"Gossip" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and master it thoroughly before trying to combine the three in a work of fiction. The simplest is narrative, and consists chiefly in the ability to tell a plain story straight on to the end, just as in conversation Neighbor Gossip comes and tells a long story to her friend the Listener. A writer will gain this skill if he practise on writing out tales or stories just as nearly as possible as a child would do it, supposing the child had a sufficient vocabulary. Letter-writing, ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... of perception that in rattling off Love in Babylon he had been guilty of one of those charming weaknesses to which great and serious men are sometimes tempted, but of which great and serious men never boast. And he therefore confined his personal gossip with Sir George to the turkey, the mince-tarts, and the question of contagion. He plunged into his work with a feeling akin to dignified remorse, and Sir George was vehemently and openly delighted by the proofs which he gave of undiminished loyalty ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... pegs and billiards inside the Yacht Club, the Bombay ladies outside on the green lawn at tea, gossip, hats, local affairs, and Imperialism, and beyond them the ships of the fleet picked out with electric lights along the lines of their hulls and up masts and ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... change in her expression she left me, went into the house, and closed the door behind her. I did not wish to make a scene, which would give rise to injurious gossip, and therefore walked away, though as I did so I turned to look in at the open window, but I did not see Sylvia; I only saw the bandaged face of Sister Agatha looking out at ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... a foolish speech, perhaps. It was certainly ineffectual. She persisted, looking so calm and composed, that a great weight fell upon my heart. I walked away; I wandered about the saloons; I tried to gossip and be gay; but the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... at his side and surrounded by his convivial chiefs, sat at the head of the council in the big compound. His right eye and jaw were swollen as if he too had engaged in assaulting somebody's fist. It was palace gossip that morning that Sepeli had administered a conjugal beating. At any rate, her spouse was sober, and his fat bulged spiritlessly through the rips in Willie Smee's silk shirt. His thirst was prodigious, and he was continually served with young drinking nuts. Outside the compound, held back by the ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... table and the servant behind his chair were accustomed to gossip pleasantly during meals. Amelius did his best to carry on the talk as usual. But he was no longer in the delightful world of illusion which Scott had opened to him. The hard realities of his own everyday life had gathered round him again. Observing him with unobtrusive attention, ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... king, "what do you look upon each other for—and what have you got to ask of your dear dad and gossip?" ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... called a falcon, signifies those whose "feet are swift to shed blood" (Ps. 13:3). The plover [*Here, again, the Douay translators transcribed from the Vulgate: charadrion; charadrius is the generic name for all plovers.], which is a garrulous bird, signifies the gossip. The hoopoe, which builds its nest on dung, feeds on foetid ordure, and whose song is like a groan, denotes worldly grief which works death in those who are unclean. The bat, which flies near the ground, signifies ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... I asked; 'how hath this circumstance affected them?' The road was bleak and long, so that the old soldier's gossip was a welcome break to ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the sick with unnecessary questions, idle talk, or silly gossip. It is cruel to whisper in the sick-room, for patients are always annoyed by it. They are usually suspicious that something is wrong and generally imagine that their condition has changed for ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... caught scraps of half-a-dozen different conversations before she reached the door, and not one of them related in any way to the sermon or to anything religious. She overheard one invitation to dinner, another to drive, an inquiry about a dressmaker, a bit of gossip about a new engagement, a request for a recipe for mayonnaise. She supposed it must be the right thing to chatter thus, since all these delightful-looking people did it; still it seemed to ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... that your father accepted a handsome sword from him and never made him any present in return, and people are beginning to gossip about it." ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... At the hotels, the maids and valets scarcely knew each other. Some were in a hurry, others were tired or in a bad humour. Here the little company had been together for days. Meals were a relaxation, a time for flirtation and gossip about their own and each other's masters and mistresses. Each servant felt the liveliest interest in the "Monsieur" or "Madame" of his or her neighbour; and the stories that were exchanged, the criticisms that were made, would have caused the ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... always loved solitude and silence, I am a great gossip with my friends, which arises, perhaps, from my seeing them but rarely. I atone for this loquacity by a year of taciturnity. I mutely recall my parted friends by correspondence. I resemble that class of people ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... the commands of our parents and teachers, how diligent we were in studying, how persevering we were, how often our parents punished our sauciness. Who can say for himself that he was not much more pleased to go out for a walk, to play games, and to gossip, than to go to Church in obedience to ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... Miss Gannion; I am not doing this for love of gossip. Miss Dane is nothing to me, and I like Lorimer immensely. But there is a good deal at stake, and I am not sure how much I ought to leave to chance. Lorimer is one of the most lovable fellows in the world, generous and loyal; but he is weak. He was ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... equivalent in the local currency of the O'Reagans of Castle Reagan, or the D'Arcy de Montmorenci, or the Montescudi di Bajocchi. Among this set there was much merry-making when the news from the Dolph household sifted down to them from the gossip-sieve of the best society. They could not very well chaff young Dolph openly, for he was muscular and high-tempered, and, under the most agreeable conditions, needed a fight of some sort every six months or so, and liked a bit of trouble in between fights. But a good deal of low and malicious ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... 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 ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... and two aggravating forms of defamation. Gossip is small talk, idle and sufficiently discolored to make its subject appear in an unfavorable light. It takes a morbid pleasure in speaking of the known and public faults of another. It picks at little things, and furnishes a steady occupation ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... of their own, but their minds are narrowed by the petty lives they live, lives in many instances bounded by no wider horizon than thoughts concerning their husbands and children and jewels and curries, and always their next-door neighbour's squabbles and the gossip of the place. Much of this gossip deals with matters which are not of an elevating character. It takes us years to understand it, because most of the conversation is carried on in allusion or innuendo. But it is understood by the children. One of our converts told me that she often ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... through ten mouths or masks instead of through one. His literary power and progress began in casual conversations—and it seems to me supremely right that it should end in one great and casual conversation. His last play is nothing but garrulous talking, that great thing called gossip. And I am happy to say that the play has been as efficient and successful as talk and gossip have always been among the children ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... passed between him and Philip Feltram, and presented himself in an amiable point of view, and pleased the Doctor with his port and flatteries—for he could not afford to lose anyone's good word just now; and the Doctor was a bit of a gossip, and in most houses in that region, in one character or another, every three months ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... pike-lengths from the gate, the balcony above it, which was full of people, fell; some were killed, others crippled or maimed, and others bruised. Among them were friars and lay-brothers, negroes and whites. With these events, the common people began to indulge in much gossip. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... too," said the Hatter, "to which I feel I should call your attention. These phones being in every room in town with which anybody may be connected at any moment and thus overhear what other people are saying, gossip is gradually dying out, and people everywhere are more careful of what they say even in private, for nowadays the walls literally have ears. To give you an example, I will connect you at once with the home of the Duchess whom you met, if you remember, in ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... 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, ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... contrary, I find her the same adorable gossip she always was. Whatever is in that letter, she is simply dying to ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... have two clear purposes: Their first purpose is to make certain that this Nation's security is not jeopardized by false servants. Their second purpose is to clear the atmosphere of that unreasoned suspicion that accepts rumor and gossip as substitutes ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... 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
... grudge their mother—and that partly because she enjoyed it, partly because of the treats they derived from it. The Guild was called by some hostile husbands, who found their wives getting too independent, the "clat-fart" shop—that is, the gossip-shop. It is true, from off the basis of the Guild, the women could look at their homes, at the conditions of their own lives, and find fault. So the colliers found their women had a new standard of their own, rather disconcerting. And also, Mrs. Morel always had a lot of ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... was the youngest of three brothers, who were all distinguished men. The eldest was the well-known Earl of Buchan, one of the founders of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, whose eccentricities formed the subject of much gossip in the Scottish capital. To an English nobleman he declared: "My brothers Harry and Tom are certainly remarkable men, but they owe everything to me." Seeing a look of surprise upon his friend's face he added: "Yes, it ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... next day, as the mere Gabet brought the last barrow of linen, which she spread out on the grass with Angelique, she interrupted her interminable chattering upon the gossip of the neighbourhood ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... quite a long pause. Perhaps Brigadier-General Jenkins was wondering what chance he would stand in a show-down. Whoever had heard the mess and canteen gossip knew that Jenkins' career had been one long string of miracles by which he had attained promotion without in any way deserving it, and a parallel series of even greater ones by which he had saved himself from ruin by contriving to blame some ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... into town in the Pullman each day was a social event with Skinner. He looked forward to it and what he learned was each night a subject of gossip at ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... tapa cloth with which they repaired the worn-out clothes of their husbands, or fabricated petticoats for themselves and such of the children as had grown old enough to require such garments. But besides these occupations, they spent a portion of their time in prattling gossip, which, whatever the subject might be, was always accompanied with a great deal of merriment and hearty laughter. They also spent no small portion of their time in the sea, for bathing was one of the favourite amusements of the ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... taken the Lady Elizabeth to call on My Lord at Bowhill! What do you think of that? And she leads Agnew Greatorix about like a lamb, or rather like a sheep. He gets just one glass of sherry at dinner," said Winsome, who loved a spice of gossip—as who does not? ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... in his personal relations with the community were the walks on Sunday afternoons. Sir Charles Horner made a habit of joining these to obtain the Abbey gossip and also because he took pleasure in hearing himself hold forth on the management of his estate. Most of his property was woodland, and the walks round Malford possessed that rich intimacy of the English countryside ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... talk. I never agreed to have my movements controlled by people's gossip. And now, Lavinia, I shall have to neglect you and resume my packing. To-morrow I shall bring Philip ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... of the age in which he lived. It is addressed to the imagination, more than to sober reason. We are dazzled by the gorgeous spectacle it perpetually exhibits, and delighted by the variety of amusing details and animated gossip sprinkled over its pages. The story of the action is perpetually varied by discussions on topics illustrating its progress, so as to break up the monotony of the narrative, and afford an agreeable relief to the reader. This is true of the ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... hastened not to 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
... the sudden realisation of a great passion for each other, asked himself what force it was, in modern life, which would perform for them most tragically the sinful service of Gallehault. Then it struck him that the great Gallehault of modern life—El Gran Galeoto—was the impalpable power of gossip, the suggestive force of whispered opinion, the prurient allurement of evil tongues. Set all society to glancing slyly at a man and a woman whose relation to each other is really innocent, start the wicked tongues a-babbling, and you will stir up a whirlwind which will blow them giddily into ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... kept. kens, knows. kent, knew. kentna, did not know. keppit, met. kilmarnock, a night cap. kimmer, gossip (Fr. commere). kin', kind. kinkhoast, whooping-cough. kin'liest, kindliest. kintraside, countryside. kirk, church, kist, chest. kists o' ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... man's precautions for secrecy, he followed, and for a half-hour listened to the fireside gossip of the camp. He noticed that Fallon's glance traveled over the various groups as if seeking some one, and he wondered which ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... had come to pass. Of Cobbens's malice there could be no doubt, but in all probability he had not observed Lena in the bishop's house during her short stay there before her mistress's departure. Mrs. Parr, however, was in and out daily; and what more choice bit of gossip could she write to her friend than an account of this unexpected meeting? If there was any momentary doubt in his mind, it was dispelled by her action. One sharp look told her all she wished to know; then she turned her back upon her friend's servant ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... and Harriet and Jessie and Mrs. Sproul all about it, as I see them coming, on gossip bent I feel sure," he said as he went halfway down the walk to meet the girls before I could ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... yet, my friend," replied my host, "but the time will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others. Believe nothing you hear, and only one-half that you see. Now about our Maisons de Sante, it is clear that some ignoramus has misled you. After dinner, however, when you have sufficiently recovered from the fatigue ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the usual subdued gossip about the door, and while Gifford waited for his aunts, who had something to say to the rector, he listened to Mrs. Dale, who said in her incisive voice, "Isn't it too bad Helen isn't here? I should think, whether she wanted to ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... that the old Greek tales were the garbled gossip of an age-forgotten science of which we ...
— This Giddy Globe • Oliver Herford
... the field alone, but in the committee-room and the printing-office, were never better shown than in this Report. It attempts something which, unless done thoroughly, was not worth doing; since, on a subject which appeals so strongly to the feelings, mere generalities and gossip do more harm than good. It is the work of a special Commission of Inquiry, composed of three physicians, (Drs. Mott, Delafield, and Wallace,) two lawyers, (Messrs. Wilkins and Hare,)and one clergyman (Mr. Walden). This commission has performed a great amount ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... fly's ancient name) was once a maiden, exceeding fair, but over-given to talk and chatter and song, Selene's rival for the love of Endymion. When the young man slept, she was for ever waking him with her gossip and tunes and merriment, till he lost patience, and Selene in wrath turned her to what she now is. And therefore it is that she still, in memory of Endymion, grudges all sleepers their rest, and most of all the ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... Joinville, we could not but go on to the end, for there are few books that carry on the reader more pleasantly, whether we read them in the quaint French of the fourteenth century, or in the more modern French in which they have just been clothed by M. Natalis de Wailly. So vividly does the easy gossip of the old soldier bring before our eyes the days of St. Louis and Henry III., that we forget that we are reading an old chronicle, and holding converse with the heroes of the thirteenth century. The fates both of Joinville's ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... chatted on, telling of her visit to Red Top and describing the house party with a good deal of cleverness, Patricia became so interested that she forgot her grateful intentions in listening to the gossip which her new friend retailed so sparklingly. She laughed over the description of the model poultry farm and chaffed Rosamond quite freely on her lack of technical terms; she smiled a little uneasily over the dinner party at the rectory, feeling a bit ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... side, which is always in evidence in the case of a celebrated man,—that gossip, for example, which avers that Maupassant was a high liver and a worldling. The very number of his volumes is a protest to the contrary. One could not write so large a number of pages in so small a number of years ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... beauty in an age when even the greatest artists and poets sought inspiration in human life rather than the outer world, is a significant fact. It seems to illustrate the necessity whereby Venice became the cradle of the art of nature.[266] "Having, dear Sir, and my best gossip, supped alone to the injury of my custom, or, to speak more truly, supped in the company of all the boredoms of a cursed quartan fever, which will not let me taste the flavour of any food, I rose from ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... been busy with the wife of the Richest Trustee—as the widow she did not relax her hold. What the trustees said that day they only repeated from gossip: the little gray wisp of a woman was a nonentity—nothing more—with the spirit of a mouse. She held no position in society, and what she did with her time or her money no one knew. The trustees smiled inwardly and reckoned silently with themselves; ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... establishments devoted, more especially in the latest period of Venetian independence, to the requirements of those who desired such resorts for purposes of conversation and gossip. These houses were frequented by various classes of patrons—the patrician, the politician, the soldier, the artist, the old and the young—all had their special haunts where the company and the tariff were in accordance with the guests. The upper circles of male society—all ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... and you could work samplers, and urn-rugs, and doileys, and pincushions, and so forth; and what with a rood or two of garden ground, and poultry (the Mayor says poultry is healthy for children), upon my word, if we could find a safe place, and people would not trouble us with their gossip, and we could save a little money for you when ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... application of this gossip may, however, be eyed with suspicion, as a French canard. It was so easy for "Figaro" to libel the Bismarck of 1871, whereupon the whole French press followed and barked at the ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... other with perfect ease; and honestly pleased at having escaped a long, dull, hot afternoon in the Casino, the older woman set herself to please and amuse Sylvia. She thoroughly succeeded. A clever gossip, she seemed to know a great deal about all sorts of interesting people, and she gave Sylvia an amusing account of Princess Mathilde Bonaparte, whose splendid chateau they saw from their ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... and I had to give him mine, for my chauffeur and the stage-door keeper (to say nothing of Marianne, who followed me closely), and several stage-carpenters, with other employes of the theatre, were within seeing and hearing distance. I wanted no gossip, though that was exactly what might ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... do I know that?" enquired Mr. Netherby. "I tell you I am a hater of gossip" screamed the lady "and here it is pouring rain and you have the audacity to keep me waiting at the front door, when I ask to see ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... Heaven only knows who stopped it. There was a rush of 'old friends' into that garden, enough to scare all the little birds away. I suppose one or several of them, having influence with the press, did it. But the gossip didn't stop, and the name stuck, too, since it conveyed a very certain and very significant sort of fact, and of course the Venetian episode was talked about in the houses frequented by my mother. It was talked about from a royalist point of view with a kind of respect. It was even ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... the inner room to have a gossip with old Grace Drever. The schoolmaster pronounced the benediction, and we flocked ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... even been dreamed of by the most daring stock manipulators. The "System's" banks, as well as trust and insurance companies throughout the country, had for a long time been getting into shape by concentrating the money of the country for this monster trust. It was newspaper and news bureau gossip that Reinhart and his crowd had bought millions of shares of the different stocks involved in the deal, and it was common knowledge that upon its successful completion Reinhart's fortune would be in the neighbourhood of ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... From behind the electric lamp his face was ghastly white. In that brief pause which followed he seemed to be looking through the walls of the room into an ugly chapter of his future. He saw the headlines in the newspapers, the leading articles, the culmination of all the gossip and mutterings of the last few months, the end of his political career—a disgraceful and ignoble end! Surely no man had ever been placed in so painful a predicament. It was treason to parley. It was disgraceful to ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fear of engaging a discussion. What he had come to seek in the editorial office was not controversy, but information. Yet somehow he hesitated to approach the subject. Solitary life makes a man reticent in respect of anything in the nature of gossip, which those to whom chatting about their kind is an everyday exercise regard as the commonest ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... abused Richard; it was nothing new. Then, again, Richard is very proud, and perhaps he did not care to come to us just at that time with family grievances. Besides, how do we know they quarreled? The village is full of gossip." ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... willed them to Henrietta, the young Duchess of Marlborough, who was much concerned with keeping intact (as she wrote in her will) "all Mr. Congreaves Personal Estate that he left me" in order to pass it along to her youngest daughter Mary. This daughter, said by gossip to have been Congreve's daughter also, married the fourth Duke of Leeds in 1740, and thus Congreve's books eventually found their way to Hornby Castle, chief seat of ...
— The Library of William Congreve • John C. Hodges
... passengers either elect to view the forthcoming match from their seats of vantage, or, alighting, stroll up and mix with the fashionable crowd that throngs the far side of the lawn-like paddock. All London has flocked to Hurlingham to-day to enjoy the bright afternoon, indulge in tea, gossip, or claret-cup, and look lazily on at the polo match between the —th Hussars and Monmouthshire. Both teams are reported very strong, and opinion is pretty equally divided as to which way the ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... the embryo society belles are initiated into all the intricacies of high life. It has its own peculiarities, its flutters of excitement, its rounds of pleasures, and distractions of every kind, aye—it has even its gossip, although the whisperers are but budding misses with golden or raven locks floating down ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... There are two old ladies (English) living here who may serve me for a few lines of gossip—as I have intended they should, over and over again, but I have always forgotten it. There were originally four old ladies, sisters, but two of them have faded away in the course of eighteen years, and withered by the side of John Kemble in the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... into camp with reports of forays as far as the suburbs of Philadelphia, twenty miles away. Spies, disguised as farmers, returned with stories of visits into the heart of the capital city held by the enemy. This gossip and information, Which the young sentinel picked up bit by bit, he pieced together to make a picture of an invincible, veteran British army, waiting to fall upon the huddled mob of "rebels" at Valley Forge, and sweep them away like chaff. He heard it over ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the latter very much the reverse, it being difficult to find a cook equal to his demands who would for any length of time endure the shortness of the housekeeper's temper, and the worse one of her master. The domestic affairs of the chemist were a favourite subject of gossip, but sometimes his attainments came in for mention too; they did to-night, the cousin being in a garrulous mood. According to her, the great man had done everything in science worth mentioning, and was not only the first chemist ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... in the long run acquire courage from routine. The old gentleman, who had come to Paris from Touraine to satisfy his curiosity about Madame Firmiani, and found it not at all assuaged by the Parisian gossip which he heard, was a man of honor and breeding. His sole heir was a nephew, whom he greatly loved, in whose interests he planted his poplars. When a man thinks without annoyance about his heir, and watches ...
— Madame Firmiani • Honore de Balzac
... enemy. This winter was the last that he spent at home. He rode the Limestone range that summer, and according to cowboys' gossip was fast developing all the qualities that pertained to the ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... essentially a village woman with a profound love of its intimacies and gossip, its fence-corner neighborliness. The horror with which the village regarded her, as the wife of Mart Brenner, was an eating sore. It was greater than the tragedy of her poor, witless son, the hatred of old Mrs. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... oppressed me with a sense of my inferiority in the matter of devoutness. I could not imagine myself living in one of them, until I came across a group of their occupants engaged in discussing some racy gossip with the nuns on one of the doorsteps. Gossip is not my besetting weakness, but I felt relieved. Convents are not aristocratic institutions in Russia as they are in Roman Catholic countries, and very few ladies by birth and education enter them. Those who do ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... of 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 ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... tragedy in this home—a tragedy for which he was in part, he feared, responsible; and he did not care to look into it too closely. But of all that was involved in this tragedy he really knew little. Social gossip had its guesses at the truth, often not very remote, and he was familiar with these, believing little or much as it ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... parties now knew of the feud between Banion and Woodhull, and the cause underlying it. Woman gossip did what it might. A half dozen determined men quietly watched Woodhull. As many continually were near Banion, although for quite a different reason. All knew that time alone must work out the answer to this ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... the King had a levee. He said to Lord Hardwicke, "It is a very fine day:" that old gossip replied, "Yes, Sir, and it was a very fine night." Lord Bute had told the King that Lord Orford had betted his having a child before Sir James Lowther, who had been married the night before to Lord Bute's eldest ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... whereto every man living in it ought to intend. Then forasmuch as this said book so translated is rare and not spread ne known as it is digne and worthy, for the erudition and learning as such as be ignorant and not knowing of it, at request of a singular friend and gossip of mine, I, William Caxton, have done my devoir and pain to imprint it in form as is here afore made; in hoping that it shall profit much people to the weal and health of their souls, and for to learn to have and keep the better patience in adversities. And furthermore I desire and require you that ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... the endless flats—for the mountains had vanished now, and nothing broke the level of the sand—mademoiselle's gaiety went from her. Silent was the lively, chattering tongue that knew the jargon of cities, the gossip of the Plage. She was oppressed. Tahar rode close at her side. He seemed to have taken her under his special protection. Far before them rode the attendants, chanting deep love songs in the sun. The sound of those songs seemed like the sound of the great desert singing ...
— The Figure In The Mirage - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... a member of the Socialist Minority Party has denounced the KAISER as the originator of the War. The denunciation made little impression on the House, as it was generally felt that he must have been listening to some idle street-corner gossip. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... thrown together, were packed with men and thick with tobacco-smoke, making the air heavy and hot. News there was none, but clouds of rumor and gossip. The telegraph said bad weather, cold and raw, with gusts of rain, prevailed all over the United States, but that an enormous vote was being polled, nevertheless. In all the booths in all the great cities long lines of people were waiting, and reports of the same character were ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... hotbed of gossip, jealousy, hate and seething strife; and now and again there came a miniature explosion that the outside world heard and translated with emendations ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... These suggested the idea of a series of similar letters to his own paper, and he at once put his plan into execution. His letters were written and published. They were "spicy," pleasant in style, full of gossip about the distinguished personages who thronged the capital every winter, and, withal, free from any offensive personality. They were read with eagerness, and widely copied by the press throughout the country. Yet he was poorly paid for them, and at a time when he had made a "real ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... casual servants, querulous, sensitive, and lodged for a day in a sphere they resent, can hardly comprehend the friendliness and sympathy that existed between the master and the slave. He cannot understand how the negro stood in slavery days, open-hearted and sympathetic, full of gossip and comradeship, the companion of the hunt, frolic, furrow, and home, contented in the kindly dependence that had been a habit of his blood, and never lifting his eyes beyond the narrow horizon that shut him in with his neighbors and friends. But this relation did exist in the days ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... useful to take you where you wish to go, are not necessarily enlivening as companions. The annals of "Boxiana" and "Pedestriana" and "The Cricket-Field" are as pathetic records of monomania as the bibliographical works of Mr. Thomas Dibdin. Margaret Fuller said truly, that we all delight in gossip, and differ only in the department of gossip we individually prefer; but a monotony of gossip soon grows tedious, be the theme horses ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... once for his page, who stoutly denied that he had touched the hilt of his dagger, but I too had sent off for Ulred, the armourer, and he brought with him a gossip who had also been present. I asked the king's permission to introduce them, and they entirely confirmed your story. Fitz-Urse exclaimed that it was a Saxon plot to do him harm, and I could see that the bishop was of the same opinion; but the king, who is ever anxious to do ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... moment rid herself of Raymond and now came near Ashton and Florence. She had heard them speak of Dr. Lacey and Fanny, and as she knew Florence was soon going to New Orleans, she wished to give her a little Frankfort gossip ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... She had babbled her gossip so lightly and rapidly that this last piece of information had not given him the start its significance ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... excellent partner and I used to take our evening stroll up the field, we were wont to regard it quite as a grievance if a cousin, who lived at the far end of the hedge, came out and caught us and detained us for a gossip. But now I could hardly settle to my midday nap for thinking of the tinker-mother; and as to Mrs. Hedgehog, she almost annoyed me by her anxiety to see Christian. However, curiosity is the foible of her sex, and I accompanied her daily to the ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... getting letters out of the post-office), ere you have a chance to occupy the pedestal of the match-tub. Often the crowd of quarrelsome candidates wrangle and fight for precedency, while at all times the interval is employed by the garrulous in every variety of ship-gossip. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... soldiers' muskets, five brace of pistols, two poor common guns, two old swords, and a hunting-knife. Such is the garrison, such the arsenal, and these are the preparations, so well justified and so slight, which prejudice conjointly with gossip is about to ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... within his personal recollection at the National Metropolis, he has gathered what "waifs" he has found floating on the sea of chat, in the whirlpools of gossip, or in the quiet havens of conversation. Some of these may be personal —piquantly personal, perhaps—but the mighty public has had an appetite for gossipings about prominent men and measures ever since the time when the old ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... coming in at the door? She has the reputation of being the most popular woman in Washington. But nobody knows just where she comes from, or who she is, or how she gets her money. But I must not talk Washington gossip. You'll meet ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... when we came at last to the belvedered plantation houses amongst the orange groves; and as we sat on the wide galleries in the summer nights, we heard all the latest gossip of the capital of Louisiana. The river was low; there was an ominous quality in the heat which had its effect, indeed, upon me, and made the old Creoles shake their heads and mutter a word with a terrible meaning. New Orleans was a cesspool, said ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... exclude what is meaner around us; Yet, at the worst of the worst, books and a chamber remain; Yet may we think, and forget, and possess our souls in resistance.— Ah, but away from the stir, shouting, and gossip of war, Where, upon Apennine slope, with the chestnut the oak-trees immingle, Where, amid odorous copse bridle-paths wander and wind, Where, under mulberry-branches, the diligent rivulet sparkles, Or amid cotton and maize peasants their water-works ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough
... paused, then looked straight at Joyce with a visible harshness. "I'll tell you what the common gossip is if you want to know, Miss Seldon. They say he ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... when Michael fell before temptation, Jerry pulled himself together in a marvellous way, and so, as a firm, they had surmounted every inquiry and suspicion of a relentless government and were welcomed far and wide, not only for their legitimate business, but for the amount of gossip and scandal they disbursed along with their load. Jerry-Jo, the son of the older McAlpin, was four years older than Priscilla and was the only really young creature who had ever entered ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... He was not left long in doubt. Some hours afterwards three black soldiers approached, carrying in a bloody cloth the head of General Gordon, which he identified. It is unnecessary to add the gruesome details which Slatin picked up as to his manner of death from the gossip of the camp. In this terrible tragedy ended that noble defence of Khartoum, which, wherever considered or discussed, and for all time, will excite the pity and admiration of ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... His Narrow Escape in the Royal Yacht. His Visit to Ireland. Entry into Dublin. Position of the King's Ministers. George IV. on the Field of Waterloo. The King's visit to his Hanoverian Dominions. Coalitions and Double Negotiation. Political Gossip. A New Club. Dismissal of Sir Robert Wilson from the Army. Public Subscription for ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... you are a most discerning woman, gossip Gillian," answered the merchant; "and yonder youth that supported her ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... she certainly had some thought in connection with him which made her silent and reflective. I hope I have done Ellaline no harm—in case the girl really does care for Burden. I never had the intention of keeping her parentage secret, though at the same time it would pain me to have any gossip reach her. However, to do Mrs. Senter justice, I don't think she is a gossip. She likes to say "smart" things, but so far as I have heard, she is never smart at other people's expense. And since her confidences to me concerning her past, I am sorry ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... "Jimmy, you're a sad gossip. If I knew all these people's affairs, or if I knew none of them, I shouldn't discuss them with you. But I'm quite willing to agree with you that both Amy and Charlotte are delightful, each in ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... such sentiments, cheerily and forcibly expressed, the average gossip and fault-finder is usually willing to acquiesce with a shrug. And so the discussion ends with a feeling that an attempt has been made to exaggerate the importance of a restricted and ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... dinner, and stayed through the evening. The more I saw of him, the more certain I felt that he had some private end to serve in coming to Brighton. I watched him carefully. He maintained the same appearance of ease, and talked the same godless gossip, hour after hour, until it was time to take leave. As he shook hands with Rachel, I caught his hard and cunning eyes resting on her for a moment with a peculiar interest and attention. She was plainly concerned in the object that ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... his stick than to fumble in search of a bell. The Hepworths lived chiefly in the room at the back. The light in the drawing-room may have been switched off for economy's sake. Jetson recounted the incident on reaching home, not as anything remarkable, but just as one mentions an item of gossip. The only one who appears to have attached any meaning to the affair was Jetson's youngest daughter, then a girl of eighteen. She asked one or two questions about the man, and, during the evening, slipped out by herself and ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... his bootmakers, Kimball and Rogers. For the wedding ceremony, the man's hair was tightly frizzed by Maniort, the leading hair-dresser of the day. He was the proprietor of the Knickerbocker Barber-Shop at Broadway and Wall Street, and the town gossip. Years later he was to enjoy the patronage of the Third Napoleon in Paris as a reward for favours extended to the Prince when the latter was an exile here. There is little record of elaborate pre-nuptial bachelor dinners in the style of modern ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... value people as we find them. He meant this to be a haven for you; and so it shall be if you will only rest; and you shall be the queen of it. Instead of redressing his memory now, you would only distress his spirit. What does he care for the world's gossip now? But he does care for your happiness. I am not old enough to tell you things as I should like to tell them. I wish I could—how I wish I could! It would make all the difference ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... and had even been known to address John Galbraith as "Old man." Incidentally, he hung about within ear-shot during conferences of the powers, freely offered his advice, and brought all sorts of interesting tidbits of gossip and prophecy back ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... at the marriage of his mother told terribly against him, and the rumors of the previous quarrel when Ned had assaulted his stepfather, and which, related with many exaggerations, had at the time furnished a subject of gossip in the town, also told heavily to ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... for a termination of the meeting, so that its members might once more return to the gossip outside, that Mrs. John Day was permitted to carry all her plans in her scheme of salvation before her, with little or no discussion. And, in consequence, her good nature quickly reasserted itself, and she became more and more inclined to look leniently upon the defects ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... inspirited, moreover, by the attitude of his friends. To be sure, they laughed, but in their laughter there was no trace of the ridicule he had feared. They took the situation as a very good joke on Henry, but at the same time, because gossip had already begun to build up a theory to explain that situation, there were several of them who wished that a similar joke, with a similar nubbin, might be played on themselves. They told this to Henry, ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... the whole shameful story, every word, from my lightning vision to my gossip with Marcel in the antechamber, he listening in hopeless silence. At length I finished. It seemed hours since he had spoken. At last he said, "Then it is true." The grayness of his face ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... That is the reason, doubtless, why he passes the sumptuous establishment where he usually takes his bath; nor does he pause at the Chinese Baths. He is too well known hereabout. All Paris would know what had happened the same evening. There would be a lot of ill-bred gossip in clubs and salons, much spiteful comment on his death; and the old fop, the man of breeding, wishes to spare himself that shame, to plunge and be swallowed up in the uncertainty and anonymity of suicide, like the soldiers who, on the day after a great battle, ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... held the following conversation when left alone. I am enabled to report it faithfully, reader, because Susan told it word for word to her mistress, who has a very reprehensible habit of listening to the gossip of her maid. Of course Mrs B told it to me, because she tells everything to me, sometimes a good deal more than I care to hear. This I think a very reprehensible habit also. I am bound to listen, because when my strong-minded wife begins to talk I ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... further services in the church before the day was over proved to be correct, there being two, the last of which occurred late enough in the evening to necessitate the lighting of the lamps in the building. And it was while the lamps were being lighted that the two Englishmen learned, from the gossip of those engaged in illuminating the grand altar, that much perplexity and uneasiness had resulted from the fact that, despite the most rigorous search of the entire city, no trace of the missing prisoners had thus far been discovered, ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... hand basket, when they could, get away from their exacting husbands, would sit down together under the bank where the canoes were drawn up, and in imitation of the men around the council fires, would gravely exchange opinions, and perhaps, like white folks, would gossip a little in reference to conduct ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... habits of early retiring of late—a marked change from their olden fashion of singing and talking out the midnight hour. Himself unseen, Mr. Aylett scrutinized the two mounting the stairs side by side—Rosa's dark, mobile face, arch with smiles, while she chattered over a bit of country gossip she had heard that afternoon from a visitor, and the weary calm of Mabel's visage, the drooping eyelids, and, when appealed to directly by her volatile comrade, the measured, not melancholy cadence of her answer, The girl had had a sore fight, and won a Pyrrhian victory. She was ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... casting round for some excuse by which I could get away from his gossip, but now I began to wish to hear more of it. I had seen enough of the contrary nature of the old sinner to understand that any strong sign of interest would be the surest ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... light To read those laws; an accent very low In blandishment, but a most silver flow Of subtle-paced counsel in distress, Right to the heart and brain, tho' undescried, Winning its way with extreme gentleness Thro' all the outworks of suspicious pride A courage to endure and to obey; A hate of gossip parlance and of sway,— Crown'd Isabel, thro' all her placid life, The queen of marriage, ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... a curious fact, as showing the localizing of interest, that Silvers Rents knew nothing of what had occurred almost at its doors, and, though it had at its finger tips all the gossip of the docks and the Thames Iron Works, it was profoundly ignorant of what was common property in Royston Court. It is even more remarkable that Saul Arthur Mann, with his squadron of detectives, should have confined their ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... wife,—to the quiet amusement of the other officers,—a trooper was added to the riding party by the order of the colonel, and thereafter it consisted of three. One night, however, the riders did not appear at dinner, and there was considerable uneasiness mingled with some gossip throughout the garrison. It was already midnight before they arrived, and then with horses blown and trembling with exhaustion, and the whole party bearing every sign of fatigue and disturbance. The colonel said a few sharp, decisive words to the subaltern, who, pale and reticent, plucked ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... table. Her expression, her gait, her dress, her coiffure told him that she belonged to society, that she was married, that she was paying her first visit to Talta, that she was alone, and that she was bored.... There is a great deal of untruth in the gossip about the immorality of the place. He scorned such tales, knowing that they were for the most part concocted by people who would be only too ready to sin if they had the chance, but when the lady sat down at the next table, only ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... heard of Sary's proneness to gossip and so replied: "We don't consider wealth worth anything unless you know what to do with it. We live as comfortably as we like, and try to use what is left in ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... wandered out into the crab settlement and crept about as slyly as possible near the crab's house and tried to hear the neighbors' gossip round about. He wanted to find out what the crabs were saving about their chief's death, for the old crab had been the chief of the tribe. But he heard ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... gossip of the sick room that she heard of this invention—this phonograph—and with the quick insight of a loving woman she saw how she might use it for her ends. She sent me to London to procure the best which money could buy. With her dying breath she gasped ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... him about my meeting with Lady Mary, because I knew, if occasion arose, he would spread the news over half London. No consideration would have been great enough to bridle the tongue of the little gossip from use of the first bit of news which he had ever received warm from the fire. Besides, after his behaviour in front of the enemy, I was quite certain that an imparting of my news could do nothing in the way of impairing his inefficiency. Consequently it was not necessary to trouble ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... transacting of business at Bonsecours Market are in a subdued tone. The fat huckster-women drowsing beside their wares, scarce send their voices beyond the borders of their broad- brimmed straw hats, as they softly haggle with purchasers, or tranquilly gossip together. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was placed for a year in a convent. She then spent a year with her grandparents, and returned to her father's house. Her course of reading was very much enlarged, and her attention was now specially directed to philosophical works. She was thus a great deal alone, and gave little of her time to gossip and promenade. She went, however, once to Versailles, and saw the routine of court, but returned with a great delight to her old books and the heroes in them. She was dissatisfied with France and Frenchmen. She says: "I sighed as I thought of Athens, where ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett |
