"Hearsay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Only from hearsay, Colonel. Madame Du Plessis is said to be in straightened circumstances, and I learn, from several quarters, that Miss Du Plessis is an attractive and amiable young lady; 'illigant' is what a countryman of mine, who served under her father, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... Rienzi.' My wife, with great heat and even passion, corrected various mistakes made by this hostile critic, and to her great satisfaction made him confess that he had not heard the opera himself, but had only based his opinion upon hearsay and the reviews. Whereupon my wife pointed out to him most earnestly that 'he could not possibly know whose future he might not injure by ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... should I allow myself to be humbled by a man who can suffer his reason to be thus abjectly debased, when I am exalted by one who knows no vice, and scarcely a failing, but by hearsay? To think of his kindness, and reflect upon his praises, might animate and comfort me even in the midst of affliction. "Your indignation," said he, "is the result of virtue; you fancied Lord Orville was without fault-he had ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... CHANCELLOR assured House that the military and civil authorities in Scotland were cognisant of rumours reported by noble Lord. Every case that seemed to warrant investigation had been looked into. Was found that many were based on hearsay. Impossible to find evidence to establish ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... there is a great deal in the drawing-room to refresh you. There are the Japanese fans on the wall, which are things of beauty, though your artistic taste may not be sufficiently educated to let you know it except by hearsay; and it is pleasant to feel that they were bought with money which, in the foolish old days, would have been squandered on a box of cigars. In like manner every pretty trifle in the room reminds you how much wiser ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... Old-School physicians, only know Hom[oe]opathy by hearsay, and look upon it through the dim glasses of the prejudices of the past. None of those who have abused Hom[oe]opathy have previously examined and studied the matter thoroughly, because all those who have conscientiously done this, have soon been converted to the truth of ...
— Allopathy and Homoeopathy Before the Judgement of Common Sense! • Frederick Hiller
... his admission that his Zionist fervor is only that second-rate species produced by local anti-Semitism, lies a powerful answer to the dangerous libel of local unpatriotism. Of the real political and agricultural conditions of Palestine he knows only by hearsay. Of Jews he knows still less. Not for him the paralyzing sense of the humors of his race, the petty feud of Dutchman and Pole, the mutual superiorities of Sephardi and Ashkenazi, the grotesque incompatibility of Western and Eastern Jew, the cynicism and snobbery of ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... quite worthless for authentic data on the period preceding their own lives. This does not impair the value of their records of the time in which they lived. It simply means that they had no data but hearsay ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... either male heads or sexless ones; a person's nose, lips, shoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven't any sex at all. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... with the war, who have the haziest notion of what it is all about. All they know is that we are fighting Germans, who for some incomprehensible reason have declared themselves to be our enemies; that the Germans, by hearsay accounts, are dreadful people who stick babies on bayonets and drop bombs on women and children. They really know little more. But that is enough. They know that it is the part of a man to fight for ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... any right to question the certificate from Islip, Simon; and William Warner's word (whom thee knows by hearsay) is that of a good and honest man. Henry himself will stand ready to satisfy thee, if it ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... raised his voice as the murmurs became louder. At this point a sharp-faced lawyer from Belfast got to his feet and objected that the gentleman from Elkington was wasting the time of the House, indulging in hearsay. His remarks were not germane, etc. The Speaker rapped again, with a fine show of impartiality, and cautioned the member ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Dick knew well enough, from hearsay, the method of "breaking down" a wild horse. He knew that the Indians choke them with the noose round the neck until they fall down exhausted and covered with foam, when they creep up, fix the hobbles, and the line in the lower jaw, and then loosen the lasso to let the horse breathe, ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... survey are abundant. But down to a very recent period, the most valuable and authentic portion of them—letters of the actors, records, written not from hearsay, but from personal knowledge, documents of various kinds, private and official, that fill up the hiatuses, correct the conjectures, establish the credibility, and give a fresh meaning to the relations of the earlier writers—were neglected or concealed, inaccessible, unexplored, all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... Stella had related her "melancholy story" to Dr. Sheridan before her death. On the other hand, Dr. Lyon, Swift's attendant in his later years, disbelieved the story of the marriage, which was, he said, "founded only on hearsay"; and Mrs. Dingley "laughed at it as an idle tale," founded ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... this species was regarded as so nearly extinct that a doubting ornithological club of Boston refused to believe on hearsay evidence that the New York Zoological Park contained a pair of living birds, and a committee was appointed, to investigate in person, and report. Even at that time, skins were worth all the way from $100 to $150 each; and when swan skins sell at either ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... nothing solid to go upon in crying down the credit of the 54th beyond hearsay and the self-evident fact that they are half their nominal strength. To assume they won't put up a fight is a certain way of making the best troops gun-shy. We are standing up to our necks in a ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... Hanover, he resigned his post, it is said, on the grounds that he could not treat British officers like common criminals, as he was supposed to. I think this is highly probable, though I cannot vouch for the truth of the assertion, it being only hearsay. He was replaced by a fat and rather harmless dug-out captain, who proved to be only a pompous figurehead. The camp was entirely run by the second in command, Lieutenant Wolfe. In England persons of this type are so rarely met with that ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... thing was to question the Basque as to long-ago events. But here he drew blank. Neither this man nor his brother knew anything but vague hearsay, half forgotten. They had, it is true, known the story of Pierre d'Albret and his murder, and had looked for his mine as others had, but they had never found it and were inclined to doubt ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... and falsehood. But when the slave was to be tried, other slaves were admitted as witnesses; and that, too, on their bare word, and an exhortation from the judge not to speak falsely. It was a known rule in this country—and the common law of England was in force in the West Indies—that hearsay evidence should not be received; yet the whole course of these proceedings showed manifold departures from this important rule: while it was an acknowledged law in regard to the whites, it had no application in regard to the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... not going to mass; Indians burned alive for heresy, six in one fire; Indians working the silver mines. Here, too, are descriptions of natural objects, each with its illustrative sketch, some drawn from life and some from memory,—as, for example, a chameleon with two legs; others from hearsay, among which is the portrait of the griffin said to haunt certain districts of Mexico,—a monster with the wings of a bat, the head of an eagle, and the tail ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... tenderest soul and most artistic nature, dwelling continually in the presence of the most flint-hearted, atrabilious, and frigid man on earth; think of me as a young girl married to a skeleton, and you will understand the life whose curious scenes can only be a hearsay tale to you; the plans for running away that perished at the sight of my father, the despair soothed by slumber, the dark broodings charmed away by music. I breathed my sorrows forth in melodies. Beethoven or Mozart would keep my confidences sacred. ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... accumulated? Evidently, and only, by perception and feeling. Never either by reasoning, or report. Nothing must come between Nature and the artist's sight; nothing between God and the artist's soul. Neither calculation nor hearsay,—be it the most subtle of calculations, or the wisest of sayings,—may be allowed to come between the universe, and the witness which art bears to its visible nature. The whole value of that witness depends on its being eye-witness; the whole genuineness, acceptableness, and dominion of it depend ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... interesting paper by Rhanus, on the Courland were-wolves, in the Breslauer Sammlung. [2] The author says,—"There are too many examples derived not merely from hearsay, but received on indisputable evidence, for us to dispute the fact, that Satan—if we do not deny that such a being exists, and that he has his work in the children of darkness—holds the Lycanthropists in ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... nothing—it would be a folly to be getting myself ill-will in my old age. Jason did not marry, nor think of marrying Judy, as I prophesied, and I am not sorry for it: who is? As for all I have here set down from memory and hearsay of the family, there's nothing but truth in it from beginning to end. That you may depend upon, for where's the use of telling lies about the things which everybody knows as well ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... were taken up, and the whole garden was dug out of recognition in a search for documents that might have proved that his son, or himself, or any other member of his family had been in correspondence with the two Republics. All this kind of thing was done on hearsay evidence, behind which lay personal motives. Had the settlement of the country been left entirely in the hands of Lord Kitchener, nothing approaching what I have related could have occurred. Unfortunately for all concerned, this was precisely the thing which the Rhodesian and other interests opposed. ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... utterly disproved by every fact in the case, and unsupported by a tittle of evidence, save the hearsay reports of a man like Noircarmes, did this "woman, nourished at Rome, in whom no one could put confidence," dig the graves of men who were doing their best to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the South took issue with Old and New England on the question of negro slavery being an evil, social, political, or moral, and called for the proof. No proof could be given except that drawn from England, from hearsay evidence, and from theoretical teaching of that system of education designed to support European despotisms, and to destroy American republicanism. This has opened the eyes of the South to the necessity of establishing schools and colleges of its own to uphold American civilization. The address ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... Frederick Whymper, fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, stated on hearsay that the Chilcat Indians were believed occasionally to make a short portage across the Coast Range from salt water to the head-reaches of the Yukon. But it remained for a gold hunter, questing north, ever north, to be first of all white men to cross ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... the King of Spain; and it is put upon us by this court to prove that they are so, which I hope to do by several circumstances, and the insufficiency of the evidence in their favour, which amounts to nothing more than hearsay. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... not speaking from hearsay. I was in France during the week preceding that battle, the most anxious and gloomy period, probably, of the entire war. What I am about to relate is based either on authoritative information gathered ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... suggest that a thorough investigation into the truth of this miracle be proposed to a committee of Protestant gentlemen. They shall not be asked to accept a single fact on hearsay from my people. The ordnance maps shew where the graveyard was; and anyone can see for himself where it is. I need not tell your Eminence what a rebuke this would be to those enemies of the holy Church that have sought to put a stain on her by discrediting the late wonderful manifestations at Knock ...
— The Miraculous Revenge - Little Blue Book #215 • Bernard Shaw
... indeed, that something like this was the best course we could pursue. But first it was necessary to ascertain more than what mere rumour or careless hearsay could tell. My thoughts turned to my uncle—he could advise me wisely—he ought to know all. I resolved to go to him without delay; but I did not choose to tell Mistress Clarke of all the visionary plans that flitted through my mind. I simply declared ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... be known till the people had got home from Brent, and then but by hearsay, till the sheriff's men had proclaimed me ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... which he addressed in the year 1581 to Martin Crucius, (Turco-Graecia, l. i. p. 74—98, Basil, 1584.) The various facts and materials are briefly, though critically, reviewed by Spondanus, (A.D. 1453, No. 1—27.) The hearsay relations of Monstrelet and the distant Latins I shall take leave to disregard. * Note: M. Von Hammer has added little new information on the siege of Constantinople, and, by his general agreement, has borne an honorable ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... species of false wit and spurious argument may be learnt here by potent examples. Whatever observations you hear dropt have been picked up in the same place or in a kindred atmosphere. There is a kind of conversation made up entirely of scraps and hearsay, as there are a kind of books made up entirely of references to other books. This may account for the frequent contradictions which abound in the discourse of persons educated and disciplined wholly in coffee-houses. There is ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... character or with earlier events in his personal history that the Czar should have yielded to a single shock of feeling, and have changed in a moment from the liberator to the despot. But the evidence of what passed in his mind is wanting. Hearsay, conjecture, gossip, abound; [281] the one man who could have told all has left no word. This only is certain, that from the close of the year 1818, the future, hitherto bright with dreams of peaceful progress, became in Alexander's ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... wives before the war, and was reputed to be none too good to them, a fact which was known at home only on hearsay; for he always took his wives from plantations at a distance from ...
— Old Jabe's Marital Experiments - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... to argue, their very existence, as a people, would have ceased. They must go on believing, or all reality vanishes from their minds, accustomed for so many ages to take in that solid knowledge founded, it is true, on hearsay; but how else can truth reach us save by hearsay? Hence, their simple and artless acquiescence in any thing they hear from trustworthy lips - acquiescence ever refused to a known enemy, never to a well-tried friend, even when the facts ascertained are strange, mysterious, unaccounted ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... "It is needless to comment upon such hearsay statements, received from an African traveller." This assertion being calculated to impress on the public mind, that I founded my hypothesis respecting the junction of the Niles of Africa on the ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... J. Q. decided, "I know exactly what I am talking about; not from hearsay, but from actual experience. Hundreds of thousands of dollars these wretched foreigners have cost me within the last few years. Why, that last big strike cut dividends almost in half! And who causes all the strikes, is at the bottom of all labor disturbances? ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... shivering hundreds lined up on Tenth Street, the light streamed out upon a remnant of Life's jetsam—that which is submerged, which never comes to the surface unless drawn there by some searching and rescuing hand; that which the home-sheltered never see by daylight, never know, save from hearsay. In the neighboring rectory of Grace Church one dim light was burning in an upper room. The marble church itself looked a part of the winter scene; its walls and pinnacles, already encrusted with ice crystals, glittered fantastically ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... Another officer recounts from hearsay the remarkable conduct of an Indian, who sprang into the midst of the English and killed two of them with his hatchet; then mounted on a log and defied them all. One of the regulars tried to knock him down with the butt of his musket; but though the blow made him bleed, he did not fall, and would ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... her carriage to speak to him, lady Ann changed her mind, and resolved to curry favour with the husband instead of the wife. For hitherto she had scarcely seen Mr. Wylder, and knew about him only by unfavourable hearsay; but she was charmed with him now, and drew from him a promise to go and ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... greatest number of Jews lived were Lincoln, York, Norwich, Oxford, and Northampton. Since the dreadful persecution arising from the (real or supposed) murder of little Hugh, Lincoln had been comparatively quiet from such tumults; and Bertha was too young to know anything about it but from hearsay. Wondering if some fresh commotion was going to arise, and anxious to be safe at home before it should begin, Bertha quickened her steps. There were only three more streets to cross, one of which was a dark, narrow alley ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt
... in my life, do I experience the benefits of a sentimental name, which has rather troubled me before, as belonging to a quite unsentimental and commonplace person, and thereby raising expectations, through hearsay, which actual vision dispelled with painful suddenness. But now I find its advantage, for nobody believes it is my own, but confidently expects that Ann Tubbs or Susan Bucket will appear from a long suppression, like a Jack-in-a-box, and startle the public as she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... inexperienced or foolhardy people. Of these, and of extraordinary escapes from death with which they are associated, many anecdotes are told in mining districts, which would appear to the reader exaggerated, or positively untrue, if I related them on mere hearsay evidence. There was, however, one instance of a fall down the shaft of a mine, unattended with fatal consequences, which occurred while I was in Cornwall; and which I may safely adduce, for I can state some of the facts connected with the affair as an eyewitness. I attended an examination ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... it, had much weight with me in his favour, and that was the word jointure in the taylor's letter, whereas my aunt never had been married, and this Mr Fitzpatrick well knew.——As I imagined, therefore, that the fellow must have inserted this of his own head, or from hearsay, I persuaded myself he might have ventured likewise on that odious line on no better authority. What reasoning was this, my dear? was I not an advocate rather than a judge?—But why do I mention such a circumstance as this, or appeal to it for the justification of my forgiveness?—In short, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... through Sergeant Carrasco I learned that there were more ruins "a little farther along." In this country one never can tell whether such a report is worthy of credence. "He may have been lying" is a good footnote to affix to all hearsay evidence. Accordingly, I was not unduly excited, nor in a great hurry to move. The heat was still great, the water from the Indian's spring was cool and delicious, and the rustic wooden bench, hospitably covered immediately after my arrival with a soft, woolen poncho, seemed most comfortable. Furthermore, ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... should here be observed—with all his oddities, was an exemplary Poor Law Guardian. He had small personal acquaintance with Polpier itself: the steepness of the coombs in which it lay was penible to a man of his weight: yet, albeit by hearsay, he knew the inner workings of the small town, being interested in the circumstances of all his neighbours, vividly charitable towards them, and at the same time no fool in judging. Of the country-folk within a circuit of twelve miles or more his knowledge was something ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... origin of certain deeds, of certain heroic expressions, which are born one knows not how; you will see them leap out ready-made from hearsay and the murmurs of the crowd, without having in themselves more than a shadow of truth, and, nevertheless, they will remain historical forever. As if by way of pleasantry, and to put a joke upon posterity, the public voice invents sublime utterances ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... early history of the Mormon Bible are vivid to-day. I knew personally Oliver Cowdery, who translated the Bible, Martin Harris, who mortgaged his farm to procure the printing, and Joseph Smith Jr., but slightly. What I knew of him was from hearsay, principally from Martin Harris, who believed fully in him. Mr. Tucker's 'Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism' is the fullest account I have ever seen. I doubt if I can ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... not that exactly. In fact, I hardly know how to explain myself to you, since I know nothing save by hearsay, and what mountaineers say." ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold
... temperament inclined him to accept. Besides, on the present occasion, no theory which he could form could account for the woman's knowledge of his life. She had never seen him. He had no extraordinary peculiarity by which she might have recognized him at first sight from hearsay, nor was he in any way connected with public affairs. He had come quite unexpectedly and had not given his name, and the spirit, or whatever it might be, had instantly told him of Veronica, of her danger, ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... fair to observe that all the discrepancies in the story of the 'warning' are not more numerous, nor more at variance with each other, than remote hearsay reports of any ordinary occurrence are apt to be. And we think it is plain that, if Lord Lyttelton WAS Junius, Mr. Coulton had no right to allege that Junius went and hanged himself, or, in any other ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... merely probabilities. If you had fought at the battle of Philippi, that is for you a truth which you know by intuition, by perception. But for us who dwell near the Syrian desert, it is merely a very probable thing, which we know by hearsay. How much hearsay is necessary to form a conviction equal to that of a man who, having seen the thing, can flatter himself that he has a ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... 3: While this volume has been in the press Sir G. Arthur's Life of Lord Kitchener has appeared, giving a different version of this story and probably the correct one. Walter Kitchener was speaking, I think, from hearsay.] ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... suspect, quoted this passage from hearsay, for originally it stood:—'If he could have got the money, he could have counted it' (p. 68). In the British Museum there are copies of the first edition both ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... that waits for me on the other side, doth lie as a glowing coal at my heart. I see myself now at the end of my journey; my toilsome days are ended. I am going to see that head that was crowned with thorns, and that face that was spit upon for me. I have formerly lived by hearsay and faith, but now I go where I shall live by sight, and shall be with him in whose company I delight myself. I have loved to hear my Lord spoken of; and whenever I have seen the print of his shoe in the earth, there I have coveted to set my foot too. His name has been ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... earnest meaning of your Life, is quite lied out of you, by a world sunk in lies; and you can, with effort, attain to nothing but to be a more or less splendid lie along with it! Your very existence all become a vesture, a hypocrisy, and hearsay; nothing left of you but this sad faculty of sowing chaff in the fashionable manner! After Friedrich and Voltaire, in both of whom, under the given circumstances, one finds a perennial reality, more or less,—Belleisle is next; none ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... great descent which leads towards the Kingdom of Mien,' on which 'you ride for two days and a half continually downhill,' was the route from Yung-ch'ang to T'eng-Yueh, must be at once abandoned. Marco was, no doubt, speaking from hearsay, or rather, from a recollection of hearsay, as it does not appear that he possessed any notes; but there is good reason for supposing that he had personally visited Yung-ch'ang. Weary of the interminable mountain-paths, and encumbered with much baggage—for a magnate ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Valencia studied her beneath a droop of eyelids behind which she was very alert. "Those things aren't said about a man unless they are true. Moreover, it happens we don't have to depend on hearsay." ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... which the Jews made against the Romans hath been the greatest of all times, while some men who were not concerned themselves have written vain and contradictory stories by hearsay, and while those that were there have given false accounts, I, Joseph, the son of Matthias, by birth a Hebrew, and a priest also, and who at first fought against the Romans myself, and was forced ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... that child's playmates did, and the sign of it was there to see; for before the dawn on the day of the funeral they hung a little immortelle over the place where that child was used to sit under the tree. I know this to be true by my own eyes; it is not hearsay. And the reason it was known that the fairies did it was this—that it was made all of black flowers of a sort not ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... when they are let to domineer? and who does not know how useless advice is? I could give good counsel to my descendants, but I know they'll follow their own way, for all their grandfather's sermon. A man gets his own experience about women, and will take nobody's hearsay; nor, indeed, is the young fellow worth a fig that would. 'Tis I that am in love with my mistress, not my old grandmother that counsels me: 'tis I that have fixed the value of the thing I would have, and know the price I would pay for it. It may be worthless to you, but 'tis all ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... still setting down and staring at that there basket. All of which, you understand, I am a-telling you from hearsay, as the lawyers ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... Ossian. "Many men," he said, "many women, and many children, might have written Douglas." Mr. Croker conceives that he has detected an inaccuracy, and glories over poor Sir Joseph in a most characteristic manner. I have quoted this anecdote solely with the view of showing to how little credit hearsay anecdotes are in general entitled. Here is a story published by Sir Joseph Mawbey, a member of the House of Commons, and a person every way worthy of credit, who says he had it from Garrick. Now mark: Johnson's visit to Oxford, about the time of his doctor's degree, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... been most severely criticized for her lack of affection for Balzac, and their married life has generally been conceded to have been very unhappy. This supposition seems to have been based largely on hearsay. Miss Sandars quotes from a letter written to her daughter on May 16 from Frankfort, in which, speaking of Balzac as "poor dear friend," she seems to be quite ignorant of his condition, and to show more interest in her necklace than in her husband. The present writer has not ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... came now and then for orders; Nancy thought her handsome father, with his bronzed cheeks and white forehead and curly hair, was every inch a king. He was her hero, and nothing could please her so much to the end of her days as to have somebody announce, whether from actual knowledge or hearsay, that Captain Jack Prince was the best shipmaster that ever sailed out of Dunport.... She always was sure there were some presents stored away for herself and young Jack, her brother, in one of the lockers of the little cabin. Poor Jack! how he used ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... know something by hearsay. Father would not take this turn out of a clear sky. There must be a little moisture where there are ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... whatever kind they may be, as soon as they are localised acquire a special interest and importance and particularly as bearing on the question whether Leonardo himself made the observations recorded at the places mentioned or merely noted the statements from hearsay. In a few instances he himself tells us that he writes at second hand. In some cases again, although the style and expressions used make it seem highly probable that he has derived his information from others— though, as it seems to me, these cases are not very numerous—we find, on the other ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... of polite tastes and of aesthetic employments. They talk with slight of the large watering-places, and probably they would not like them, though it is really economy that inspires their passion for Jocelyn's with most of them, and they know of the splendid. weariness of Newport mostly by hearsay. New arrivals are not favored, but there are not often new arrivals at Jocelyn's. The chief business of the barge is to bring fresh meat for the table and the gaunt bag which contains the mail; for in the first flush of the enterprise the place was made a post-office, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... silly Preachers, and paperscull'd Writers in my Time, that were troubled with the Divinity Squirt, and were forc'd to print, or to be tormented with the Cholick, or foul themselves; and so they exposed their Nakedness to the World, with all their Rhapsodies of dreaming Thoughts, borrowed Sense, and hearsay Learning. I was none of those High Dutch Inkshiters as somebody calls them; and instead of sending my Religion to the Press to make other Men frantick, I kept mine at home to keep my self Sober. As to the rest of your Objection, Sir, I must confess I ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... totally different world, in many worlds, all with a proper space, all with the same evidence of real existence, all full of life, full of sensations, fall of beauties and transports - this became for me a matter of simple experience. And no one only knowing it from hearsay can realize how different and how much more profound is ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... of ruins, some cities, others towns, were all, with two exceptions (Nos. 2 and 18), visited or explored by the second Khedivial Expedition. The Mashghal, ateliers or subsidiary workshops, were in cases learned only by hearsay:— ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... responsible for her coming. We have been friends, Mr. de Vaux; and so far as I am concerned, our friendship has been very pleasant. But if there is any truth in what they said—well, you can guess the rest. I want you to tell me yourself; I am never content to accept hearsay evidence against my friends. I prefer to be unconventional, as you ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the horses. He had spent the last five or six years of his life there, diligently trading in every big and little thing that had money in it; so we are compelled to assume that many of the folk there in those said latter days knew him personally, and the rest by sight and hearsay. But not as a celebrity? Apparently not. For everybody soon forgot to remember any contact with him or any incident connected with him. The dozens of townspeople, still alive, who had known of him or known ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... that we have known. He had a way of going out before his fellows— it is the way of genius—and he had gone far, indeed, before them. If we would trust Dr. Holcomb we have much to live for; our religion is not all hearsay and there is a great deal in science still unthought of. It is an unfortunate case; but there is much to be learned in the circumstance that led the great doctor into ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... Sodom and Gomorrah by hearsay, Regine," interrupted Herbert, sarcastically. "You have lived in Burgsdorf ever since your marriage; you must ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... opposed and hated God; who swore in his blasphemy that he would dethrone him;" and "advocated the very depths of the lowest sensuality." With regard to many statements of a similar kind, equally at variance with truth, in Dr. Cumming's volumes, we presume that he has been misled by hearsay or by the second-hand character of his acquaintance with free-thinking literature. An evangelical preacher is not obliged to be well-read. Here, however, is a case which the extremest supposition of educated ignorance will not reach. Even books of "evidences" quote from Voltaire ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... from people in all sections of Georgia asking my advice as to the advisability of the colored people leaving the State in large numbers, as they have been leaving for the past six months. I think it is a mistake for our people to sell and practically give their earnings of years just on a hearsay that they will be given larger salaries and great advantages in some other ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... chopped them all down and had the roots grubbed out. The vines which covered his porch were shorn away. To these things many were witnesses. What transformations he worked within the walls were largely known by hearsay through the medium of Aunt Kassie, the old negress who served him as cook and chambermaid and was his only house servant. To half-fearsome, half-fascinated audiences of her own color, whose members in time communicated what she told ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... have thus rendered the strongest testimony to the power of the mores. In general, the cases show that if men are hungry enough, or angry enough, they may return to cannibalism now. Our horror of cannibalism is due to a long and broad tradition, broken only by hearsay of some far-distant and extremely savage people who now practice it. Probably the popular opinion about it is that it is wicked. It is not forbidden by the rules of any religion, because it had been thrown out of the mores ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... who have common sense are so curiously plain, father, aren't they? Of course I only speak from hearsay. ...
— An Ideal Husband - A Play • Oscar Wilde
... say that Venkatadri was killed in the battle, and that Tirumala alone of the three brothers survived. Firishtah only wrote from hearsay, and was perhaps misinformed. Probably for ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... Germanique, "have enjoyed in a like degree the faculty of observation. That is a rare gift of nature, like all eminent qualities. He possessed a sort of intuition which discerned the truth, apart from his own observations, and thus information given by him from hearsay has a value that seldom attaches to statements of that nature. His mind, early ripened by reflection and study (he was but in his thirty-third year at the time of his death), invariably went straight to the point. His narrative, always ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... of a world which Bruce knew only by hearsay; and when it had suited his purpose, as when Bruce had first met him in Meadows, he had talked correctly, even brilliantly, and he had had an undeniable charm of manner for men and women alike. But, once well started down the river, he had thrown off all restraint, ignoring completely the silent ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... at Covent Garden are quite full on my sister's nights, but deplorably empty on the others, I believe. I speak from hearsay, for I have not been into the theatre since the terrible business of the late break-up there, and do not think I shall even see her last performances, for I have no means of doing so; I can no longer ask for private boxes, as during my father's management, of course, nor indeed would ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... that you had been sent some days before up the river on a trip to the Memphis palace to see the pyramids. But Agias was close at hand, and I gave the eunuch the lie without difficulty. The rascal blandly said, 'that he had not seen you of late; had only spoken by hearsay about you, and he might have been misinformed;' and ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... materials for the production of international difficulty. That he will so respond to the stimulus of these, materially speaking irrelevant, vicissitudes of good or ill that touch the fortunes of his compatriots, as known to him by hearsay, bears witness, of course, to the high quality of his manhood; but it falls very far short of arguing that these promptings of his patriotic spirit have any value as traits that count toward his livelihood or his economic serviceability in the community in which he lives. ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... Popish recusants, plotting the overthrow of our most gracious Queen, do say that other and more legitimate rights are in abeyance only; but the present owners are too well fortified to be dispossessed by hearsay." ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... in more than the ordinary sense, to do all I can to get you out of the ice again. You know as well as I do that this is impossible at the present time, and that we are compelled to spend a winter here. Some of you know what that means, but the most of you know it only by hearsay, and that's much the same as knowing nothing about it at all. Before the winter is done your energies and endurance will probably be taxed to the uttermost. I think it right to be candid with you. The life before you will not be child's play, but I assure you that it may ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... expressed the sincere desire of her heart regarding our perplexing question, would say to all other women; and it is to comply with that wish, partly expressed to me, that I have gathered up from chance observation, chance reading, and hearsay, some ideas bearing on the subject. Suppose we begin by looking about us, and making clear to our minds just what this state of things is, which, because it hinders culture, many deem so unsatisfactory. After that, we will consider its causes, reasons for ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... practiced in my own neighborhood about seven years ago. Those who were about to begin knew nothing about drainage, except from hearsay knowledge that had crept into the community. Not a single book upon the subject was consulted or even inquired for. Even now they are as rare in farmers libraries as the classic poets. Farmer A. wished to drain and consulted farmer B., who ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... the children of the poor and knew how to pass judgment on books proposed for their reading. It was definitely understood that every book should be read by the reviewers from cover to cover. We would not depend upon advertisements, hearsay, or vague recollections of books read by ourselves years ago, but every book should be read from beginning to end with the immediate question in view of the admission of the book to the little libraries ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... regarding comparatively unknown persons who happened to be connected with his subject; but in his judgment of a man who, considered simply as a statesman, was infinitely greater than Halifax or Dauby, he depends altogether on hearsay, and gives that hearsay the worst possible appearance. In his article on Bacon, he not merely evinces no original research, but he so combines the loose statements he takes for granted, that, in his presentation ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... upon the writer of these "Impressions" had its effect at the time. In some minds a belief in the truth of that attack lingered long afterwards—but not in the minds of those who could distinguish between honest conviction, based upon actual knowledge, and pre-conceived opinions, based upon hearsay and a superficial acquaintance with men ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... seen them yourself?" said the Count. He could not help smiling at the characteristic British habit of criticising on hearsay. ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... boycotted the fish, he had sent his steamer and purchased it from the company. Now the boot was on the other leg. The Commission and even the lawyers have all told me that they were prejudiced against the whole Mission by hearsay and misinterpretations, before they even began their exhaustive inquiry. Their findings, however, were a complete refutation of all charges, and the best ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... obscure and hearsay evidence, Gerard Vossius (de Poetis Graecis, c. 6) and Le Clerc (Bibliotheque Choisie, tom. xix. p. 285) mention a commentary of Michael Psellus on twenty-four plays of Menander, still extant in Ms. at Constantinople. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... be those who know them well, but the writer only knows them by hearsay and introduces them as a certain type of character found ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... have forgotten nothing. I never knew for certain who I am. I have an impression, but it is based only on hearsay evidence," she interrupted. ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... however, that the charges against these men were proven. They were not dismissed because of idle hearsay, but because of absolute and convincing proof. The breath of scandal has assailed more than one ball player without any good and convincing reason, and will doubtless do so again, just as it has assailed ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... the general scheme of orientation, the so-called demonstrative categories ("this" and "that" in an endless procession of nuances);[76] how frequently the form expresses the source or nature of the speaker's knowledge (known by actual experience, by hearsay,[77] by inference); how the syntactic relations may be expressed in the noun (subjective and objective; agentive, instrumental, and person affected;[78] various types of "genitive" and indirect relations) and, correspondingly, in ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... I, easy in mind now, though I did not anger him by showing it, "I am most sensitive to insults—insults to myself. But you are not insulting me. You are insulting a purely imaginary, hearsay person who is, I venture to assure you, utterly unlike me, and who ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... her undoubted fidelity was an ample pledge. Still, however, she was often absent from Court at moments of great importance, and was obliged to take her information, upon much which she has recorded, from hearsay, which has led her, as I have before ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... a way," declared the old sailor, with a hopefulness he was far from feeling, for he knew well, by hearsay, of the terrible swamp quagmires that swiftly suck their victims down to a horrible death in the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the latter had spoken, but he learned nothing. He was not quite ready to ask frankly whether Snaffle had betrayed him, and short of doing so he could not discover. Still Fenton told himself that the only thing he had to fear was some hearsay that might have reached the ears of the Executive Committee, and he trusted to his ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates |
