenly—intimate stories about herself or her friends, the proved history of what to them had hitherto been but alluring gossip, anecdotes of Government House and the minor secrets and scandals of her father's three terms of office. Eric felt that it was a little below the dignity of a girl, who was after all the daughter of a distinguished former viceroy, to be discussing ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... fenced-off, insulated metropolis till some one writes and tells you. Every fall I ask myself that same question all day Saturday and Sunday, and do you suppose I ever find a Siwash score in one of those muddy-faced, red-headed, ward-gossip parties that they call newspapers in New York? Never, not at all, you hopeful tenderfoot from the unimportant West. After you've existed in this secluded portion of the universe a few years you'll get over trying to find anything that looks like news from home in the daily ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... saying that to do so would be "repugnant to her feelings"—forgetting that feeling was no constitutional argument. She had got used to those Ladies of the Bed-Chamber, and they to her. They knew just where everything was, what colors became her, and what gossip and games amused her. Doubtless she loved them, and doubtless also she loved her own way. Surely the right of her constitutional advisers to dictate to her must have a limit somewhere, and she drew the line at her bed-chamber door. Then, as Sir Robert would not yield the point, she recalled ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... source of much gossip and great speculation, of course, to the good people of Green Isle, as we shall style this gem of the Pacific, in order to thwart the myrmidons of the law! They found them so reserved and uncommunicative, ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... two little sloping easy-chairs, which have been placed there by Mrs. and Miss Aubrey for their own sole use, considering that they are excellent judges of the period at which Mr. Aubrey has been long enough alone, and at which they should come in and gossip with him. We may as well draw the dusky green curtains across the window, through which the moon shines at present rather too brightly.—So now, after coaxing up the fire, I will proceed to tell you a little bit of ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... fractured chest! What downy dust beneath yon window-seat! And round these posts that serve this bed for feet; This bed where all those tatter'd garments lie, Worn by each sex, and now perforce thrown by! See! as we gaze, an infant lifts its head, Left by neglect and burrow'd in that bed; The Mother-gossip has the love suppress'd An infant's cry once waken'd in her breast; And daily prattles, as her round she takes (With strong resentment), of the want she makes. Whence all these woes?—From want of virtuous will, Of honest shame, of time-improving skill; From want of care t'employ the vacant ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... surrendered, she felt that she would have been relinquishing infinitely more than hope to aid one ruined man. But she was at a loss to know what further steps to take. Days passed, and each one brought additional gossip of Stewart's headlong career toward the Yuma penitentiary. For he had crossed the line into Cochise County, Arizona, where sheriffs kept a stricter observance of law. Finally a letter came from a friend of Nels's in Chiricahua saying that Stewart had been hurt in a brawl there. His ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... had some good points, had also one grand failing. She was an inveterate gossip. And it made no difference to her who was her listener, provided a listener could be had. A spicy dish of scandal was her highest delight. She had not the least wish nor intention of doing harm to the person whom she thus discussed. ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... into the shop and bought what she required, and came out, after a pleasant gossip with ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... extracts, and it is necessary to omit all those circumstances which generally in letter-reading are most acceptable. His comments on men and things were naturally free and full, and he always endeavoured, for the amusement of his correspondents, to communicate the social gossip of the hour. But although all this must necessarily be omitted, his letters may afford some illustrations of his earnestness and energy, the constancy of his aim, and the untiring vigilance with which he pursued his object—especially ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... paragraph in one of the fashionable newspapers of the day, saying that an alliance had been arranged between the heir to the Wharton title and property and the daughter of the present baronet. I think that this had probably originated in the club gossip. I trust it did not spring directly from the activity or ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... This she entered, and found herself in the general editorial room, ankle-deep with dirt and paper. The air of the place told that the day's work was done. In one corner a telegraph sounder was chattering its tardy world-gossip to unheeding ears. In the centre at a long table, typewriters before them, three shirt-sleeved young men sprawled at ease reading the Express, which the "devil" had just brought them from the nether regions, ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... that one, and now and then from her herself, I had heard something of Calliope's love story. Indeed, all Friendship knew it and spoke of it with no possibility of gossip or speculation, but with a kind of genius for consideration. I did not know, however, that it was of this that Liddy meant to speak, for she began her story far afield, with some talk of Oldmoxon house, in which I lived, and of ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... her friends, her sister-in-law—widow of a notary—her nephews and nieces, and one of the vicars of the parish, for she is very charitable. Her eyes are excellent. She has never had delirium or hallucinations. She is very reserved, detests gossip, and above everything seeks to live quietly. The assassination of Caffie exasperated her; she would let no one speak to her of him, and she spoke of it to no one. She even said that if she were in a condition to leave her house, she would sell it, so that she would never ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... her diversions took on that religious or academic character natural to the place. Of village parish life we knew nothing, for our chapel was, like others of its kind, rather an exclusive little place of worship. We were ignorant of pastoral visits, deacons, parochial gossip, church fairs, and what Professor Park used to call "the doughnut business;" and, though we cultivated a weekly prayer-meeting in the lecture-room, I think its chief influence was as a training-school for theological students whose early efforts at public ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... movement my sympathies were early acquired, and I would not willingly let fall a word that might embarrass or retard the revolution. But to show that I speak of knowledge, and not as the reporter of mere gossip, I may mention that I have myself been present at a meeting where the details of a republican Constitution were minutely debated and arranged; and I may add that Gondremark was throughout referred to by the speakers as their captain in action and the arbiter of their disputes. He ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "go and lie down. I'll send you some bromide, and I shall talk to Prosper Profond. What business had he to gossip? Though I must say I think it's much better ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... strenuous activity he had, in one single hour, been doomed to one of loneliness and inactivity. His friends sympathised, as indeed the whole British public had done; but in a month the tragic affair and its attendant mysterious gossip had been forgotten, as in truth had the very name of Sir Henry Heyburn, whom the Prime Minister, though his political opponent, had one night designated in the House as "one of the most brilliant and talented young men who has ever sat upon ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... situated—mentioned this in his hearing. The stranger was telling the tale of the unaccountable will of Mr. Verner, of the death of John and Frederick Massingbird, and of the consequent accession of Lionel Verner; telling it as a curious bit of home gossip, unconscious that one of his listeners was the first-named heir—the veritable ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... precautions, he took the nurse apart, and said, "Now, you are an experienced woman, and to be trusted about an excitable patient. Mind, I object to any female servant entering Mrs. Staines's room with gossip. Keep them outside the door for the present, please. Oh, and nurse, if anything should happen, likely to grieve or to worry her, it must be kept from her entirely: can I ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... men come every afternoon to see the game of pallone and risk a few lire on their favourite players. Mr. Ruskin, whose "Mornings in Florence" is still the textbook of the devout, is severe enough upon those visitors who even find it in their hearts to shop and gossip in the city of Giotto. What then would he have said of one who has spent not a few afternoon hours, between five and six, in watching the game of pallone? I would not call pallone a good game. Compared with tennis, it is nothing; compared with lawn tennis, it is poor; ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... formally announced, and was the choice bit of gossip, with which the shire regaled itself. Sir Victor Catheron was following in the footsteps of his father, and was about to bring to Catheron Royals one of the lower orders as its mistress. It was the Dobb blood no doubt cropping up—these sort ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... more than 150,000 l. worth were consigned to Spain. In a letter from Newmarket, March 17, 1623, preserved in Harleian MS. 6987, he enumerates a large quantity to be presented to the Infanta; and he is equally careful that Prince Charles should be well supplied; "As for thee, my sweet gossip, I send thee a fair table diamond for wearing in thy hat." The king ingeniously prompts them to present the Infanta with a small looking-glass to hang at her girdle, and to assure her that "by art magic, whensoever she shall be ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... that the Prince had given several striking reasons for the Lady Sara's interest in Robert Orange. His Excellency, in so acting, may not have been aware that he was pouring such confidences into the ear of a jealous man, but he wished to divert gossip from himself, and he was becoming afraid lest his intimacy with the brilliant, dangerous girl might give rise to criticism. "She talks and writes incessantly about Orange," he had said; "what a marriage ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... same day. A travelling king such as this was well known to all his people. He was no constitutional fiction, but a living man; his character, his look and presence, his oaths and jests, his wrath, all were noted and talked over; the chroniclers who followed his court with their gossip and their graver news spread the knowledge of his doings. A new sense of law and justice grew up under a sovereign who himself journeyed through the length and breadth of the land, subduing the unruly, hearing pleas, revising unjust sentences, ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... have five minutes to myself to think," she said to herself, drawing hastily back behind the thick screen of leaves until they should pass. She did not feel in the humor just then to listen to Miss Raynor's chatter or pretty Grace Alden's gossip. ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... Shall I tell you what a woman said who is very likely to know? Long ago, in the time of her first marriage, she got hold of something about him that would have made a furious scandal, and he had to pay for her silence. All gossip; but there's generally a foundation for that kind of thing. If it's true, no doubt she has been at his relatives since his death. It doesn't look as if they were disposed to be bled. Perhaps they turned the tables on her. She has looked sour and disappointed ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... her husband the Resident was the Viceroy's representative, she could claim precedence over the wife of a mere regimental commandant. No English village is so full of petty squabbles and malicious gossip ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... woman, this friend of Burr's; one whom many sought; but it was not this which influenced him. She had been his best friend, and had taken him into her own home during the darkest hour of his life, when condemnation was everywhere. Gossip had fluttered, but to no avail. Burr never forgot a friend, and in this case it was more than friendship: it was a genuine love that lasted; for years later, in his old age and hers as well, old Jumel mansion made ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... his soberly cut coat, with his smooth-shaven, sleek, demure countenance and moderately rotund belly, leaning on the half-door of his Almacen de Panos, and witnessed his bland smile as he stepped aside to give admission to a customer or gossip, would have deemed the utmost extent of his plottings to be, how he should get his cloths a real cheaper or sell them at a real more than their market value. There was no speculation, it seemed, in that dull placid countenance, save what ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... hold your tongue about this unfortunate occurrence. Talking can do no good. I shall not inform the police. The jewels are gone, and I shan't get them back. I have a great dislike of fuss and gossip, and only wish to be left in peace. If you talk, all this is sure to get into the papers. I should ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... noise, and gossip above all things, and she was not quite at her ease. The news that Orsino was to come to dinner had taken her breath away. Ugo had advised her to be natural, and she was doing her best to ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... give few entertainments for lack of ready money. They spend much of their time in needle-work and gossip, sitting like Turkish sultanas on divans or the floor. They do not rise at your entrance or departure. They converse in a very loud, unmusical voice. We never detected bashfulness in the street or parlor. They go to mass every morning, and make visits of etiquette on Sundays. They take more interest ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... position, Berry was likely to hear whatever gossip was going. Who shall have perfect self-control with a giant bib under the chin, tipped back on a chair that cannot be regulated, with a face covered by lather, and two plantation fingers holding the nose? In these circumstances, with much diplomacy, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... o'clock they retire, during the remainder of the day, into the underground rooms, called sardab, which, like cellars, are frequently situated fifteen or twenty feet below the surface; at sunset they go up on to the terraces, where they receive visits, gossip, drink tea, and remain until night. This is the most pleasant time, as the evenings are cool and enlivening. Many affirm the moonlight is clearer here than with us, but I did not find this to be the case. People sleep on the terraces under mosquito ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... thumping and kneading him on the slab, Tanno went on talking a cheerful monologue of frothy gossip. I asked ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... so much a center of neighborhood interest or sympathy, or both, that it is easier than in some other types of cases to secure information from neighbors, tradesmen, and so on, without augmenting neighborhood gossip. ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... sat at table his landlady came in. She was a worthy woman of her class, not given to vulgar gossip. Her purpose in entering the room at this moment was to ask Hilliard whether he had a likeness of himself which he could spare her, ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... much given to gossip as Venice did not fail to produce many memorable incidents of the cold; but the most singular adventure was that of the old man employed at the Armenian Convent to bring milk from the island of San Lazzaro to the city. One night, shortly after the coldest weather set in, he lost his oar ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... the book from the Library, to which I have been a subscriber in secret for some time past. It was an old volume, full of what we should now call Gossip; relating strange adventures, and scandalous incidents in family history which had been concealed ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins |
