"Hearsay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that whosoever worships God by hearsay, as others tell him, and knows not what God is from light within himself; or that thinks God is in the heavens above the skies, and so prays to that God which he imagines to be there and everywhere, but from any testimony within, he ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... 1646-47, which if it actually occurred, forms the first instance of an execution for witchcraft in New England. The quotation here given is the only known authority for the statement, and opens the question whether something probably recorded as hearsay in a journal, may be taken as authoritative evidence of an occurrence.... The fact however remains, that the official records are as our author says, silent regarding the actual proceedings, and it is only by inference that it may be found from these records that the ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... more points connecting Radnor Gaylord with the murder that need explaining: the foot-prints in the cave and the match box. The foot-prints I will dismiss for the present because I have not seen them myself and I can't make any deductions from hearsay evidence. But the question of the match box may repay a little investigation. I want you to tell me precisely what happened in the woods before you went into the cave. In the first place, how many older people ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... to his wife in private, and to her in private he delivered his opinion of the new Pontiff. How, then, came Guicciardini to know of the matter? True, he says, "It is well known"—meaning that he had those tears upon hearsay. It is, of course, possible that Ferrante's queen may have repeated what passed between herself and the king; but that would surely have been in contravention of the wishes of her husband, who had, ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... as in Paris," he said, "you must believe only half of all that you hear. Do not alarm yourself; a piece of hearsay, three leagues away from Angouleme, is sure to be far from the truth. Old Sechard, our neighbor, left Marsac some days ago; very likely he is busy settling his son's difficulties. I am going to Angouleme; I will come back and tell you whether you can return home; your confessions ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... once objected to this statement being recorded, as it was hearsay. Nalini, however, assured the judge that the eye-witnesses were in attendance, and called them, one by one, to give evidence. Passing strange was their story. On the evening of Siraji's death they found her writhing in agony on the floor and, on being questioned, ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... population a degree of reluctance to labour far exceeding the reality. Those who pay a reasonable price for work, and are punctual in their payments, do not fail to get as many labourers as they require. I assert this not from any vague hearsay, but from various unquestionable and authentic documents, amongst which are the examinations taken by Committees of the House of Assembly appointed to inquire into the causes and difficulties alleged to exist in the cultivation of estates. Whilst the poverty of the ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... can recall experiences of their very early years which they have actually learned from hearsay, from countless ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and of warlike might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and His breath shall be drawn in the fear of Jehovah. And He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, nor decide by hearsay: but with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and give sentence with equity for the meek of the earth; but He shall smite the scorners with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked, so that righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... the stable door, shut and locked it, and put the key in her pocket as usual. But she had little hope that this mode of access would be left open to her. She knew enough of James Steadman's character, from hearsay rather than from experience, to feel sure that he would not easily give way. She was not surprised, therefore, on returning from her ride on the following afternoon, to find the disused harness-room half filled with trusses ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... masses of isolated rulings generally relating to some very minute point.' They are arranged with reference to 'vague catchwords,' familiar to lawyers, rather than to the principles really invoked. One of the favourite formulae, for example, tells us, 'hearsay is no evidence.' Yet 'hearsay' and 'evidence' are both words which have been used in different senses ('evidence,' for example, either means a fact or the statement that the fact exists), and the absence of any clear definitions ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... uncle. "Too much so-called knowledge which isn't knowledge at all, but hearsay. That's what they're teaching you. In school, other places, every day of your life. I'll tell you when you can come back, Danny: when you're ready to throw most of ...
— My Shipmate—Columbus • Stephen Wilder
... ask Miss Kavanagh to write to me. Why should she trouble herself to do it? What claim have I on her? She does not know me—she cannot care for me except vaguely and on hearsay. I have got used to your friendly sympathy, and it comforts me. I have tried and trust the fidelity of one or two other friends, and I lean upon it. The natural affection of my father and the attachment and solicitude of our two servants are precious and consolatory to me, but ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... case, almost an obsession. Miss Milligan, being a sensible person, knew very well that there are patents and patents. Some of them are frauds, of course, but there are others which are better than any prescription that any doctor ever wrote. Miss Milligan did not speak from hearsay, she had had an extensive experience the results of which lent themselves to conversational effort. Therefore it is easy to see how she understood and sympathised at once when Mrs. Coombe told her of a remedy which she had found to be quite excellent but which ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... will tyrannize when they are let to domineer? and who does not know how useless advice is? I could give good counsel to my descendants, but I know they'll follow their own way, for all their grandfather's sermon. A man gets his own experience about women, and will take nobody's hearsay; nor, indeed, is the young fellow worth a fig that would. 'Tis I that am in love with my mistress, not my old grandmother that counsels me; 'tis I that have fixed the value of the thing I would have, and know the price I would pay for it. It may be worthless to you, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the broad ideas would be rather of the hearsay order, at least to most people, unless their application were worked out in the trifle ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with them, he understood what he had formerly learnt by hearsay, from George Alvarez, and other Portuguese, that the empire of Japan was one of the most populous in the world; that the Japonese were naturally curious, and covetous of knowledge, and withal docible, and of great capacity; that being generally ingenious, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... what is acceptable to the God of Truth may come forth in men striving with infinite confusion, and often uttering words like the east-wind, than in those who can discourse calmly and eloquently about a righteousness and mercy, which they know only by hearsay. The belief which a minister of God has in the eternity of the distinction between right and wrong should especially dispose him to recognise that distinction apart from mere circumstance and opinion. The confidence which he must ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... your presence will intimidate them; nothing intimidates them. Educated men, learned men even, are to be found among Nihilists; these go further, in that they are men of action. The movement is, properly speaking, a derivative from Nihilism—though they are only known indirectly, and by hearsay, for they never advertise their doings in the papers. They go straight to the point. For them, it is not a question of showing that Pushkin is stupid, or that Russia must be torn in pieces. No; but if they have a great desire for anything, they ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of purpose, springing from the dedication of his whole soul to Him who is truth itself. He told as history what he believed to be true, and collected his materials from sources acknowledged to be trustworthy; and he is always careful to tell us when he gives a story on evidence only hearsay. ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... with it? You might as well ask me if I'm familiar with the Emancipation Proclamation—the Magna Charta." And this was accurate; his knowledge of all three was based on hearsay evidence. ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... well known, it is likely that some will write down his doings, and, not knowing them save by hearsay, will write them wrongly and in different ways, whereof will come confusion, and at last none will be believed. Wherefore, as he will not set them down himself, it is best that I do so. Not that I would have anyone think that the penmanship is mine. Well may I handle oar, and fairly well axe ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... had accomplished; and I am strongly inclined to the belief that—at least among the priests—knowledge had been gained of a process quite unlike that known to us for producing a gold fulminate. I was not so fortunate as to gain more knowledge of this matter than could be learned from hearsay, but from several sources I heard of the splitting asunder of a certain great rock by the Priest Captain—which wonder was accompanied by a thunderous noise and a gleam of flame and a bursting forth of smoke—whereby he was considered to have proved that the aid of the ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... Legislator, I would order every man, once a week or so, to lock his lips together, and utter no vocable at all for four-and-twenty hours: it would do him an immense benefit, poor fellow. Such racket, and cackle of mere hearsay and sincere-cant, grows at last entirely deafening, enough to drive one mad, —like the voice of mere infinite rookeries answering your voice! Silence, silence! Sterling sent you a Letter from Clifton, which I ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... white clouds, or caressed by them with a benediction in passing. Thin streaks of cascades on precipitous rocks made silver veinings in ebony. Side valleys opened unexpectedly, and one knew from hearsay that gold mines were hidden there. Treading the road built by Napoleon, I was enveloped in the gloom of the wondrous Gondo Schlucht, to come out into a broad valley,—a green amphitheatre, above which a company of white, mountain gods sat ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... "if the court please, what this boy is trying to tell nor what wild idea has found lodgement in his brain; but I certainly object to the introduction of such hearsay evidence as counsel seems trying to bring out. Let us at least know whether the responsible plaintiff in this case was present or was a party ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... two sorts of evidence upon which many judges look askance—that sort of evidence which is circumstantial and that sort which purely is hearsay. In this connection, and departing for the space of a paragraph or so from the main theme, I am reminded of the incident through which a certain picturesque gentleman of the early days in California ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... summer evening you meet troops of little boys and girls going to the baths, many of them belonging to the poorer classes; for where there are no swimming baths attached to the school they get tickets free or at a very low rate. About fishing I can only speak from hearsay, for I have never caught a minnow myself, but I have met Germans who are keen anglers, and I have found that they knew every London shop beloved of anglers, and the English name of ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... Barbarossa mattered but little; but the fact that the corsair was in a position to do so opened the eyes of the Sultan to the manner of man with whom he had to deal. Hitherto he had but known of him by hearsay, as the one Moslem seaman who was likely to be capable of making a stand against the terrible Doria, who had now become the plague of the Sultan's existence. He now knew that the man who disposed of such ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... compelled them to make revelations, true or false. Eye-witnesses to the commission of crime were not needed in the Spanish courts of that day. The confession of an accused person secured his conviction, even though not made in the presence of a judge. Indirect and hearsay evidence were accepted, and such things as writs of habeas corpus and the plea of double jeopardy were unknown in ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... Burma, Siam, and Cochin- China, with their palaces and pagodas, of the East Indies, famed for spices, of Ceylon, abounding in pearls, and of India, little known since the days of Alexander the Great. Even Cipango (Japan) Marco described from hearsay as an island whose people were white, civilized, and so rich in gold that the royal palace was roofed and paved with that metal. The accounts of these countries naturally made Europeans more eager than ever to ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... raised his voice as the murmurs became louder. At this point a sharp-faced lawyer from Belfast got to his feet and objected that the gentleman from Elkington was wasting the time of the House, indulging in hearsay. His remarks were not germane, etc. The Speaker rapped again, with a fine show of impartiality, and cautioned the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... know these things. The inhabitants of Latin America know them by bitter experience. The inhabitants of Europe and of Asia know them by hearsay. Both in the West and in the East, the United States is known ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... writes to me now and then," replied the housekeeper. Bettina had not expected to hear this; her only thought was to draw out some information gained by hearsay. ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... be evidence of graver misdeeds in these early years of monasticism in England. Bede uses perhaps unnecessary severity in speaking of renegade monks and nuns so-called, since he is admittedly speaking from hearsay and not about disorders which came under his own observation. Whatever the sins of Coldingham may have been, the community at a later date atoned for them, for in the C9, when the Danes invaded Northumbria, and killed the men of this monastery, among others, the nuns are ...
— Early Double Monasteries - A Paper read before the Heretics' Society on December 6th, 1914 • Constance Stoney
... most formidable fortress, or rather, three fortresses in one, mounting a great number of guns, and, as I before observed, held by Bundoola, the commander of the Burmah forces, in whom the Burmah troops placed the greatest confidence. I speak from hearsay and memory, but I believe I am correct when I state that there were not less than ten thousand men in Donabue, besides war elephants, etcetera. Now the river force did not amount in fighting men certainly to one thousand, and they were not in sufficient ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... This tradition has always been in the Yeaman family, and very likely to be true, for the reason that an origin not gratifying to the pride of an old house would not have been accepted on the dubious authority of hearsay.] ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... mediaeval Europe had of India and Persia was mostly indirect, and, as might be expected, deficient both in correctness and extent, resting, as it did, on the statements of classical and patristic writers, on hearsay and on oral communication. In the accounts of the classic writers, especially in those of Pliny, Strabo, Ptolemy, truth and fiction were already strangely blended. Still more was this the case with such compilers ...
— The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany • Arthur F. J. Remy
... the cold January weather, and each day he ferreted further, seeking out the realities behind the censorship that lay heavy now even over the wires. By phone, by gossip, by hearsay and by know-how he got the stories behind the story—the real horrors ...
— Prologue to an Analogue • Leigh Richmond
... a great relief could we believe that inordinate fondness for the dance was the chief vice of the French court. Unfortunately the moral turpitude of the king and his favorites rests upon less suspicious grounds than the revolting stories told on hearsay by the unfriendly writer of the Eusebii Philadelphi Dialogi (Edinburgi, 1574), ii. 117, 118. The "Affair of Nantouillet," occurring just about the time of the Polish ambassadors' arrival in Paris, is only too authentic. The "Prevot de Paris," M. ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... seen in it; but I'll say nothing—it would be a folly to be getting myself ill-will in my old age. Jason did not marry, nor think of marrying Judy, as I prophesied, and I am not sorry for it: who is? As for all I have here set down from memory and hearsay of the family, there's nothing but truth in it from beginning to end. That you may depend upon, for where's the use of telling lies about the things which everybody knows as well as ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... float down the Ganges. Under these terrible epicures are the marine tortoises or turtles; and among them the green turtle of the tropics. Shellfish and sea-weed are its chief food; of its flesh, all Londoners who have not tasted it, can speak pretty confidently from hearsay. It grows occasionally to a great size; those smaller ones which the citizens prize weighing generally about 600 lb. Here too are the turtle of the Mediterranean, and the hawksbill turtle of Arabia, to which ladies are indebted for the choicest ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... with that which was given me; beside, I do not speak of men of this sort other than by hearsay. They are far too unimportant, and too foreign to the mission which I am in charge of, to merit their occupying my attention for any length of time. They are, at most, passive instruments," continued De Chemerant to himself, ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... not be known till the people had got home from Brent, and then but by hearsay, till the sheriff's men had proclaimed me ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... Brewster never changed a muscle of his serious face nor did his voice have the slightest sign of any other feeling than a reverent desire to help his fellow-man. But the two men knew Sam Brewster by experience as well as from hearsay. ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... define the exact costume during the time of the early Merovingian periods. The first writers who have touched upon this subject have spoken of it very vaguely, or not being contemporaries of the times of which they wrote, could only describe from tradition or hearsay. Those monuments in which early costume is supposed to be represented are almost all of later date, when artists, whether sculptors or painters, were not very exact in their delineations of costume, and even seemed to imagine that no other style ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... despayred fruitfulnes of thy wyfe, Ihearsay thou art made a father, and that wyth a man chylde, whyche sheweth in it selfe a meruelous towardnes, and euen to be lyke the parentes: and that if so be we maye by such markes and tokens pronosticate anye thyng, maye seeme to promise ...
— The Education of Children • Desiderius Erasmus
... that it may be a favorable one, for I am badly prepared to see my hopes blasted, and my affection for you spurned! My happiness, my dear Miss Goodwin—my happiness for life depends upon the result of this interview. I know—but I should not say so—for in this instance I must be guided by hearsay—well, I know from hearsay that your heart is kind and affectionate. Now I believe this; for who can look upon your face and doubt it? Believing this, then, how can you, when you know that the happiness of a man who loves ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... of Thomas Jefferson, without knowing anything about this vast domain beyond the Mississippi. The President himself was not much better informed about Louisiana. In a report to Congress he undertook to put together such information as he could cull from books of travel and pick up by hearsay. His credulity led him into some amazing statements. A thousand miles up the Missouri, he stated soberly, there was a salt mountain, one hundred and eighty miles long and forty-five miles in width, composed ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... nothing rots, of another on which nothing dies, of another on one-half of which devils alone reside, of wonderful monsters and animals, and of miracles the strangest ever wrought. He invents nothing. What he relates of Ireland he states to have found in books, or to have derived from hearsay. The following extract must therefore be taken as a specimen of Irish ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... is, my lady Elizabeth is put from that degree she was afore; and what degree she is at now, I know not but by hearsay. Therefore I know not how to order her, nor myself, nor none of hers that I have the rule of; that is, her women and her grooms. Beseeching you to be good lord to my lady and to all hers; and that she may have some rayment. For she hath ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... but very little about the house they dealt with except through advertisements, or from hearsay, and, therefore, the reputation of the business depended upon the goods sent and the treatment they received. The foundation of this business was well laid from the beginning. The principles inculcated were that a clear understanding must exist between the house and the customers—that ...
— How Department Stores Are Carried On • W. B. Phillips
... of this "duck-under" lies under water, it can only be described from hearsay. Here, so the blacks say, a solid wall of rock runs out into the river, incomplete, though, and complicated, rising and terminating before mid-stream into a large island, which, dividing the stream unequally, ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... me with thy case and tell me what hath befallen thee, that thy colour is changed and thy body wasted.' So he told him all that had passed and how he had heard from Aziz of the princess Dunya and had fallen in love with her on hearsay, without having set eyes on her. 'O my son,' said the King, 'she is the daughter of a king whose country is far distant from ours: so put away this thought from thee and go into thy mother's palace. There are five hundred ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... were corrected; his knowledge of GOD was deepened and increased; he had learned to know Him better than he could have done in any other way. He exclaimed that he had heard of Him previously, by the hearing of the ear, and knew GOD by hearsay only; but that now his eye saw Him, and that his acquaintance with GOD had become that which was the result of personal knowledge, and not of mere report. All his self-righteousness was gone: he abhorred himself in ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor
... by hearsay, though we had never met before; and I knew that he was of a nature to be pleased with his own prominence as coroner, especially in the case of so important a man as ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... published. The approximate date of these works is probably from about 400 B.C. to about 250 B.C., the first being the oldest and the third the latest of the seven. Before the publication of the texts, when they were known only by hearsay, the term Abhidhamma was usually rendered "Metaphysics.'' This is now seen to be quite erroneous. Dhamma means the doctrine, and Abhidhamma has a relation to Dhamma similar to that of by-law to law. It expands, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Squirt, and were forc'd to print, or to be tormented with the Cholick, or foul themselves; and so they exposed their Nakedness to the World, with all their Rhapsodies of dreaming Thoughts, borrowed Sense, and hearsay Learning. I was none of those High Dutch Inkshiters as somebody calls them; and instead of sending my Religion to the Press to make other Men frantick, I kept mine at home to keep my self Sober. As to the rest of your Objection, Sir, I must confess I did not talk much of Divinity, nor did ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... "exclusive" forms); what may be the general scheme of orientation, the so-called demonstrative categories ("this" and "that" in an endless procession of nuances);[76] how frequently the form expresses the source or nature of the speaker's knowledge (known by actual experience, by hearsay,[77] by inference); how the syntactic relations may be expressed in the noun (subjective and objective; agentive, instrumental, and person affected;[78] various types of "genitive" and indirect relations) and, correspondingly, in the verb (active and passive; active and static; transitive ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... Tragical Scene which was witnessed in Southampton County (Virginia) on Monday the 22nd of August last. New York, 1831. (This gives a table of victims and has the advantage of nearness to the event. This very nearness, however, has given credence to much hearsay and accounted for several ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... ken Michael: likes things proper, he does; And always had a weakness for black lambs. But, who'd have guessed he'd ... Surely, there's a strain Of Haggard in the young limb, after all: No Haggard stops to ask a parent's leave, Even should they happen to ken the old folk by sight: My own I knew by hearsay. But, what luck You're here to welcome the ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... flowers, and all things rare, That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems. O! let me, true in love, but truly write, And then believe me, my love is as fair As any mother's child, though not so bright As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air: Let them say more that like of hearsay well; I will not praise that purpose ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... the Amazons, to the River Paumaron, but never could find it. I was told by a man in the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly that this humming-bird is found in Mexico; but upon questioning him more about it his information seemed to have been acquired by hearsay; and so I concluded that it does not appear in Mexico. I suspect that it is never ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... is easy to hide amid the dense foliage of these trees, so my knowledge that he questioned them is not solely hearsay. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ascending the hill of life, death is not visible: it lies down at the bottom of the other side. But once we have crossed the top of the hill, death comes in view—death—which, until then, was known to us only by hearsay. This makes our spirits droop, for at the same time we begin to feel that our vital powers are on the ebb. A grave seriousness now takes the place of that early extravagance of spirit; and the change is noticeable even in the expression ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... tell me of any of the corporation's transactions? I know of them, of course, by hearsay, but I should be glad to ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... also puzzled the landlady, as she had no reasonable grounds for her wild statements. Nevertheless, she made a determined attempt to substantiate them by hearsay evidence. "Mr. Berwin," said she in significant tones, "lives all alone in ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... her sojourn in England had not taught her very much about actual Englishman, she had probably read Mackenzie, and knew that the "Man of Feeling" touch had to some extent affected us. She tried to combine the two, with divers hints of hearsay and a good deal of pure fancy, and the result was Oswald, Lord Nelvil. As with that other curious contemporary of hers with whom we deal in this chapter, the result was startlingly powerful in literature. There is no doubt that the Byronic hero, whose importance of a kind ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... who dares live at first, not merely at second hand—who dares attempt a real, and not merely a nominal assent—who dares deal with earthly existence, the amazing problems and complexities of it, immediately, refusing to accept—with indolent timidity—tradition, custom, hearsay, convenience, as his guides.—Oh! for some sure answering, some unimpeachable assurance, some revelation not relative and symbolic, but absolute, some declaration above all suspicion of cunningly-devised opportunism, concerning the dealings of the unknown force man ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... that very reason she has been so hard to kill. Nothing is so long-lived as a chimera, nothing so difficult to lay as a ghost. From her first appearance, or rather mention, in literature, Mrs. Grundy has been a mere hearsay, a bugaboo being invented to frighten society, as "black men" and other goblins have been wickedly invented by nurses to frighten children. In the old play itself where we first find her mentioned ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... child's playmates did, and the sign of it was there to see; for before the dawn on the day of the funeral they hung a little immortelle over the place where that child was used to sit under the tree. I know this to be true by my own eyes; it is not hearsay. And the reason it was known that the fairies did it was this—that it was made all of black flowers of a sort not known in ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... that knows not how honey tastes; but a man can not have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind. So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful and having a sense of his beauty. The former may be obtained by hearsay, but the latter only by seeing the countenance. There is a wide difference between mere speculative rational judging anything to be excellent, and having a sense of its sweetness and beauty. The former rests only in the head, speculation only is concerned in ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... myself on doubtful ground. What was said at the moment I know only by hearsay, for I was incapable of attending to anything for three months. There was an enormous amount of gossip and of talk; there were, I think, many hints and smiles; there were hundreds of people who knew the truth, but were careful not to submit ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... elder Doane he knew by hearsay—a proud, intolerant wholly worldly man whose passions, aside from finance, were his son and Baliol aquatics. And Jane Bostwick's father he had known as a boy—a soft-footed, sly-faced velvety sort of a man noted for converting back lots into oil-fields and ash-dumps into mines ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... responsible for her coming. We have been friends, Mr. de Vaux; and so far as I am concerned, our friendship has been very pleasant. But if there is any truth in what they said—well, you can guess the rest. I want you to tell me yourself; I am never content to accept hearsay evidence against my friends. I prefer to be unconventional, as you see. Please ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... founded at the Mermaid Tavern (so called, like other inns, from its sign). A well-known poetical letter of the dramatist Francis Beaumont to Jonson celebrates the club meetings; and equally well known is a description given in the next generation from hearsay and inference by the antiquary Thomas Fuller: 'Many were the wit-combats betwixt Shakspere and Ben Jonson, which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war: Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... I to go by? My brain. That is the only light I have from nature, and if there be a God, it is the only torch that this God has given me by which to find my way through the darkness and the night called life. I do not depend upon hearsay for that. I do not have to take the word of any other man, nor get upon my knees before a book. Here, in the temple of the mind, I go and consult the God—that is to say, my reason—and the oracle speaks to me, and I obey the oracle. ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... those first days of his career in the House, in debates where angels feared to tread, he did not hesitate to rush in, but this subject was one on which he spoke with knowledge. Over the older men who were forced to quote from hearsay or from what they had read, Churchill had the tremendous advantage of being able to protest: "You only read of that. I was ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... he not sworn to travel even to the never-opening ice? The lying charts, compiled in main from hearsay, were now constantly consulted. ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... Stephen Crane, which is out of counting the truest picture of the sort the world has seen. It seemed at first impossible to believe that it had been written by any but a veteran. It turns out that the author is quite a young man, and that he gathered everything by reading and by hearsay. Here again the method is national and characteristic. After all these years of natural submission to British influence American writers are growing ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... were few and feeble; and two years later Melchior Nunez, Provincial of the Jesuits in the Portuguese dominions, with all the means at his command, and a correspondence extending throughout Eastern Asia, had been able to hear of but three. These were entirely from hearsay. First, John Deyro said he knew that Xavier had the gift of prophecy; but, unfortunately, Xavier himself had reprimanded and cast off Deyro for untruthfulness and cheatery. Secondly, it was reported vaguely that at Cape Comorin many persons affirmed that Xavier had raised a ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... you a little Uncle Maurice instead,' said Aunt Jane. 'How things come round! Perhaps you would not believe, Gill, that Aunt Ada was once in a scrape, when she was our Mrs. Malaprop, for applying that same epithet on hearsay to Maurice.' ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... only a random shot, as she did not know Billings or any other town save by hearsay, but it made a bull's-eye. Susie knew it by the startled look which she surprised from him, and Smith could have throttled her as ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... lie about it: Cornelia had a natural if not a moral disinclination to falsehood, and was, moreover, acute enough to see how strong, in this case, would be the chances of detection. It was not likely that Sophie would accept upon hearsay any imputations or accusations against her lover: she would speak to Bressant at once; the lie would be revealed, and the result would be not only a failure to alienate Sophie from him, but a certainty of alienating ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... reason. I would give something to be sure on this point, one way or the other. Let us wait till the dance is over, and observe them more carefully. Horensagen ist halb gelogen! Hearsay ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... slipped out. The interview was conducted laboriously upon both sides in French, and this, together with the fact that he was optimistic, and that Terence respected the medical profession from hearsay, made him less critical than he would have been had he encountered the doctor in any other capacity. Unconsciously he took Rodriguez' side against Helen, who seemed to have taken an unreasonable prejudice ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... G. was a matter of hearsay, as Isabella saw her not after the trial; but she has no reason to doubt the truth of what she heard. Isabel could never learn the subsequent fate of Fowler, but heard, in the spring of '49, that his children had been seen in Kingston-one of whom was spoken of as a fine, interesting girl, ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... on the way, and the money was used to bury him. The lame boy was then three years old, but a few dark memories, no doubt retouched by hearsay, were retained by him of Mad Jack, who in his most sober moments never guessed that he would be known to the ages as the father of the greatest ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... action one of their own men was killed. Nevertheless they did not fail to send back the three Dutch prisoners, without doing them any harm, supposing that they belonged to our party, since they had no knowledge of us except by hearsay, never having seen a Christian; otherwise, they said, these three prisoners would not have got off so easily, and would not escape again should they surprise and take them. This nation is very warlike, as those of the nation of the Attigouautans maintain. They have ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... "Hearsay," the Captain said gruffly. "And that was in a declared war." And then he wondered just how valid the distinction was. There were, he supposed, sadists on both sides. And then it came down to who committed the first cruelty ...
— Decision • Frank M. Robinson
... know Knox by hearsay only, I believe the matter of this paper will be somewhat astonishing. For the hard energy of the man in all public matters has possessed the imagination of the world; he remains for posterity in certain traditional phrases, browbeating Queen Mary, or breaking beautiful carved ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... negroes were hanged, many were shot down in the thickets, others were torn in pieces by the lash of the cart-whip. Smith was arrested, although he had in fact done his best to stop the rising. Tried before a court in which every rule of evidence was tyrannically set aside, he was convicted on hearsay and condemned to death. Before the atrocious sentence could be commuted by the home authorities, the fiery heat and noisome vapours of his prison killed him. The death of the Demerara missionary, it has been truly said, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... While this volume has been in the press Sir G. Arthur's Life of Lord Kitchener has appeared, giving a different version of this story and probably the correct one. Walter Kitchener was speaking, I think, from hearsay.] ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... full of pitfalls, marked by the wreckage of old theories, yet we claim that the skeptic or the mystic can know of their existence only by traveling over the pathway himself; for in the world of the inner life nothing can be known by hearsay. If, then, he would really know that the road to theoretical insight into beauty is impassable, let him travel with us and see; or, if not with us, alone by himself or with some one wiser than we as guide; let him compare fairly and sympathetically ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... guide-books, I suppose; or from hearsay. Hamish seems to know everything. What a good ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... had not seen since his childhood, was merely understood to be carrying on a conspicuous, but in all probability the most innocent, flirtation in a Swiss hotel; and here was I, on mere second-hand hearsay, crossing half Europe to spoil his perfectly legitimate sport! I did not examine my project from the unknown lady's point of view; it made me quite hot enough to consider it from that of my own sex. Yet, the day before yesterday, I had more than acquiesced in the dubious plan. I had even volunteered ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... easy in mind now, though I did not anger him by showing it, "I am most sensitive to insults—insults to myself. But you are not insulting me. You are insulting a purely imaginary, hearsay person who is, I venture to assure you, utterly unlike me, and who doubtless ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... paper by Rhanus, on the Courland were-wolves, in the Breslauer Sammlung. [2] The author says,—"There are too many examples derived not merely from hearsay, but received on indisputable evidence, for us to dispute the fact, that Satan—if we do not deny that such a being exists, and that he has his work in the children of darkness—holds the Lycanthropists in his net in ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... carriage to speak to him, lady Ann changed her mind, and resolved to curry favour with the husband instead of the wife. For hitherto she had scarcely seen Mr. Wylder, and knew about him only by unfavourable hearsay; but she was charmed with him now, and drew from him a promise to go and ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... failure, the South took issue with Old and New England on the question of negro slavery being an evil, social, political, or moral, and called for the proof. No proof could be given except that drawn from England, from hearsay evidence, and from theoretical teaching of that system of education designed to support European despotisms, and to destroy American republicanism. This has opened the eyes of the South to the necessity ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... not speaking from hearsay. I was in France during the week preceding that battle, the most anxious and gloomy period, probably, of the entire war. What I am about to relate is based either on authoritative information gathered on the spot, ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... I can only speak from hearsay. The Press Correspondents were unable to follow His Royal Highness through the city. We were told that a car was to be placed at our disposal, as one had been elsewhere, and we were asked to wait our turn. Wait we certainly did, until the last junior attache had been served. By ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... his faith in heavenly things was so clear, deep, intense, and calm,—that the reader could hardly fail to feel that the earnestness of the preacher had its source in the experience of the man, and that his belief in the facts of the spiritual world came from insight, and not from hearsay. His biography confirms this impression. We now learn that he was tried in many ways, and built up a noble character through intense inward struggle with suffering and calamity,—a character sensitive, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... imply that managers are angels; for such a suggestion would beyond a doubt secure me a quiet summer at some strictly private sanitarium; but I do mean to say that, like the gentleman whom we all know by hearsay, but not by sight, they are not so black ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... which she must perforce live was a question of degree, not of kind. There was certainly some compelling magnetism about the man. But along with it went what she considered an almost brutal directness of speech and action. Part of this conclusion came from hearsay, part from observation, limited though her opportunities had been for the latter. Miss Stella Benton, for all her poise, was not above jumping at conclusions. There was something about Jack Fyfe that she resented. She irritably dismissed it as a foolish impression, but the fact remained that ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... permit hearsay evidence to save a man's life; with a fine distinction you permit it to save ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... wanted was a closer view of its tenement. And I tried—honestly tried—to make myself think I was in the latter case. Because, in the first place, I didn't, just then, want a big disturbing influence in my life; and because I didn't want to be a dupe; and because Paulina Trant was not, according to hearsay, the kind of woman for whom it was worth while to bring up ...
— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... soon Aldebaran began to taste the sweets of great achievement. His name was on the tongue of every troubador, his deeds in every minstrel's song. And though he travelled far to alien lands, scarce known by hearsay even to the folk at home, his fame was carried back, far over seas again, and in his father's court his name was spoken daily in proud tones, as ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... distinctly conceived. The objects of knowledge fall into certain groups or series; in each series there is some simple and dominant element which may be immediately apprehended, and in relation to which the subordinate elements become intelligible. Let us accept nothing on hearsay or authority; let us start with doubt in order to arrive at certitude; let us test the criterion of certitude to the uttermost. There is one fact which I cannot doubt, even in doubting all—I think, and if I think, I exist—"Je pense, donc je suis." No other evidence of this is ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... the fact that life in general, all round us, was perceptibly more theatrical. And there were other reasons, whether definitely set before us or not, which we grasped in proportion as we gathered, by depressing hearsay, that the French drama, great, strange and important, was as much out of relation to our time of life, our so little native strain and our cultivated innocence, as the American and English had been directly addressed to them. To the Cirque d'Ete, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... degree the faculty of observation. That is a rare gift of nature, like all eminent qualities. He possessed a sort of intuition which discerned the truth, apart from his own observations, and thus information given by him from hearsay has a value that seldom attaches to statements of that nature. His mind, early ripened by reflection and study (he was but in his thirty-third year at the time of his death), invariably went straight to the point. His narrative, always sober, is ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... this species was regarded as so nearly extinct that a doubting ornithological club of Boston refused to believe on hearsay evidence that the New York Zoological Park contained a pair of living birds, and a committee was appointed, to investigate in person, and report. Even at that time, skins were worth all the way from $100 to ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... rough is the earth below. But if thou wilt I shall swear the great oath by my father's head, that neither I myself am to blame, nor have I seen any other thief of thy kine: be kine what they may, for I know but by hearsay." ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... better. Imperturbable LORD CHANCELLOR assured House that the military and civil authorities in Scotland were cognisant of rumours reported by noble Lord. Every case that seemed to warrant investigation had been looked into. Was found that many were based on hearsay. Impossible to find ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... one of Nelson's field men brought into the bank a youth who owned some property in the latter state. This yokel was a sick man; he was thin and white; he had a racking cough, and he knew nothing about oil except from hearsay. All he knew was that he would die if he didn't get to a warmer, drier climate; but the story he told caused Henry Nelson to stare queerly at his field man. That very night ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... "splendidly," the author says in one line.[280] A Hindoo lover always has twitching of the right or left arm or eye to indicate what kind of luck he is going to have; and she is equally favored. Usually the love is mutual and at first sight—nay, preferably before first sight. The mere hearsay that a certain man or maiden is very beautiful suffices, as we saw in the story of Nala and Damayanti, to banish sleep and appetite, and to make the lover pale and wan and most wretched. Sakuntala's royal lover wastes away so rapidly that in a few days his bracelet ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... I know the doctor by hearsay. A great scientist. He has a lovely daughter"—bowing deeply to June as he let his beady eyes wander over her face and figure. "Perhaps we can join forces, although I must admit I have abandoned hope. It is God's will." He rolled ...
— The End of Time • Wallace West
... arrive in a totally different world, in many worlds, all with a proper space, all with the same evidence of real existence, all full of life, full of sensations, fall of beauties and transports - this became for me a matter of simple experience. And no one only knowing it from hearsay can realize how different and how much more profound is the effect ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... 215. Coryat reports on hearsay (1608) that women had already appeared at that date on the English stage; but he is careful to note that he had never personally witnessed this extraordinary phenomenon; and he adds that he was greatly astonished to see in Italy women perform their parts in a play "with as good ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... that from your own personal knowledge, or merely from hearsay?-A little from my own personal knowledge. I know the way in which the men deal with regard to getting their outfit ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... flourishes—partly perhaps because of them—the A.D.C.'s handwriting, though handsome, was rather illegible. But for all this, most of the children invited contrived to read these words, and those who could not do so were not slow to learn the news by hearsay. There was to be a Christmas Tree! It would be like a birthday party, with this above ordinary birthdays, that there were to be presents for every one. One of the children invited lived in a little white house, with ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... some gambling, others singing or disputing, and all drinking and smoking. It is only right to say that Miles was shocked. Hitherto he had lived a quiet and comparatively innocent country life. He knew of such places chiefly from books or hearsay, or had gathered merely the superficial knowledge that comes through the opening of a swing-door. For the first time in his life he stood inside a low drinking-shop, breathing its polluted atmosphere and listening to its foul language. His first impulse was to retreat, ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... nothing of my affairs except from hearsay, Edward. I was once intimate with the man; but he served me a shabby trick, and that ended the friendship. ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... then. We would walk for hours together, walk in complete silence and understanding. My strength seemed to be returning more day by day. We went far afield in search of material for her thesis. She would track down the most minute speck of hearsay, ...
— Each Man Kills • Victoria Glad
... New England agents stopped at Flushing, Stamford and New Haven, to collect all the evidence they could against Governor Stuyvesant. The hearsay stories of the Indians they carefully picked up. Still the only point ascertained, of any moment was, that Governor Stuyvesant had told an Englishman, one Robert Coe, that if the English attacked him, he should ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... that would be," said the defaulter coldly; and he began very cautiously to ask Pinney the precise effect of his letter as Pinney had gathered it from print and hearsay. It was not in Pinney's nature to give any but a rose-colored and illusory report of this; but he felt that Northwick was sizing him up while he listened, and knew just when and how much he was lying. This heightened Pinney's respect for him, and apparently his divination of ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... speaker more particularly. It was not long before he realized that all this high praise was hearsay and that not a single man in Natera's army had ever laid eyes ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... churchyards strayed, and gazed on the crosses and tombstones, Sat by some nameless grave, and thought that perhaps in its bosom He was already at rest, and she longed to slumber beside him. Sometimes a rumor, a hearsay, an inarticulate whisper, Came with its airy hand to point and beckon her forward. Sometimes she spake with those who had seen her beloved and known him, But it was long ago, in some far-off place or forgotten. "Gabriel Lajeunesse!" they said; "yes! we have seen him. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... truthful and credible witnesses;" but we must add that the greater part of the kingdoms and towns spoken of by Marco Polo he certainly did visit. We will follow the route he describes, simply pointing out what the traveller learnt by hearsay, during the important missions with which he was charged by Kublai-Khan. During this second journey the travellers did not follow exactly the same road as on the first occasion of their visit to the Emperor of China. They had lengthened their route by passing to the north ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... argue, their very existence, as a people, would have ceased. They must go on believing, or all reality vanishes from their minds, accustomed for so many ages to take in that solid knowledge founded, it is true, on hearsay; but how else can truth reach us save by hearsay? Hence, their simple and artless acquiescence in any thing they hear from trustworthy lips - acquiescence ever refused to a known enemy, never to a well-tried friend, even when ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... struggle began. Dick knew well enough, from hearsay, the method of "breaking down" a wild horse. He knew that the Indians choke them with the noose round the neck until they fall down exhausted and covered with foam, when they creep up, fix the hobbles, and the line in the lower jaw, and then loosen the lasso to let the horse breathe, ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... origin of certain deeds, of certain heroic expressions, which are born one knows not how; you will see them leap out ready-made from hearsay and the murmurs of the crowd, without having in themselves more than a shadow of truth, and, nevertheless, they will remain historical forever. As if by way of pleasantry, and to put a joke upon posterity, ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... many continually of other men, which unless we should believe, we should do nothing at all in this life; lastly, with how unshaken an assurance I believed of what parents I was born, which I could not know, had I not believed upon hearsay -considering all this, Thou didst persuade me, that not they who believed Thy Books (which Thou hast established in so great authority among almost all nations), but they who believed them not, were to be blamed; ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... envyingly at Fred's excited, triumphant face. How satisfactory it must be, he thought, to really know what she was doing and not to have to take it on hearsay. He took up his glass with a sigh. "I seem to need a good deal of cooling off to-night. I'd just as lief forget the Reform ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... his post, it is said, on the grounds that he could not treat British officers like common criminals, as he was supposed to. I think this is highly probable, though I cannot vouch for the truth of the assertion, it being only hearsay. He was replaced by a fat and rather harmless dug-out captain, who proved to be only a pompous figurehead. The camp was entirely run by the second in command, Lieutenant Wolfe. In England persons of this type are ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... people who sit at the same hearth with me, or in the clergyman of my own parish, who is perhaps rather too corpulent and in other respects is not an Oberlin or a Tillotson, than at the deeds of heroes whom I shall never know except by hearsay, or at the sublimest abstract of all clerical graces that was ever ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... with the horrid crimes of the Sink or Swim (as the doctor said with a wry face): for Docks would be but a poor witness in a court of law at St. Johns' knowing nothing of his own knowledge, but only by hearsay; and the bones of Skipper Jim already lay stripped and white in the waters of the Harbourless Shore. But, meantime, the doctor kept watch for opportunity to send frank warning to the man of Wayfarer's Tickle; and, soon, chance offered by way of ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... that she shouldn't betray herself. I reasoned, save the mark, as a psychologist. I had no doubt that the man knew of her being there; but he only knew it by hearsay. And that was bad enough. I could not help feeling that if he obtained some evidence for his senses by any sort of noise, voice, or movement, his madness would gain strength enough to burst the lock. I was rather ridiculously worried about the locks. A horrid ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... foolhardy people. Of these, and of extraordinary escapes from death with which they are associated, many anecdotes are told in mining districts, which would appear to the reader exaggerated, or positively untrue, if I related them on mere hearsay evidence. There was, however, one instance of a fall down the shaft of a mine, unattended with fatal consequences, which occurred while I was in Cornwall; and which I may safely adduce, for I can state some of the facts connected with the affair as an eyewitness. I attended an examination ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... would establish the case. But depositions are written upon paper, and hearsay evidence is not admitted. Nobody could prove it, if I did not wish it to ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... exacting money, as has been set forth in the preceding narrative. And his purpose was to lead the army straight for Palestine, in order that he might plunder all their treasures and especially those in Jerusalem. For he had it from hearsay that this was an especially goodly land and peopled by wealthy inhabitants. And all the Romans, both officers and soldiers, were far from entertaining any thought of confronting the enemy or of standing ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... some hearsay about the pressure in the bake-houses and the accidents to the van-men, who worked on a speeding-up system that Sir Isaac had adopted from an American business specialist, Susan's mental discharge poured ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... the strongest testimony to the power of the mores. In general, the cases show that if men are hungry enough, or angry enough, they may return to cannibalism now. Our horror of cannibalism is due to a long and broad tradition, broken only by hearsay of some far-distant and extremely savage people who now practice it. Probably the popular opinion about it is that it is wicked. It is not forbidden by the rules of any religion, because it had been thrown out of the mores before ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... the keepers of the building could not be got to show them, since they contained, as they said, the sepulchres of the kings who built the labyrinth, and also those of the sacred crocodiles; thus it is from hearsay only that I can speak of the lower chambers. The upper chambers, however, I saw with my own eyes, and found them to excel all other human productions. The passage through the houses, and the various windings of the path across ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... sharply interposed Scrope. "Gentlemen, you go too fast, Except by hearsay. That, Mr. Wyley, was the phrase, I think. By what spells, Major," he asked with irony, "will you bind Tangier to silence when there's scandal to be talked? Let Knightley walk down to the water-gate to-morrow; I'll warrant ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... moderate extent; and at dusk they will be landed at the Broomielaw again. We lament to say that very many Scotch people of the working class seem incapable of enjoying a holiday without getting drunk and uproarious. We do not speak from hearsay, but from what we have ourselves seen. Once or twice we found ourselves on board a steamer crowded with a most disagreeable mob of intoxicated persons, among whom, we grieve to say, we saw many women. The authorities ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... man had only a sailor's vague knowledge of the procedure of courts of law; but that knowledge and considerable hearsay had convinced him that law ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... mile around and visited at intervals by the wolves, was to them the hub of the universe. But for a few surrounding villages, whither the calves were driven on fair days, the rest was only very vaguely known by hearsay. In this wild solitude, the mossy fens, with their quagmires oozing with iridescent pools, supplied the cows, the principal source of wealth, with rich, wet grass. In summer, on the short swards of the slopes, the sheep were penned day and night, protected ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... affected. The efforts of employers to prevent the formation of unions led to lockouts and strikes during which there was considerable disorder and some bloodshed. Communities which had known of such disputes only from hearsay stood amazed. The workers generally gained recognition of their right to organize, and their success may mean greater industrial ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... I must give you mainly from hearsay. You must understand by this time what Mr. L'Hommedieu's scheme was in moving thus suddenly. He knew that it would be impossible for him, by the most minute and continuous watchfulness, to prevent his wife from recovering the bond while they continued to inhabit the rooms in which, ...
— The Gray Madam - 1899 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... matter," said the Colonel, "I insisted upon it; the man seemed to know nothing but from mere hearsay. He knew nothing about William Hope, the witness, so I told him he must bring the woman; and, to be just to the man, he seemed to think so too, and that she ought to do ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... endowments might not be spared for such a purpose; to contemplate, calmly, the necessity of beginning at the beginning; to consider for themselves where the Christian Religion most needs and most suggests immediate help and illustration; and not to decide on any theory or hearsay, but to go themselves into the Prisons and the Ragged Schools, and form their own conclusions. They will be shocked, pained, and repelled, by much that they learn there; but nothing they can learn will be one- thousandth ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... to think of it, he had more than once been aware of a studied coolness in the master's manner, of a rather ostentatious indifference to the quality of the work he brought to the class: and this he knew by hearsay to be Schwarz's attitude towards those of his pupils in whom his interest was waning. If he, Maurice, wished to regain his place in the little Pasha's favour, he must work like a coal-heaver. But the fact was, the strenuous industry to which he now condemned himself, was something of ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... in a copy of Sir Francis Head's Fortnight in Ireland, at the hotel in Gweedore. The author of the Bubbles from the Brunnen published this book in 1852. At page 152 he tells a story, apparently on hearsay, of "boycotting" long before Boycott. It is to the effect that, in order to check the proselyting of Catholics by a combination of Protestant missionary zeal with Protestant donations of "meal," certain priests and sisters in the south of ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... sons be as young as twelve or fourteen years of age?-They begin about fourteen to go to the fishing, as well as to go to the beach. It appears to me that Mr. Hamilton's report has been rounded very much on hearsay, and on opinions which he had formed when ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... explain what riotous living is. I only know, from hearsay, that it is an excellent way to get rid of money. And so this spendthrift king ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... the pre-engaged servant of the long purse; and the story is left to be told, for the first time, in this place. As the Judge might once have heard it, so the Reader shall hear it now. No circumstance of importance, from the beginning to the end of the disclosure, shall be related on hearsay evidence. When the writer of these introductory lines (Walter Hartright by name) happens to be more closely connected than others with the incidents to be recorded, he will describe them in his own person. ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... value of hearsay evidence or tradition deteriorates, and generally the cogency of any argument based upon the combination of approximate generalisations dependent on one another or "self-infirmative." If there are two witnesses, ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... in which to be interested. She had spent a glorious half-term holiday with her family in their flat at Naples, and was delighted to describe every detail of her experiences. She chatted about her relations till Lorna knew Mr. and Mrs. Beverley and Vincent absolutely well by hearsay, though she had never met them in the flesh. The accounts of their doings gave her a peep of home life such as she ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... Covent Garden are quite full on my sister's nights, but deplorably empty on the others, I believe. I speak from hearsay, for I have not been into the theatre since the terrible business of the late break-up there, and do not think I shall even see her last performances, for I have no means of doing so; I can no longer ask for private boxes, as during my father's ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... hardly thought of Sattell. He knew he had plenty of time for that. He'd started to follow Sattell knowing what had happened to his wife and children, but it was hearsay only. He had no memory of them at all. But Sattell stirred the lost memories. At first Pop followed absorbedly from city to city, to recover the years that had been wiped out by an axe-blow. He did recover a good ...
— Scrimshaw • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... us not contend. For Nemo doth the ladies prisoners keep, Though they were slandered late with liberty, And marriage to three far-born foreigners. Then, first it fits we practise their release, And see them, and by sight our liking please;[232] For yet we love, as gossips tell their tales, By hearsay: fame, not favour, hath ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... according to the Mosaic law (V. 61), but he mentions them only once, and otherwise takes no notice of them in his delineation of, and attack on, Christianity. We may perhaps infer that he knew of them only from hearsay, for he simply enumerates them along with the numerous Gnostic sects. Had this keen observer really known them he would hardly have passed them over, even though he had met with only a small number of them.[420] Irenaeus placed the Ebionites among the heretical schools,[421] ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... see it, there's no desperate hurry. Norwood will need time to gather evidence; I'll need specific facts, not hearsay, to ram down Gungadhura's throat. I'll send a wire to the high commissioner and another to Simla, embodying what we recommend, and—what do you say to sending for ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... about the place from hearsay," he said in a guttural whisper. "It's supposed to be haunted. I've heard more than one of these jays,—big huskies too,—say they wouldn't go near the place after dark for all ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon |
