"Gossip" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with all the mind she has left! She has the best blood of New England flowing in her veins, and I suppose it was a great come down for her to marry Aaron Boynton, clever and gifted though he was. Now Ivory has to protect her, poor, daft, innocent creature, and hide her away from the gossip of the village. He is surely the best ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... met people now and then who knew their story, but there were also many who did not know: ladies from the country, such as abound on the Riviera, who fortunately did not think a knowledge of London gossip essential to salvation, and who thought Miss Warrender must be delicate, her colour changed so from white to red. But as it is a sort of duty to be delicate on the Riviera and robust persons are looked down upon, they did very well, and the days, so monotonous, so bright, with ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... Lincoln's honor was to take the risk of marriage, and devote himself with renewed ardor to his profession,—to bury his domestic troubles in work, and persistently avoid all quarrels. And this is all the world need know of this sad affair, which, though a matter of gossip, never was a scandal. It is unfortunate for the fame of many great men that we know too much of their private lives. Mr. Froude, in his desire for historical impartiality, did no good to the memory of his friend Carlyle. Had the hero's peculiarities been vices, like those of Byron, the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... fond of sketching, and he painted a picture of her standing with her donkey under the vines. We guessed somehow that she had a history, and we asked Sareda, our cook, about her. Sareda knew everybody in the place. She was a dear old gossip. She got quite excited over Luigia's story. She said it had been the talk of Tarana at the time. Luigia used to be a lovely girl when she was young, and she was quite wealthy for a peasant, because ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... unsuspected reserves of vitality. He crept out into the sunshine again, basking in the vernal warmth with a sense of luxury, and entering into the gossip of the ditchers with an unwonted mental activity ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the tide of gossip and surmise. And in Hone's pocket lay the twisted note which the woman he loved had left behind—the note which he had read with an unmoved countenance under ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... piled them up on the table where they still remained. Her candid opinion was that the master had been drinking again and that madame, disgusted at his behavior, had eloped with a tall, handsome stranger who had been seen loitering around the house. Oku scoffed at all this gossip. It was clear as daylight, he said. His master was tired of being married so long to the same woman, and as to madame, she also was weary of being married to the same man, so each had decided to try a little change, whereupon Lizzie, the second waitress—a buxom Irish girl ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... is still sadder. We agreed, however, when the evening was over, that Dr. La Touche was probably the love of her youth—unless, indeed, he was simply an old friend, and the degree of Salemina's attachment had been exaggerated; something that is very likely to happen in the gossip of a New England town, where they always incline to underestimate the feeling of the man, and overrate that of the woman, in any love affair. 'I guess she'd take him if she could get him' is the spoken or unspoken attitude of the public in rural ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... conduct contrasted very favourably in English opinion to that of the English minister. Earl Clarendon and Lord Palmerston held back from the British parliament and public a correct knowledge of the facts, until it transpired, through Parisian gossip, that the French, English, and Austrian ministers were willing to accept peace on the condition of Russia and the allies keeping an equal naval armament in the Black Sea. The way in which Austria had hoodwinked the Western negotiators, and played into the hands of Russia, became at last evident; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... into an unduly long gossip about Scotch preaching, and must abruptly conclude. We confess that it would please us to see, especially in the pulpits of our country churches, a little infusion of its warmth, rejecting ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... the captain, which no American ear had ever heard, that Asia, Africa, Europe—were all sunk; for which at length he pays the price, and is seen descending the ship's side with his bundle of newspapers, but not where he first got up, for these arrivers do not stand still to gossip; and he hastes away with steady sweeps to dispose of his wares to the highest bidder, and we shall erelong read something startling,—"By the latest arrival,"—"by the good ship——." On Sunday I beheld, from some interior hill, the long procession of ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... gaily on social subjects, and there was much opening and shutting of the doors of boxes. The beautiful young man called Lu-lu came to pay his respects to the Princess, and there was a good deal of gossip ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... pass that on the following day in the Cirque de Paris, where the final meetings were held, the delegates formally gathered, sensed the gossip of the clubs and boulevards, and acted accordingly. One of the things done was to endorse the action of the temporary committee in appointing itself and in calling the caucus. Another was to adopt a tentative constitution. It is in reality little more than ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... C—— ought to know; he has had opportunities of judging from the inside which other people have not—whereas you have really less opportunity because your horizon is far more limited because you have only seen it from the inside. You are rather in the position of the valet. No gossip and gabble of yours about braces and sock-suspenders will make your hero less a hero: you will only establish your title to be considered an unperceptive and low-minded creature among the only people whose opinion ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... foolish grudge against any man who should win what was above his reach, partly in an honest anger that she whom his worshipped should be treated lightly by another; and he forced her to hear what he had learnt from the gossip of the prince's groom, telling it to her in hints and half-spoken sentences, yet so plainly that she could not miss the drift of it. She rode the faster towards Strelsau, at first answering nothing; but at last she turned upon him fiercely, saying that he told a lie, and that she knew it was ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... allowed that it was, for a fact, mighty hot. Commonplaces of gossip followed this—county politics and a neighbor's wife sick of breakbone fever down the road a piece. The subject of crops succeeded inevitably. The squire spoke of the need of rain. Instantly he regretted it, for the other man, who was by way of being a weather wiseacre, ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... where there is much time for idle gossip, the most intimate secrets of an important household are often bandied about when the black coffee is being served. The marriageable young men of Morovenia had learned of the calamity in Count Malagaski's family. They knew that ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... 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 ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... merely retouched them. But in the archives of the Affaires etrangeres there is a large quarto volume containing his correspondence with Louis XVIII during the Congress of Vienna. Nothing can be more charming. The great European questions which were then in debate, the diplomatic and social gossip of Vienna, the contemporary literature—in short, all that one clever homme du monde could find to interest and amuse another, are treated with wit, brilliancy, and gaiety, supported by profound good ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... virtuous indignations of a hard propriety still bound their movements. "All that I can suggest," Daniel went on, "is that you return to Havana tomorrow evening; the company has offices there, and it will be easier for me to see you. Camagey is nearer, but gossip there would have you in the same bed no matter how far apart your rooms ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and chatting. The women, loaded with children and baskets, sit in the shade of the knobby trees which stretch their trunk-like branches horizontally over the beach, forming a natural roof against sun and rain. The half-grown boys are too lively to enjoy contemplative laziness; gossip and important deliberations about pigs and sacrifices do not interest them, and they play about between the canoes, wade in the water, look for shells on the sand, or hunt crabs or fish in the reef. Thus an hour passes. The sun has warmed the sand; after the cool night this is doubly agreeable, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... I have said already," replied Sainsbury, resuming his seat, "I have told you all, or very nearly all, that I, or I believe any body else, knows of them. My little information is chiefly acquired from hearing the servants gossip about them; but I very well remember that, on the first appearance of the Pair in this vicinity, they excited a good deal of speculation and enquiry amongst every class in Walworth. It is now more than eight years ago since this man's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... 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 ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... left the room and Claudia fell into thought. Two important facts she had gained by descending from her dignity to gossip with an upper servant, namely: That La Faustina was really the widow of Kenneth Dugald, and that the Earl of Hurstmonceux was well pleased with his son's marriage to herself, and would therefore be likely to be her partisan in any trouble she might have on account of Mrs. Dugald. She resolved, therefore, ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... he replied. "If I thought about it at all—which I greatly doubt, we've been so rushed at the office—I probably thought how glad you must be not having a man under foot around the house when your friends called for gossip. Oh, I understand the sex; I know how you women sit about and ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... the congratulations and good wishes, or whatever they were, must have been spoken between the three in the parlour before dinner; and they spoke now of harmless usual things—news of the countryside and tales from Derby; gossip of affairs of State; of her Grace, who, in a manner unthinkable, even by now dominated the imagination of England. None of these three had ever seen her; the squire had been to London but once in his life, his two guests never. Yet they talked of her, of her state-craft, of her romanticism; they ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... Satan's invisible world; "Kathleen's Sweethearts" was dragged in (apparently with ten men pushing behind) for casual allusion in "Our Weekly Note-book;" Lady Arthur's smart sayings were quoted in the gossip attached to this or that monthly magazine; the correspondent of a country journal would hasten to say that it was not necessary to inform his readers that Lady Arthur Castletown was, in reality, Lady Adela Cunyngham, the wife of the well-known breeder of polled cattle, Sir Hugh Cunyngham ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... Mission San Juan Capistrano nearly fifteen years after this episode in his life there. Two years after the robbery he heard that his loss was known to the mission. Pablo, while under the influence of too much aguardiente, had told of it. Father Zalvidea at once set to work to silence the gossip, and did so effectually, for he heard nothing more of it while he remained at the mission. But the rumor, lived, although repressed, and for years after his departure, searches were made for the money which many believed had ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... desultory character until about the year 1810, when a log warehouse was built by Major Carter, on the bank of the lake, between Meadow and Spring streets, and this was speedily followed by another, built by Elias and Harvey Murray, which became the centre of business and gossip for the village and the country round about. Of course a full supply of ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... discretion. In his anguish he told his sister he was ruined, and she advised him to marry before the crash. She was aware that he exaggerated, but she repeated her advice. She went so far as to name the person. This is known, because she was overheard by her housemaid, a gossip of Mrs. Crickledon's, the subsequently famous ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that scandal's cruel tongue was responsible for this good woman's death. She was one of the many victims that go to unhappy graves in order that the monstrous appetite for gossip may be appeased. If there be punishment after death, surely, the creator and disseminator of scandal will come to know the anger and contempt of a righteous God. The good and the bad are all of a kind to them. Their putrid minds see something vile in every action, and ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... laughed as if she would die. She would tell them the whole trick. They all knew what a trouble to the convent was this Anna Apenborg from her curiosity—not once or twice, but ten times a day, running in and out with her chat and gossip. She had tried all means to prevent her, but in vain. Even in the middle of her prayers, the said Anna would come in to tell her what one sister was cooking, and another getting, or some follies even quite unfit for chaste ears. And that last night being very sick, she sent for ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... was very old; a lifelong neighbor and gossip of Antoine's; he had been a day laborer in these same fields all his years, and had never travelled farther than where the red mill-sails turned among the colza and ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... of some kind sent to her husband. Tony never wrote. Sometimes, she said, there came a scrap from him relative to some business matter she must see to; but never any response to her daily budget of gossip—"the kind of news I know he likes to hear"—or any news of ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... existence. The life of the heart has its own moments of expansion which need some stimulus to bring them forth; discussions of material life cannot long occupy superior minds accustomed to decide promptly; and the mere gossip of society is intolerable to loving natures. Consequently, two isolated beings who know each other thoroughly ought to seek their enjoyments in the higher regions of thought; for it is impossible to satisfy with paltry things the immensity of the relation ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... was upon the lock of the door, and the old lady had made herself sure of his exit, and was comfortably settling herself for a fresh spell of gossip at his expense, when he suddenly returned to the sofa on which Flora was seated; and putting his mouth quite close to her ear, while his little inquisitive grey eyes sparkled with intense curiosity, said, ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... patch of heaven, that small blue leaf-edged space At times, a droning airplane went, No flicker of astonishment Could lift the heavy eyelids on one gossip's up-turned face. ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... view the scene, But lent a willing ear To idle gossip, and were clean Distraught ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... too, although she did not approve of the children carrying such gossip. "I should know you had called upon Miss Ann Titus," she observed. "I hope you didn't hear anything worse ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... the two pointed at by the popular finger; and, in some quarters, a third is suggested, viz., Stanley, Bishop of Norwich. The betting, however, is altogether in favor of Oxford. So runs the current of public gossip. But the public is a bad guesser, 'stiff in opinion' it is, and almost 'always in the wrong.' Now let me guess. When I had read for ten minutes, I offered a bet of seven to one (no takers) that the author's name began with H. Not out of any love ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... "we're not in the least like people in a book. I often wonder why Priorsford is so unlike a story-book little town. We're not nearly interested enough in each other for one thing. We don't gossip to excess. Everyone goes his or her own way. In books people do things or are suspected of doing things, and are immediately cut by a feverishly interested neighbourhood. I can't imagine that happening in Priorsford. No one ever does anything very striking, ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... impressed. "Very good, Mr. Amber. I'll remember, sir. I don't ordinarily gossip, sir; but you and him being so thick, and everything 'appening to-night so 'orrible, I forgot myself. I 'ope you'll excuse ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... begun to tolerate them. Her day was long and cheerless at the best, and there was no one to talk to. Trina even fancied that old Miss Baker had come to be less cordial since their misfortune. Maria retailed to her all the gossip of the flat and the neighborhood, and, which was much more interesting, told her of her troubles ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... campaign that I learned to know the Emperor," he said. "I was near him night and day. I saw him shave himself in the morning, sponge his chin, pull on his boots, pinch his valet's ear, chat with the grenadier mounting guard over his tent, laugh, gossip, make trivial remarks, and amid all this issue orders, trace plans, interrogate prisoners, decree, determine, decide, in a sovereign manner, simply, unerringly, in a few minutes, without missing anything, without losing a useful detail or a second of necessary time. In this intimate and ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... should gossip if she wanted to," he told her teasingly, dropping back into his own chair before she could object, if she had wanted to. "Go on, my dearest; say all the things you wouldn't say before the Haveniths. I'm ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... 266.), about whom A.W. HAMMOND inquires, when I knew him, about twelve years ago, was a strange whimsical old gentleman, full of "odd crotchets," and abounding in theatrical anecdote and the "gossip of the green-room." But as to his ever having been "a profound commentator on the dramatic works of Shakspeare," I must beg leave to express my doubts. At one period he filled the post of sublibrarian to the Prince Regent; and that he was "ardently ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various
... ere they would meet again. Junot entered, having just received, through some channel of jealousy and malignity, communications from Paris. Cautiously, but fully, he unfolded the whole budget of Parisian gossip. Josephine had found, as he represented, in the love of others an ample recompense for the absence of her husband. She was surrounded by admirers with whom she was engaged in an incessant round of intrigues and flirtations. Regardless of honor she ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... down-stairs. Armed with a bit of pasteboard, Steele was stopped as he was about to enter. A thunder of applause from within, indicating that the first act had come to an end, was followed by the usual egress of black and white figures, impatient for cigarettes and light lobby gossip. ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... should have thought you were too sensible to listen to servant's gossip," said Mr. Gresley, impatiently. "Your own common-sense will tell you that Hester never performed that journey on foot. I told Dr. Brown the same, but he lost his temper at once. It's curious how patient ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... the affair was not ended. He knew it was not likely that the young people would defy Splinterin' Andra and drive him to violence, but the fire of gossip would be set going and he feared his friend's life would be embittered. He was thinking deeply and sadly over the problem the next morning as he dug up the potatoes from his garden. There was Coonie, now, if he set his sharp tongue going against the ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... intercourse on the steps of the church and at the horse sheds back of it. Particularly did the women gather about Aunt Prudence and Sheila. As for the men, both young and old, the newcomer's city ways and unmistakable beauty gave them much to gossip about. Several of the younger masculine members of Elder Minnett's congregation came almost to blows over the settlement of who should take the fly cloth off Queenie, back her around, and lead her ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... Punnie for Tockoleegeetais' wife for an indefinite period, while Sebeucktelee had taken to his bosom Netchuk, the discarded wife of Shockpenark. But life is altogether too short to allow of a complete and reliable record being made of the social gossip of an Esquimau village. Intermarriages are common, and everybody is related to every one else in the most intricate and astonishing manner. I once read of a man who married a widow, and his father, subsequently ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... can only bring them sorrow. I want to tell you to think very deeply before you elect to lead the life of a single woman. It is a life full of temptation to idleness and self-indulgence. There are many single women who, I am really afraid, are quite useless in the world. They only gossip and pry into their neighbours' affairs and make mischief. It is because they have nothing to do. I have known several women like that, and I cannot help thinking that they would have been happier if they had married. Perhaps they ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... Then they began to notice what they had not at first seen. Kornerstrasse was not disreputable, but it certainly was not elegant. There were rag warehouses across the street and women who leaned out the windows to gossip. The street itself was thronged with children. They played on a sand pile and were often noisy and seldom clean. It was eminently not the place for a distinguished man of letters. The family began to be sensitive on the subject of ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... looks, averted eyes and peculiar nods and gestures which perplexed her beyond measure; but presently the pervading gossip found its way to her, and she understood them—then. Her pride was stung. She was astonished, and at first incredulous. She was about to ask her mother if there was any truth in these reports, but upon second thought held her peace. She soon gathered ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... who knew all the gossip of the neighbourhood, Warburton learnt that his new competitor in trade was a man with five children and a wife given to drink; he had been in business in another part of London, and was suspected ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... began, as soon as the sound of the heavy footsteps had ceased, 'told me your breaking off your engagement would cause a scandal'—Gemma frowned a little—that I was myself in part responsible for unpleasant gossip, and that ... consequently ... I was, to some extent, under an obligation to advise you not to break with your ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... "I've heard gossip that he's anxious to stand well with the King of Spain. It occurred to me he might have some political interest in trying to learn the real name of Mr. Trevenna, if you pardon my having such a thought. He might have sent his chauffeur to look at your car, ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... I have added a peculiar zest. Now, let us go and appear before the world, and smile, and laugh, and eat, and gossip. Let the heart throb with a dull pain, if it will; the mask is ours to ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... beautiful woman with extraordinary charm and a lithe, girlish figure of which she took infinite care; he was supposed to kick up his heels in a quiet way while she did the thing brilliantly and kept the wheels of American Colony gossip (busy enough, anyway) turning and spinning until they ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... think I'm a terrible gossip," said Miss Tibbutt apologetically. "I really don't mean to be. But in a little place, little things interest one. I am afraid I did ask Father Dormer a good many questions. I hope he didn't—" And she broke ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... tale, La Forest," broke in De Artigny, laying his hand on the other's shoulder, "and will bide a better time for telling. I am a soldier, and you may trust my word. We are La Salle's men; let it go at that, for there is graver duty fronting us now than the retelling of camp gossip. Madame is my friend, and my hand will defend her ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... lonely. Soeren lay under the ground, and every one else avoided her like the plague, when they did not require her services. Others met and enjoyed a gossip, but no one thought of running in to Maren for a cup of coffee. Even her neighbors kept themselves carefully away, though they often required a helping hand and got it too. She had but one living friend, who looked ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the nervous system, tobacco also does great harm to boys and young men by providing them with an attractive means of filling up their time and keeping themselves amused without either bodily or mental effort. The boy who smokes habitually will find it much easier to waste his time in day-dreams and gossip, and tends to become a loafer and ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... believe, passed between the Allen family and the town's-people, except in a business way. The first regular entry made into the house beyond the formal drawing-room, was on the occasion of a birth, when the best nurse and gossip in town was summoned to attend the young mistress. A son was born. He was called John; though not under the sign of Christian baptism—John Allen; afterwards Captain Allen. The old sea-dog, his father, was absent at the time; but ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... Mills," it was written then—was familiarly known in the printing offices of Ann street in this city a dozen years ago; he assisted General Morris in editing the Mirror, and wrote paragraphs of foreign gossip for other journals. A good-natured aunt died in England, leaving him a few thousand a year, and he returned to spend his income upon a stud and pack and printing office, sending from the latter two or three volumes of pleasant-enough ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... France, that plundered their ships when they traded with their friends the Flemings. The Flemish wool trade was at this time a main source of English wealth, so Edward III of England, than whom ordinarily no haughtier aristocrat existed, made friends with the brewer Van Artevelde, and called him "gossip" and visited him at Ghent, and presently Flemings and English were allied in a defiance of France. By asserting a vague ancestral claim to the French throne, Edward eased the consciences of his allies, who had sworn loyalty to France; and King Philip ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Whitsun-week, when the Prince broke thy head for likening his father to a singing man of Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then, and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us, she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee they were ill for a green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people; ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... summon Nelson to Washington in order to ask of him so delicate a favor was not to be thought of. On the other hand for the Secretary of State to go to Cooperstown to confer with the Democratic justice would be certain to provoke political gossip and newspaper speculation, at the risk of ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... morning before sunrise, riding like the wind. A little later she repassed, whipping her horse at every gallop. Fong Wu, called to his door by the clatter, saw that her face was white and drawn. At noon, going up to the post-office, he heard a bit of gossip that seemed to bear upon her unwonted trip. Radigan was rehearsing it excitedly to his wife, and the Chinese busied himself with his mail and ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... from my kinsman, and the reports were of an excellent quality. Come, let me see to thy hurt. We can gossip afterwards." ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... too often most unconscionably sacrificed to effect. Accounts, for instance, such as L. Enault and Karasowski have given of Chopin's first meeting with George Sand can be recommended only to those who care for amusing gossip about the world of art, and do not mind whether what they read is the simple truth or not, nay, do not mind even whether it has any verisimilitude. Nevertheless, we will give these gentlemen a hearing, and then try if we cannot find some firmer ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... stories of court gossip respecting the Queen and the Duchess of Marlborough, whose affection for one another was a byword throughout the realm. The Duke and Duchess were also most tenderly attached; and the private lives of Anne and her Prince George, and of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, presented ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... But, even had this not been the case, the popularity of his betterhalf would have carried him through, for there was hardly a woman at Frayne to speak of her except in terms of genuine respect. Mrs. Hay was truth telling, sympathetic, a peacemaker, a resolute opponent of gossip and scandal of every kind, a woman who minded her own business and was only mildly insistent that others should do likewise. She declined all overtures leading to confidences as to her past, and demanded recognition only upon the standard of the present, ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... gossip once more filled the air of Glendow. This last affray between Parson John and Farrington and the part Nellie had taken gave greater scope to the numerous busy tongues. Up and down the shore road and throughout the back settlements the news travelled. It was discussed at ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... outsiders like mere midsummer madness. Then the story began to grow. Cape May residents learned that Captain Jules had found pearls in the bottom of the bay. No one would believe the captain's statement that the pearls were of little value; gossip made the tiny pearls grow larger and larger, until they were fit ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... former opinions lessened, and the community of Arcis gave him credit for intending to recover himself in public estimation. Unfortunately, at the very moment when public opinion was condoning his past a foolish affair, envenomed by the gossip of the country-side, revived the latent and very general belief in the ferocity of ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... wharf-rats had heard some gossip from the village. And after the space of six years they brought Petter Nord information that Halfvorson had put the fifty crowns out for him to disqualify him as a witness. And in their opinion Petter Nord ought to go back to the ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... good-humoredly, desired to miss nothing important, observed a great many things narrowly, and never reverted to himself. Mrs. Tristram's "advice" was a part of the show, and a more entertaining element, in her abundant gossip, than the others. He enjoyed her talking about himself; it seemed a part of her beautiful ingenuity; but he never made an application of anything she said, or remembered it when he was away from her. For herself, she appropriated him; he was the most interesting thing she ...
— The American • Henry James
... curried, and don't forget the chutney." Then, after a mumbling interval, "and, if anybody calls, I won't see 'em—except Notley, who comes at eleven. And, when he comes, send him up at once—no kitchen gossip! I don't pay lawyers to come here and amuse kitchen wenches. Why ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... wonder-tale is that they tell about the magic of living. Like the old woman in Mother Goose, they "brush the cobwebs out of the sky." They enrich, not cheapen, life. Plenty of things do cheapen life for children. Most movies do. Sunday comic supplements do. Ragtime songs do. Mere gossip does. But fairy ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... loves a good gossip," said Miss Mapp effusively. "Such an interest she has in other people's affairs. So human and sympathetic. I'm sure our dear hostess told her all about her ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... at full speed, upon its back? As to myself, in no vain expectation of slumber, but merely for the sake of change of position, I frequently slung my arms in this loop, and leaning my head against the broad leathern strap, I listened to the gossip of my fellow-travellers, if there was any conversation stirring; or, if all was still, gave myself up to meditations upon my ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... thought of having a lodger up in the attic who was practising black magic, Frau Hadebusch sent her husband down to the district policeman. This enlightened official declared that the brush-maker was a gossip. Vexed at this unanticipated description of himself, the brush-maker went straightway to the inn at the sign of the Horse and got drunk, so drunk that Benjamin Dorn had to take him home. It ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... passed, two weeks; no sight or sound of her. It was during this period that her old friends were so occupied resuscitating their old friendships for her—when all her antique sayings and doings became current ball-room and dinner-table gossip—that she arose from her obscurity like Cinderella from her ashes, to be decked with every gift that fairy minds could suggest. Those who had known her intimately made no effort to conceal their importance. Those who did not know her personally put forward claims of inherited friendship, and those ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... you wait all that time in the street?" asked the housemaid, who had done her work for the present, and come into the kitchen for a bit of gossip. ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... his lasting friendship. I know not a more interesting or a more historically valuable volume than these epistolary collections of Archdeacon Peter. They seem to bring those old times before us, to seat us by the fire-sides of our Norman forefathers, and in a pleasant, quiet manner enter into a gossip on the passing events of the day; and being written by a student and an amator librorum, they moreover unfold to us the state of learning among the ecclesiastics at least of the twelfth century; and if we were to take our worthy archdeacon as a specimen, ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... hint that King Edward, in the course of his amorous adventures, had been intimate with Catherine de Faro, Warbeck's wife; and Bacon says "it was pretty extraordinary, or at least very suspicious, that so wanton a prince should become gossip in so mean a house." But be this as it may, the lad was both handsome and crafty, and was well suited for the part which he was ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... things interested our hero, and he soon found himself listening to the talk at an adjoining table. Topping, a young lawyer, Whitman Bunce, a man of leisure—unlimited leisure—and one or two others, were rewarming some of the day's gossip. ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... sin and disgrace. Even into this black chasm our beauties look with steady eye, and meditate the step. It is a part of their self-sustaining nature and towering spirit to wreak their own will. Once let them give their love to man, and it is the passion of their lives. Of gossip and the wagging tongue of scandal, and of that vague, shadowy phantom, reputation, they reck not. These unsubstantial fleeting barriers are dissipated in an instant before the mighty breath of their omnipotent passion. Their love is the great fact of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Guarez's barn, it may be, are only dummies, put there with a good deal of display, so that if troops came their commander would be sure to hear about them. The Mexicans probably imagined that, after an American military commander came here, heard the gossip about boxes in Guarez's barn, and then guarded that barn, that the commander would then feel that all needed precautions had been taken. That was Mexican craft, but Guarez failed to understand that he ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... keep up the custom of visiting the cemeteries and the marabouts. Just as in the time of St. Monnica, they sit around the tombs, so cool with their casing of painted tiles, in the shade of the cypress and eucalyptus. They gobble sweetmeats, they gossip, they laugh, they enjoy themselves—the ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... Abbot's Field. Her one idea was to escape meeting anyone. She felt in no mood for talk. She could not force herself to play with the children, or to chatter to the old village people, who would all be at their doors just now, anxious to see someone with whom to gossip. She meant to go up to the moor, where she could be sure of solitude. The air and the peace up there always did her good. The sight of a figure coming towards her made her turn the other way, though. She felt she could not meet anyone, and be ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... made the world believe that the great game alone interests her; there never has been a more subtle woman in Washington. During the last two years there has been one of those vague rumours going about that she has lost heavily through certain investments; but one hasn't much time for gossip in Washington, and it is only lately that this other rumour has been in the wind. How long she has been doing this sort of thing, ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... evening—this very evening, Watson—I had run him down. The man's name is Henry Wood, and he lives in lodgings in this same street in which the ladies met him. He has only been five days in the place. In the character of a registration-agent I had a most interesting gossip with his landlady. The man is by trade a conjurer and performer, going round the canteens after nightfall, and giving a little entertainment at each. He carries some creature about with him in that box; about which the landlady seemed to be in considerable trepidation, for she had never seen ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... at Clifford's absolutely frank confidence. There was nothing flippant about it either. It was the simple expression of a nature that had nothing to conceal. There was not even a hint of gossip about it, nor of ill nature. In a land where there were no newspapers, telegraphs, telephones, railroads, or neighbours, it seemed like the expression of a confidence which had in it neither malice nor impertinent coarseness. And yet Bauer ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... interest, and do good work, if we would, selecting one, give it a little attention, and by easy process proceed to learn it. As it is, in general society the man or woman who has any special pursuit, accomplishment, or real interest for leisure hours, beyond idle gossip and empty time-killing, is a great exception. And yet I sincerely believe that in perhaps a majority of cases there is a sincere desire to do something, which is killed by simple ignorance of the fact that with a very little trouble indeed ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... "We talk—we gossip," said Henry, "which is much better. I hear the sweet tones of your voice; you sing me a song, or you break suddenly out into that heavenly laugh of yours. What is there not in that musical, jubilee laugh? When I hear it, angel mine, I am not only delighted, I muse, I meditate, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... to call on the family's cat or dog, whichever it happened to be. And though you may not know it, these animals in every household know what is going on in the home from garret to cellar, as well as all the family secrets and neighborhood gossip. So you see Zip was a regular news-gatherer, and he not only gathered the news in that way, but he spread it as he went along with the doctor from house to house, so that anyone hearing Zip talk did not need to read the ...
— Zip, the Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier • Frances Trego Montgomery
... was told by the bystanders, was quite unpremeditated. A few stragglers had halted before the house at about eight o'clock on the preceding evening, and had been discussing there the dreadful tale connected with its owner. One gossip, in a sudden burst of anger, hurled a bottle of ink—then by chance in his hand—at the Jew's house. The idea was taken up with such good will that a hard rain of stones, bottles, and other missiles was soon pelting against ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... the abolition of the traffic while London merchants were using every effort to continue it, and while Bristol, the very headquarters of the trade, was represented in Parliament by Edmund Burke. Even among the literary men of England,—if Boswell's gossip may be trusted,—Dr. Johnson was peculiar in his hatred of the infamy—a hatred which is obsequious biographer mollifies to an "unfavorable notion," and officiously ascribes to "prejudice and imperfect or false information." The anti-slavery work of England was originally inspired from America, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... to tell this. I suppose it's a State's prison offence to deceive about murder. But you understand our position: we can't afford to let it become gossip. I'll pay this girl anything to go to Europe ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... mandates of God and man and caution are inhibited, and where woozled tongues will wag, she acquired her historical knowledge of things never otherwise whispered and rarely guessed. And her tight tongue had served her well, so that, while the old-timers knew she must know, none ever heard her gossip of the times of Kalakaua's boathouse, nor of the high times of officers of visiting warships, nor of the diplomats and ministers and councils of ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... with their French governess, was on her way home. People were in the habit of dropping in between four and six, and of late she had become somewhat dependent on their company. They kept her from thinking. Their scraps of gossip provided her, when she talked to her husband, with topics that steered her away from dangerous ground. He himself had given her a hint that a certain ground was dangerous; and, though he had done ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... conscious of his prestige, Napoleon was aware that he added to it by treating rather worse than stable lads the great personages around him, and among whom figured some of those celebrated men of the Convention of whom Europe had stood in dread. The gossip of the period abounds in illustrations of this fact. One day, in the midst of a Council of State, Napoleon grossly insults Beugnot, treating him as one might an unmannerly valet. The effect produced, he goes up to him and says, "Well, stupid, have you found your head ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... would dishonour his noble name, and that my reputation was at his own mercy. In my amazement and horror I defied him, dared him to do his worst; and recklessly he accepted the rash challenge. Leaving no clue (as I imagined), I secretly quitted the village, where gossip was busy with my name, and went to New York. My scanty means rapidly melted away, and I hired myself as a seamstress in a wealthy family. Not even at this stage of affairs did I lose faith in my husband, and bravely I confronted the knowledge that at no distant period I should ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... gossip about each other's affairs.—By the way, isn't our friend in there (nodding towards the door on the right) going to be told about it? This seem, ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... after they had twice smashed into each other—once under sail off the Capes and once in tow up Boston Harbor; and it was not to be doubted that in both cases they had more than drifted into each other. And of their near-collisions! A day's loaf along the water-front would yield gossip of ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... apply to nothing more than to friends; but the false and spurious and counterfeit friend, knowing how much he debases friendship, like debased and spurious coin, is not only by nature envious, but shows his envy even of those who are like himself, striving to outdo them in scurrility and gossip, while he quakes and trembles at any of his betters, not by Zeus "merely walking on foot by their Lydian chariot," but, to use the language of Simonides, "not even, having pure lead by comparison with their refined gold."[441] Whenever then, being light ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... volume ready or money needed; or one's tailor occasionally, if a coat be required, a man is able to write. But what has a man to say to his friend,—or, for that matter, what has a woman? A Horace Walpole may write to a Mr. Mann about all things under the sun, London gossip or transcendental philosophy, and if the Horace Walpole of the occasion can write well and will labour diligently at that vocation, his letters may be worth reading by his Mr. Mann, and by others; but, for the maintenance of love and friendship, continued correspondence between ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... always so full of gossip and lies! This about Silla was all nonsense! There was nothing so dreadful in the three girls having taken a trip down to see a little of the fair; and they made that sharp-tongued Jakobina, whom they did not want to have with them, think they were all ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... similar gossip for a while, I descended the mountain-side, a short distance to the Bulowshohe. This is a rocky shaft that shoots, upward from the mountain, having from its top a glorious view through the door which the Bode makes in passing out of the Hartz. I could see at a great distance ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... give a vivid picture of the blessings of such seclusion. There are many minds which will echo the exclamation with which the poet dismisses his visitors and their gossip: ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... stimulation for the metropolitan accustomed for a lifetime to the rhythm of the surroundings. Yet that quiet countryman may react in his narrow system not less when the modest changes in his surroundings provoke him. The gossip of his neighbor may undermine his nervous system just as much as a political fight or the struggles of the exchange that of the ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... common-sense holds that what is strange cannot be true. Yet something strange had undeniably occurred. It was very strange if Elizabeth on the night of January 1, retired to become a mother, of which there was no appearance, while of an amour even gossip could not furnish a hint. It was very strange if, having thus retired, she was robbed, starved, stripped and brought to death's door, bleeding and broken down. It was very strange that no vestige of evidence as to her real place of concealment could ever be discovered. ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... dressed up every day, and with a joyful look went down to the harbor to gossip with the other wives. She said that this delay was but natural: was it not the same event every year? These were such safe boats, and had ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... discovers that grief comes from affection, will retire into the jungles and there remain." Tiberius had made the discovery. The jungles he selected were the gardens by the sea. And in those gardens, gossip represented him devising new forms of old vice. On the subject every doubt is permissible, and even otherwise, morality then existed in but one form, one which the entire nation observed, wholly, absolutely; that form was patriotism. ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... personal experience, gained in societies in which the two sexes possess the same rights and are admitted to the same titles, I am obliged to declare that I have never found any confirmation (at least in the German-Swiss country) of the popular saying that gossip and intrigue are the special appanage of woman. I have found these two vices ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... cheerful and responsive, for her guests seemed so light-hearted and free from care that the sunshine of their presence warmed her own chilled and fearful heart. They embarked upon a wide sea of neighborhood gossip and parish opinions, and at last some one happened to speak again of Thanksgiving, which at once turned the tide of conversation, and it seemed to ebb suddenly, while the gray, dreary look once more overspread Mrs. ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... friendship began. Thenceforth, when business was dull, the idle hours of both men were beguiled with idle gossip. ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... contribution to the gossip excited by Katherine's wedding, and what impression does Act III give you altogether of Bianca's character? Is the bad report of it in Act IV, made by Hortensio, as the Musician, Lisio, with Tranio, quite ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... intelligence and experience knows they are not. Even animistic-minded I got awfully sat upon the other day in Cameroon by a superior but kindred spirit, in the form of a First Engineer. I had thoughtlessly repeated some scandalous gossip against the character of a naphtha launch in the river. "Stuff!" said he furiously; "she's all right, and she'd go from June to January if those blithering fools would let her alone." ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... critical struggle which at the very time and place where Timaeus wrote was preparing between the Romans and the Carthaginians. In the main, however, the story cannot have been derived from Latium, but can only have been the good-for-nothing invention of the old "gossip-monger" himself. Timaeus had heard of the primitive temple of the household gods in Lavinium; but the statement, that these were regarded by the Lavinates as the Penates brought by the followers of Aeneas from Ilion, is as certainly ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... raiders had unwittingly followed his trail, only to turn in flight as if the devil was nipping after them once they glimpsed his bulky figure, heard his whimpering or his loud laughter. The men followed him to the Davis Cabin, each eager to contribute to the general gossip concerning the child-man's ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... may be said in passing, had served a term in state prison for house-breaking, dropped casually into the bank and asked the cashier to "back a letter" for him, since writing was not one of his own strong points. The cashier was obliging, and in as much as gossip was usually sparse in that community went on the while chatting with the president of the institution, who had ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... penny novelettes, that do you more harm than good, Jane!' said Clare a little shortly. I think if Mrs. Tucker is such a gossip, we shan't care to have her about the house. Where does ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... in the tiniest of a group of tiny houses that huddled together, in a panicky fashion, in a narrow street behind Mrs. Handsomebody's house. From an upper window we could look down on their roofs, where the plump, Cathedral pigeons used to congregate to gossip ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... the next day would be came true. It was a scorching Tuesday, and nothing but the feast of gossip which "the square" held upon this particular week could ever have drawn a crowd there ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... wouldn't—of course he might—" the baritone ruminated, "Our fuss was a long time ago." He settled himself comfortably, he dearly loved to gossip. "He's a queer chap, Dud is. Always was. We used to sing in the same boy choir when we were kids. Little church over in Brooklyn. He was an angel terror, regulation boy sopran'. Into everything. Nearly drove the old choir master to drink. Was always being expelled. Our families ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... catastrophe could only take place, or be conceived, in a large city. A village grocer cannot make a large fortune, cannot marry his daughters to titled squires, and cannot die without having his children brought to him, if in the neighbourhood, by fear of village gossip, if ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... little or no wheat, little or no meat, little or no sugar, a few serve wine. And round the table will always be found men in foreign uniforms, or some missionary from some great power who comes begging for boats or food. These dinners used to be places of great gossip, and chiefly anti-administration gossip, but the spirit of the people is one of unequaled loyalty. The Republicans are as glad to have Wilson as their President as are the Democrats, I think sometimes a ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... I don't think!" retorted Nan. Being a rabid girl-fan it was, of course, impossible for Nan to speak baseball convictions or gossip without characteristic baseball slang. "Stuck on themselves! I never saw the like in my life. That fellow Lane is so swelled that he can't get down off his toes. But he's a wonder, I must admit that. They're a bunch of stars. Easy, fast, trained—they're machines, and I'll bet they're ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... of gossip as if it were a dainty morsel; and calling Rebecca, she commands her to forthwith proceed into the cellar and bring a bottle of the old Madeira-she has only five left-for Mr. Soloman. And to Mr. Soloman's great delight, the old negress hastily obeys ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... I ran against a man I knew, named Wardle, one of the sub-editors of a Sunday newspaper, then on his way home from Fleet Street. Wardle was tired and sleepy, but stopped to exchange a few words of journalistic gossip. ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... patient to his house after half-past five had struck, yet his work was seldom over before the hour of seven. He could not see Nigel often, because he could not see any one often; but he had seen him more than once, more than once he had heard gossip about him, and he realized, partly through knowledge, and partly through instinct, his situation with Mrs. Chepstow. Nigel longed to be frank with Isaacson, yet told him very little, held back by some strange reserve, subtly ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... and its preparation is the principal occupation of the women of the peones during the time their men are toiling in the fields. Let us watch a Mexican woman of the working class making her tortillas, probably sitting on the threshold of her habitation for purposes of light and neighbourly gossip. She has brought forth a grinding-stone or flat mortar known as a metate, for the purpose of grinding the maiz—an article shaped out of a block of a special kind of volcanic stone, called ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... taxable letters that I decided to accept only one, and let the others go back. That one contained a cheque for a hundred dollars for the Mission. I naturally took the rest, and found every one of them to be bills, gossip, or from autograph-hunters. ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... genius has no sort of connection or kindred. It may be some oddity in the manner, or incident in the life, of the author that is whispered over before his book comes out. This often macadamizes the way to popularity, for gossip is a mighty spell in the literary world, and a concealment of the author's name often creates an anxiety in the public mind, for it leaves room for guesses and conjectures, and as some are very fond of appearing wise in such matters by saying they know from good authority that such a one ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... about with rounded pickets, presented a picture of peace and plenty. The summers of the inhabitants were enlivened by the visits of the Indians and the traders; and in winter they light-heartedly whiled away the tedious hours with gossip and dance and feast, like the habitants along the ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... stage writing,' as Theobald most 'Theobaldice' phrases it, before he became an actor, is an assertion of about as much authority, as the precious story that he left Stratford for deerstealing, and that he lived by holding gentlemen's horses at the doors of the theatre, and other trash of that arch-gossip, old Aubrey. The metre is an argument against Titus Andronicus being Shakspeare's, worth a score such chronological surmises. Yet I incline to think that both in this play and in Jeronymo, Shakspeare wrote some passages, and that they are the ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... contemporary, Francis Bacon. Aubrey in his laboriously compiled Short Lives, in which he shows a friendly and admiring attitude toward Bacon, definitely states that he was a pederast. Aubrey was only a careful gleaner of frequently authentic gossip, but a similar statement is made by Sir Simonds D'Ewes in his Autobiography. D'Ewes, whose family belonged to the same part of Suffolk as Bacon's sprang from, was not friendly to Bacon, but that fact will ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... vigil of SS. Simon and Jude, 27 October: probably in 1466, but his utterances on the subject are ambiguous. Around his parentage he wove a web of romance, from which only one fact emerges clearly—that his father was at some time a priest. Current gossip said that he was parish priest of Gouda; a little town near Rotterdam, with a big church, which in the sixteenth century its inhabitants were wealthy enough to adorn with some fine stained glass. There in the ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... broken-hearted saint. It never occurs to them that the poor woman is only doing under coarser conventions exactly what every fashionable hostess does when she tries to get the men from arguing over the cigars to come and gossip over the teacups. These women are not exasperated merely at the amount of money that is wasted in beer; they are exasperated also at the amount of time that is wasted in talk. It is not merely what goeth into the mouth but what cometh out the mouth that, in their opinion, ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... here for whispers of courtiers and king's counselors to get abroad in the land," decided Don Ruy as they mounted their horses for the home ride and Yahn lingered to gossip with neighbors. "In the south the conquerors could fight for gold and win it—but in this land of silence with ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... we did. A rake-helly place is London to be sure, but after Somerset ... I tell 'ee, I likes it. I been home since, washed hands and face! No; washed hands ... not face. Then to White's for my chocolate, and picked up the latest smack of gossip ... the best there's been in weeks ... good enough to come along and tell 'ee. So here we ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... from my home now (or rather my temporary residence, for my proper and general home is at Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire); and, as the day is scarcely half spent, I trust you will not object to partake of a hermit's fare. Nay, nay, no excuse: I assure you that I am not a gossip in general, or a liberal dispenser of invitations; and I think, if you refuse me now, you will ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... this change? That is precisely the point on which, after all the gossip there has been, we are still ignorant. At times Coleridge's opium excesses were great; but what led to those excesses must not be left out of account. From boyhood he had a tendency to low fever, betrayed by his constant appetite for bathing and swimming, which he indulged even when a physician had ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... themselves he called them to order, and silenced them instantly, which surprised Beth, because he was the smallest man there. There was one man, however, whom the old carpenter could never suppress. Beth did not know how this man got his living. He came from the village to gossip, wore a tweed suit, not like a workman's, nor was it the national Irish dress. He had a red nose and a wooden leg, and, after she knew him, for a long time she always expected a man with a wooden leg to ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... with all sorts of people and hear a great deal of conversation the blind amma are full of interesting gossip. A clever amma who ran his knuckles up and down my back said that farm land a good way from Niigata was sold at from 200 yen to 300 yen and sometimes at 400 yen per quarter acre.[130] Prefectural officials who called on me explained that drainage operations ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... quite as much. And he loves her, too, loves her with his whole soul. Perhaps you never knew that they would have been married long ago in Simla if Muriel hadn't overheard some malicious gossip and thrown him over. How in the world she made him let her go I never knew, but she did it, though I believe it nearly broke his heart. He came to me afterwards and begged me to keep her with me as long as I could, and take care ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... previous knowledge of the household, and by giving the impression of a mourner, to gain access. The murderers had not yet been caught. Because the public knew nothing of "Lefty" Louie, or "Gyp the Blood," or even of the late Lieutenant Becker, it was common gossip that the criminals lurked in the neighborhood, and that, in order to avoid suspicion, they would appear among the chief mourners. Therefore, each eye was turned against its neighbor, and each man, as he passed you, asked the silent question,—"Did you shoot Herman ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... show that he always dwelt near the {328} gate of Heaven and was easily aware of the "ancient Light of Eden." An accidental bit of gossip, reported in John Aubrey's Miscellanies, indicates that he was subject to psychical experiences of an unusual sort, and the poet himself has reported an impressive crisis-experience when he chose his destiny and ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... "intensity" and "modernity" and the rest had, of course, already begun in London,—but she represented to them the sparkle of the new beauty and truth they loved. She knew little intimate anecdotes of the poets and painters they loved, piquant gossip and brilliant mots; and then she was one of those women who are like incense in a room, enriching by her very presence, exhaling mystery and distinction, like a pomander of ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne |
