"Tattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not of the serenest, and her manners perhaps were not such as would have honored him had she followed him into the great world; but she made him a good wife,—and we need not repeat the tattle which we are told is still current among some of the high families of Philadelphia. They had two children,—a son, the idol of his father's heart, who died as a child; and a daughter, who married Richard Bache, and is the ancestress of a ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... truly represented, as it is not, in the swarms of so-called fashionable novels, gleaned from the sloppy conversation of footmen's ordinaries, or the retail tittle-tattle of lady's-maids in waiting at the registry-offices, how little is it to the credit of the mass of the reading public that they peruse such stuff; or would it be perused at all, but for that vulgar love, so prevalent about town, of imitation of the Lady Fannys and Lady Mary Dollymops, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... petty intrigue in some quarter. This O'Reilly, who has gradually insinuated himself into the King's confidence, and by constantly attending him at Windsor, and bringing him all the gossip and tittle-tattle of the neighbourhood (being on the alert to pick up and retail all he can for the King's amusement), has made himself necessary, and is not now to be shaken off, to the great annoyance of Knighton, who cannot bear him, as well as of all the other people about the King, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... writings of Wordsworth,' he goes on to say, 'did much towards calming the confusing whirl necessarily incident to sudden mutations. I wept over them tears of happiness and gratitude.' He accordingly left the army, with its rough barrack-life and coarse mess-room tittle- tattle, and returned to Linden House, full of this new-born enthusiasm for culture. A severe illness, in which, to use his own words, he was 'broken like a vessel of clay,' prostrated him for a time. His delicately strung organisation, however indifferent it might have ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... a teasin', mis-che-vious chil' an' de overseer's little gal got it in for me. He was a big, hard fisted Dutchman bent on gittin' riches. He trained his pasty-faced gal to tattle on us Niggers. She got a heap o' folks whipped. I knowed it, but I was hasty: One day she hit me wid a stick an' I th'owed it back at her. 'Bout dat time up walked her pa. He seen what I done, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... divorce. They commanded Verschoyle—by suggestion—to marry a Mrs Slesinger, who was plain but almost as rich as himself, and in his distress he very nearly succumbed; but Clara swooped in to save him, and found that her position was made almost impossible by whispered tittle-tattle, cold looks, and downright rudeness. She was distinctly left out of picnic and boating parties, and almost in contempt she was partnered with Sir Henry who, after Lady Bracebridge's arrival, was no longer master in his own house.... When the Cabinet Ministers arrived ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... headquarters. Never mind what anybody else thinks of you. Your business is to please Christ, and the less you trouble yourselves about pleasing men the more you will succeed in doing it. Be deaf to the tittle tattle of your fellow soldiers in the ranks. It is your Commander's smile that will be your ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... great questions of life, and wait serenely and vigilantly for a response, one, two, ten years, a lifetime, wellnigh an eternity, if need be, not falling into despondencies and despairing skepticisms because the universe forbears to babble and tattle its secret ere yet he half or a thousandth part guesses how deep and holy that secret is, but quietly, heroically asking and waiting. And toward this posture of asking the profound and vital words assist us by being heard,—which is their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... poultry-roasting establishment in the Rue Saint-Jacques, at which time he became acquainted with Florent and Quenu. In 1856 he retired from this business, and to amuse himself took a stall in the poultry-market. "Thenceforth he lived amidst ceaseless tittle-tattle, acquainted with every little scandal in the neighbourhood." Gavard was a leading spirit in the revolutionary circle which met in Lebigre's wine-shop, and was the means of bringing Florent to attend the meetings there. He was arrested at the same time as Florent ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... According to the tattle of Aubrey the antiquary, publishing in 1680, an opinion concerning Shakspere's education reached him. It came thus; there had been an actor in Shakspere's company, one Phillips, who, dying in 1605, left to Shakspere the usual thirty-shilling piece of gold; and the same "to my servant, Christopher ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... so, for other people's business Wise men and women oft forsake their own, Which may perhaps account for their remissness, A tittle-tattle's never seen alone; And by the time the idle tale has flown From mouth to mouth, the truth in some disguise, A trifling circumstance we find has grown A crime of most unpardonable size, And thunder-struck believers ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... Troezenian, but one of the exiles from Athens," volunteered Dion, who kept all the tittle-tattle of the little city in stock along ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... knot of associates and scandal-bearers—elderly roues and ladies of the world, whose business it was to know all sorts of noble intrigues and exalted tittle-tattle; what was happening among the devotees of the exiled court at Frobsdorf; what among the citizen princes of the Tuileries; who was the reigning favourite of the Queen Mother at Aranjuez; who was smitten with whom at Vienna or Naples; ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Carcage, a carcass. Carena, care not. Carline, an old woman, a witch. Cast, chance, opportunity, fate. "Cast o' a cart," chance use of a cart. Certie! conscience! Change-house, a small inn or alehouse. Chield, a fellow. Chimley, a chimney. Claes, clothes. Clatter, tattle. "Clinked down," quartered. "Cock laird," a small land holder who cultivates his estate himself. Copleen, to complain. Coup, to barter; also, to turn over. Crap, the produce of the ground. Crowdy, meal and ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... was always intently interested in music; and she had more than once expressed in Brand's hearing her opinion of the conduct of the ladies and gentlemen who make an opera, or a concert, or a play a mere adjunct to their own foolish laughter and tittle-tattle. She recognized the serious aims of a great artist; she listened with deep attention and respect; she could talk idly elsewhere and at other times. And so there was scarcely a word said—except of involuntary admiration—as the opera ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... occasions, she told herself that she had done with Maurice Guest; and this decision was the more easy as, since the beginning of the year, she had moved almost entirely in German circles. But now the distasteful tattle was thrust under her very nose. It seemed to put things in a different light to hear Maurice pitied and discussed in this very room. In listening to her visitor, she had felt once more how strong her right of possession ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... took snuff?" A few more years, When we are dead and famous—eh? Will they record our pipes and beers, And if we smoked cigars or clay? Or will the world cry "Quantum suff" To tattle such as ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... always most graciously kind and charming whenever they met. But that was just her natural self. She was charming and gracious to everyone—even to Charles Pixley, the while he swamped her with inane tittle-tattle, and higher proof of grace than that it would ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... hath the skill and confidence (O heavens! how mean a skill! how mad a confidence!) to lard every sentence with an oath or a curse, making bold at every turn to salute his Maker, or to summon Him in attestation of his tattle; not to say calling and challenging the Almighty to damn and destroy him? Such a conceit, I say, too many have of swearing, because a custom thereof, together with divers other fond and base qualities, hath prevailed among some people, bearing the ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... an order to support Davoust. This order has never been produced, and it finds no place in the latest and fullest collection of French official despatches, which, however, contains some that fully exonerate Bernadotte.[111] Unfortunately for Bernadotte's fame, the tattle of memoir writers is more attractive and gains more currency than ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... glance of contemptuous amusement upon him. "Some chance! And I warn you that if you attempt to tattle anything about it I will turn, the tables against you in a ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... enjoying the consternation of his companions. "It is, as you say, a long while since. But it's singular how that sort of thing is remembered. One would think people had something else to do than talk of one's private affairs for ever. For my part, I despise such tattle. But there are persons in the neighborhood who still say it was an awkward business. Amongst others, I've heard that this very Luke Bradley talks in ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... killing and slaying down four flights of stairs—to do something very terrible in fact—something deadly and horrible and final that would put an end forever to this melancholy haunt of Tuesday stews and ghoulish boarders with the torturing tattle of their everlasting tongues. I shocked the Little Woman daily with words and phrases, used heretofore only under very trying conditions, that had insensibly become the ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... lively blade, thou art a frank fellow of thy tattle," said Desborough. "There is my secretary Tomkins, whom men sillily enough call Fibbet, and the honourable Lieutenant-General Harrison's secretary Bibbet, who are now at supper below stairs, that durst not for their ears speak a phrase above ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... should be more imitators; and secondly because you are one of those gentlemen of the chamber who have not considered themselves offended by the new decree concerning the ranks allotted to courtiers, which is causing so much gossip and tittle-tattle." ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... indifference to me that this advance was carelessly received, since it satisfied my conscience and her who stirred its depths—nor did my cheek flush at the derisive taunt that followed me from the room after this obligation to self was discharged—"Now tattle again, little prophetess," for thus she often alluded to my Hebrew name and its signification, "and produce my squirrel, or look well to your ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... 25th of September, nearly a week after the tattle of Newbury, all the members of Parliament still remaining in London assembled in St. Margaret's Church, and signed the Solemn League and Covenant; but even at this moment of enthusiasm the parties were not true to each other. The Scotch expected that Presbyterianism would be introduced ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... without ever being converted to the church. And there you see them, the fat, duty-doing, self-satisfied "firsts" in this world, who shall be last and least in the world to come. Those least inclined to tattle about their neighbors, I found, were poor, pathetic sinners with damaged reputations, who could not afford to talk about others. They belonged humbly to the church, but never figured loudly in it. And if God is God, as I do firmly believe ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... been very young; Virtuous she was—and had been, I believe; Although the world has such an evil tongue That—but my chaster ear will not receive An echo of a syllable that 's wrong: In fact, there 's nothing makes me so much grieve, As that abominable tittle-tattle, Which is the ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... come. Amidst these equivocations and contradictions thought is blunted, and the sinews of the intellect are unstrung. The public, bewitched by talent and captivated by success, is deluged with writings which have the same effect as the talk of a frivolous man, or the showy tattle of a woman of the world. They give an agreeable exercise to the mind, without ever allowing it to form either a precise idea or ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... with internal unlikeness; not rhyming, but strongly alliterative, and in every case with a change of the interior vowel from a weak into a strong, generally from i into a or o; as 'shilly-shally', 'mingle-mangle', 'tittle-tattle', 'prittle-prattle', 'riff-raff', 'see-saw', 'slip-slop'. No one who is not quite out of love with the homelier yet more vigorous portions of the language, but will acknowledge the life and strength which ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... time when the Quartier Latin was distracted by Liberalism, such conduct was sure to rouse in opposition a host of petty passions, of feelings whose folly is only to be measured by their meanness, the outcome of porters' gossip and malevolent tattle from door to door, all unknown to M. d'Espard and his retainers. His man-servant was stigmatized as a Jesuit, his cook as a sly fox; the nurse was in collusion with Madame Jeanrenaud to rob the madman. The madman was the Marquis. By degrees the other tenants came to regard as proofs of madness ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... declared the man over his shoulder, a contemptuous sneer curling his lips. "I confess my own wrong-doing but I do not tattle the sins of other people. Your father will never be the wiser about you so far as I am concerned. Whatever you want him to know you will have ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... the late Miss Anna Seward, that a friendly intimacy was cultivated between that clever literateur and the recluses of Plas Newydd; and it would seem from her correspondence, that their tastes were very comprehensive and multifarious; poetry and politics, music and mystery, tragedy and tattle, being alike acceptable. In a letter addressed to Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby, under date Lichfield, October 4, 1802, ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... unwearied zeal, promoted her interest. The reader cannot expect that we should swell this volume by a minute relation of all the incidents which happened to her, while she continued a poetical mendicant. She has not, without pride, related all the little tattle which passed between her and persons of distinction, who, through the abundance of their idleness, thought proper to trifle ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... that they had ever harbored unjust thoughts of her, she took their proffered friendship at its face value. It was quite gratifying to know that many of them envied her. She learned from various sources that Bill's fortune loomed big, had grown by some mysterious process of Granville tattle, until it had reached the charmed six ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... his enemies made this an additional subject of annoyance, and there were not wanting those who had the amazing bad taste to repeat to him some of their speeches. There are some who seem to think that a man must rather enjoy hearing all the low tittle-tattle of ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... "please don't say any more. I know all that your life has been, and why. You did quite right. What is a little trouble to me, a little passing inconvenience, the tattle of a few idle tongues, compared with what Jack's life is to you? I see now that I ought to have opposed it strongly instead of letting it take its course. You were right—you always have been right, John. There is a sort of consolation in the thought. I like it. I like to think that you ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... sure that the sooner Helen and he were removed from their present environment the happier they would be. He hoped most fervently that the course of events might be made smooth for their departure. He cared not a jot for the tittle-tattle of the hotel. Let him but see Helen re-established in London, and it would not be his fault if they did not set forth on their honeymoon before the ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... see Aunt Beulah, and I say, not so often as Uncle Jimmie does. Then she says does he go to see Aunt Margaret, and I say that he goes to see Uncle Peter the most. Well, if he doesn't he almost does. You can't tell Mrs. Madam Bolling that you won't tattle, because she would ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... keep her mind on the level of Parisian brilliancy, Madame de la Baudraye allowed no vacuous small talk in her presence, no old-fashioned compliments, no pointless remarks; she would never endure the yelping of tittle-tattle, the backstairs slander which forms the staple of talk in the country. She liked to hear of discoveries in science or art, or the latest pieces at the theatres, the newest poems, and by airing the cant words of the day she made a show of ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... home alongside of 'im talking. He was surprised to find that Bob hadn't 'eard anything of the gold watch 'e was offering, but Bob said he was a busy, 'ard-working man and didn't 'ave no time to go to hear speeches or listen to tittle-tattle. ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... his, Latouche—soon to become an enemy—helped him to liven up the walls of his study with the famous blue calico that had adorned his room over the printing office. Certain busybodies spread the report that he was furnishing his new apartment extravagantly; and Laure, to whose ear the tattle had come, ventured to allude to it in a letter reproaching him with remissness in writing home and to her. The accusation of extravagance, which later he really merited, was at this moment a trifle previous, money being scarce and credit also. "Stamps and omnibus ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... eighteen—the age when a boy really begins his training—their education is completed, they are told; and they are turned into the world to devote their time and talents to trimmings, novels, and idle tittle-tattle. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... disguised in sugar of milk to conceal their taste and appearance; the world of letters, in the same way, triturates the most disgusting things to get them swallowed without raising your gorge. There is an incessant manipulation of neighbours' gossip and play-box tittle-tattle, all wrapped up in perfidious good taste to ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... others, with an Eye of Indulgence. Every one was surpriz'd to find, that notwithstanding he had such a Fund of Wit, he never insulted; nay, never so much as rallied any of his Companions, for that Tittle Tattle, which was so vague and empty, so noisy and confus'd; for those rash Reflections, those illiterate Conclusions, and those insipid Jokes; and, in short, for that Flow of unmeaning Words, which was call'd polite Conversation in Babylon. He had learned from the ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... appeals to their sympathies, renders the good people of the republic peculiarly liable to impositions of this nature; and the mother who encourages those of her children who fetch and carry, will be certain to have her ears filled with complaints and tattle. Nevertheless, it is a fact beyond all dispute, that the commerce of the country was terribly depredated on by nearly all the European belligerents, between the commencement of the war of the French revolution and its close. So enormous ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... right, you may come near though I am rich and eligible"—and that arranging and rearranging of seats, that shameless match-making and that eternal tittle-tattle and pretence; those rules—with whom to shake hands, to whom only to nod, with whom to converse (and all this done deliberately with a conviction of its inevitability), that continual ennui in the blood passing on from generation to generation. Try to understand or believe just this ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... people there, and they all appeared to know about him, and all that concerned or belonged to him. It was the old London world over again, in little! the same tittle-tattle about well-known people, and nothing else—as if nothing else existed; a genial, easy-going, good-natured world, that he had so often found charming for a time, but in which he was never quite happy and had no proper ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... everyday gossip has usually the keenness and eagerness of the tattle of small villages, preserves at times, upon certain serious subjects, a silence which might be believed to be generous. Whether it is from ignorance or from respect, at all events it has little to say. There are vague suspicions of the truth, surmises are made, but nothing is affirmed; ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... contains inscribed on it the whole history of the wood-chopper and of the world. On this scrap of paper, which held his sugar or salt, perchance, or was the wadding of his gun, sitting on a log in the forest, with what interest we read the tattle of cities, of those larger huts, empty and to let, like this, in High Streets and Broadways. The eaves are dripping on the south side of this simple roof, while the titmouse lisps in the pine, and the genial warmth of the sun around the door is ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... how she's too orrystocratic to mind wulgar people's tattle, And looks upon some people as ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... the dastardly spirit which hungers for mischief-making without punishment, in vogue? The fellows who like to borrow money but not pay it back, are surely such as these students here after they are graduated. What did these fellows come to this middle school for, anyway? They enter a school, tattle round lies, play silly jokes behind some one by sneaking and cheating and get wrongly swell-headed when they finish the school thinking they have received an education. A common lot of jackasses ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... reception of evidence was peculiar. Knowing that there was no Court of Criminal Appeal, he set the rules of procedure at defiance. Any tittle-tattle was admitted, and postmen and servants were allowed to swear as to the directions on unproduced documents alleged to have been addressed to me. When, several weeks later, I was tried a third time in the Court ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... in thy foolish hands, and threwest away to go and seek in vain in sepulchers, mummy pits, and old bookshops of Asia Minor, Egypt, and England. It was the deep to-day which all men scorn; the rich poverty, which men hate; the populous, all-loving solitude, which men quit for the tattle of towns. He lurks, he hides,—he who is success, reality, joy, and power. One of the illusions is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... a rainy night, as this is, When rarely and more rare the coaches rattle From street to street, to sip thy fragrant kisses; While from the Strand remote some drunken battle Far-faintly echoes, and the kettle hisses Upon the glowing hob. No tittle-tattle To make a single thought of mine an alien From thee, my coffee-pot, my ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Not in the least, it will give the Old Lady a Complexion, She wants it, besides I was Indebted to her, for a full length She gave of me the other Day, to a Country Gentlewoman at Lady Tattle-Tongues ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... fared sumptuously on a plate of beef, some bread and butter, and a pint mug of coffee. As he was eating a paper-boy came in and laid an Echo on the table at which he was sitting. He took it up mechanically, and ran his eye carelessly over the columns. He was in no humour to be interested by the tattle of an evening paper, but in a paragraph under the heading of Foreign News a once familiar name caught his eye, and he read the paragraph through. It ran ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... that it is true!" she exclaimed. "What right have you to say such a thing, as if you knew Merton so well, and had weighed him in an infallible balance and found him wanting! I have heard nothing but malicious tittle-tattle, a falsehood beneath contempt, set afloat by some enemy of Merton's. If I could have thought it true for one moment I should never cease to despise myself. Have you forgotten how you blazed out against me for speaking my mind about ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... so easy to get rid of him as it had been to drive his colleagues from office. His abilities the most intolerant Tories were forced grudgingly to acknowledge. His integrity might be questioned in nameless libels and in coffeehouse tattle, but was certain to come forth bright and pure from the most severe Parliamentary investigation. Nor was he guilty of those faults of temper and of manner to which, more than to any grave delinquency, the unpopularity of his associates is to be ascribed. He had as little of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... my reader, must be your writer, and let me know if such tittle-tattle as I can collect serves to divert some of those many moments of languor and weariness that creep between pain and ease, and that call more for mental food than for bodily medicine. Your love to your Fannikin, I well know, makes all trash interesting to you that seems to concern ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... by his tattle has made the Marquise my mortal foe, I gained his good offices, and those of the Public Prosecutor, and Comte Octave de Bauvan; for Madame de Serizy told them the danger in which I stood in consequence of their ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... (he now took care to leave for home betimes), or with his sister going about the shops. It would be but a bow in the bye-going, she passing on with equanimity and I with a maddening sense of awkwardness, that was not much bettered by the tattle of the plainstanes, where merchant lads and others made audible comment on the ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... essentials to happiness, felt no weakness, no lack of self-reliance, now that she was in some measure pitted against the many. She resented the conduct of the passengers in making her the subject of their tittle-tattle with a bitterness she had never felt before. In overlooking her actions and assuming a right to influence her in a purely personal matter, these people were guilty of an insolence to which she would not submit. She thought she discovered a certain antagonism amongst those with ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... "The northern delegation is in the market; give me money enough, and I can buy them," they both meant just what they said. When the temperance publications tell us that candidates for office buy men with whiskey; and the oracles of street tattle, that the court, district attorney, and jury, in the late trial of Robinson were bought, we have no floating visions of "chattels personal," man auctions, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... ashamed to read, because I must write something. . . ." Paul Vanderhoffen shrugged, and continued, in tones more animated: "There will be no talk of any grand-duke. Instead, there will be columns of denunciation and tittle-tattle in every newspaper—quite as if you, a baronet's daughter, had run away with a footman. And you will very often think wistfully of Lord Brudenel's fine house when your only title is—well, Princess of Grub Street, and your realm is a garret. And for a while even to-morrow's breakfast will be ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... at the outset of his career on the Noda that he could not get what the Three C's folks were getting—to advertise his impotency by making a twenty-mile tote trip over slushy and rutted roads—was a mighty poor send-off as a boss, he told himself. He knew what sort of tattle ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... his wife both declared that they minded what the bailiff said, and never let a word escape from them about the old man's suspicions; but rumour is a sad spreader of news, and the result of some bit of tittle-tattle turns up in places least expected, ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... raised to drag Bell out by the heels, when I reflected that what I had heard might be unfounded gossip, mere tattle, and that before I turned against an old acquaintance, it were well to set an inquiry afoot. First, however, I put him alongside Herbert Spencer. If it were Bell's desire to play the grandmother to him, he would find ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... heard!-Come to a play, and not know what it is!-Why, I suppose you wouldn't have found it out, if they had fob'd you off with a scraping of fiddlers, or an opera?-Ha, ha, ha!-Why, now, I should have thought you might have taken some notice of one Mr. Tattle, that ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... in all sincerity. George Sand was quite indifferent about all the great events of Parisian life, about social tittle-tattle and Boulevard gossip. She knew the importance, though, of every episode of country life, of a sudden fog or of the overflowing of the river. She knew the place well, too, as she had visited every ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... this internal passion. But as she still kept her love in the recesses of her heart, she died when Lavalliere fell before Metz, as has been elsewhere related by Messire Bourdeilles de Brantome in his tittle-tattle. ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... your own sake, let me advise you to put faith in the true report of those who have daily experience of their mistress's excellent virtue, as they have of the sun's shining, and of the earth's bringing forth fruit, and not in the tattle of a few cowardly back-stair rogues, who wish to curry favor with the Guises. Come, we will say no more. Walk round with us by Appledore, and then ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... her funeral; The fields are near, and you are gallant grooms: This done, see that you take no longer days, But send the midwife presently to me. The midwife and the nurse well made away, Then let the ladies tattle what they please. ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... moment, then crumpling the paper in his hand, cried out in a hoarse, choking voice, "Yes, it's a fact: I done it. It's no use denying on't.. Here it is, in black and white. Everybody knows it: ghosts come spooking around to tattle about it. What's the use of ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... goddlemitys sakes what is the difference? what rite had you to tell him that ennyway and i sed well you did say it dident you? and he sed of coarse i sed it and it is true but if you dont know enny more than to tattle evrything i say at home i will give you a good sound thrashing rite now and i thougt i was going to get it when mother sed wait George to father and then she sed to me what did you wright to decon Aspinwall ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... and in the character of Mrs. Theresa Tattle, the "Parent's Assistant" has pointed out the dangers which may arise in education from a bad ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... they will guess we are going to make a match of it. Then, again," 'Zekiel continued, "Huldy says she's bound to have it out with the one that started the stories. There's no use mincing matters between us, because you know as well as I do who is at the bottom of all this tittle-tattle. Since I refused to join hands with him to try and drive you out of town, he has talked about me almost as bad as he has about you. 'So,' says Huldy to me, 'you know he is the only teacher of music in Eastborough. I want to take music lessons very much, and so I have got to have him for ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... practice of some, that are now alive. God hath promised his glorious teaching, and his warming, strengthening, sanctifying, and comforting presence to such as do so, Matt, xviii. 20. Church members find time enough to visit one another, and meet together to tell some idle stories, to tattle about other men's matters, which do not concern them, and perhaps to backbite some of their brethren, and to prejudice the minds of persons against their teachers and their work, if they do not please them. And will not such meetings have bitterness ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... lower tone about such matters when we are near at hand. Etretat is, moreover, the country of gossip and scandal. From five to seven o'clock you can see people wandering about in quest of nasty stories about others which they retail from group to group. As you remarked to me, my dear aunt, tittle-tattle is the mark of petty individuals and petty minds. It is also the consolation of women who are no longer loved or sought after. It is enough for me to observe the women who are fondest of gossiping to be persuaded ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... could tell a fellow about when he was a little boy there was a little girl in a red dress with blond pigtails who used to scrap with him and tattle things about him to her mother. If he were inclined to be credulous, this was second sight I had. But it is a universal. What average boy didn't, at one time or another, know a little girl with blond pigtails? What blond little ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... other instances, was rather too effeminate in his disposition, had a pretty strong inclination to tittle-tattle. He had no sooner, therefore, received a full liberty of speaking from Jones, than he entered upon a long narrative concerning the lady; which, as it contained many particulars highly to her dishonour, we have too great a tenderness ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... longer. Many said, when she followed, that she ate herself to death; but I mention the rumour in order to deny it, for I am sure it was grief that killed her. It is a pity some dogs will repeat everything they hear, without considering the mischief such tittle-tattle may occasion—although it has been asserted by many that in this case the false intelligence came from the Cats, who had no great affection for poor Lady Bull. Whatever the cause, she died, and with her the employment of poor Nip ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... the coach's platform to get rid of his tremors. "He'll not tell," he said aloud, the uproar of wheels drowning his voice. "He's too good a Rosemonter to tattle. At first I thought he'd got on the same ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... the King, "if there is any more tittle-tattle—in the press, I mean—you might let the facts be known; surely they ought to strike the popular imagination; and I'm sure the police need all the support we ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... of Dublin gossips into a rage because he declared that Dublin was called "the whispering gallery" and "the city of dreadful whispers" because it was populated by the descendants of informers and spies. That, he declared, was why Dublin people were so fond of tittle-tattle and tale-bearing and scandal-mongering. "The English hanged or transported every decent-minded man in the town, an' left only the spies an' informers, an' the whole of you are descended from that breed. That's why you can't keep anything to yourselves, but have to ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... get the thanks you deserved, either, Doctor von Kammacher," he said in his broad dialect, rich in vowel sounds, and recounted a number of cases, of which Frederick had not known, in which good had been repaid by evil tattle. "The people around Plassenberg are not fit for men like you and me. Men like you and me belong in America, ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... to have received particular marks of distinction from the Emperor Alexander; but what may have been the particular tittle tattle which led up to the caricature we shall next describe, we are now unable to fathom. That it grew out of the event which we have attempted to describe will be sufficiently obvious. It is entitled, A Russian Dandy at Home; a scene at Aix-la-Chapelle, and was published by ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... in her preface to her Aristophanes: Je tiens pour une maxime constante, qu'une beaute mediocre plait plus generalement qu'une beaute sans defaut. Mr Congreve hath made such another blunder in his Love for Love, where Tattle tells Miss Prue, "She should admire him as much for the beauty he commends in her as if he himself ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... and rather plumed herself on her conquest. Christophe would have liked more discretion: but he felt that the curiosity of the people was upon him: and as he did not wish to seem to fly from it, he threw in his lot with Ada. The little town buzzed with tattle. Christophe's colleagues in the orchestra paid him sly compliments to which he did not reply, because he would not allow any meddling with his affairs. The respectable people of the town judged ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... it will come,—for no woman with your eyes and your mouth ever yet lived a loveless life!—never forget that it is the biggest thing in the world, the one altogether good and perfect gift. Don't let any twopenny-halfpenny considerations of worldly advantage influence you, nor the tittle-tattle of other folks, and even if it seems that something insurmountable lies between you and the fulfillment of love, go over it, or round it, or through it! If it's a real love, your faith must be big enough to remove the mountains in the way—or to go ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... fancy. The Arabian Nights—futile enough in any case—would be absolutely intolerable if they contained no Oriental manners, no human passions, and no convinced epicureanism behind their miracles and their tattle. Any absolute work of art which serves no further purpose than to stimulate an emotion has about it a certain luxurious and visionary taint. We leave it with a blank mind, and a pang bubbles up from the very fountain of pleasures. Art, so long as it needs ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... tattle-tale to the house-cat about yo' own spliced an' wedded wife? In her own home an' yard—her that you've sworn to love an' cherish agin bed an' ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... old-fashioned newspapers with effort, and were just taking with avidity to a new sort of paper, costing a halfpenny, which they believed to be extraordinarily bright and attractive, and which never really succeeded until it became extremely dull, discarding all serious news and replacing it by vapid tittle-tattle, and substituting for political articles informed by at least some pretence of knowledge of economics, history, and constitutional law, such paltry follies and sentimentalities, snobberies and partisaneries, as ignorance can understand ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... employed in ministering to the wretched love of gossip—retailing paltry anecdotes in dispraise of others, intermingled with outflowings of self-praise—and creeping into the secret chambers of great men's houses to filch out materials for tattle—at seeing great powers wasting and debasing themselves in such an ignoble task—above all, at seeing that the person who thus wasted and debased them was a scholar, and a philosopher whose talents he admired, with ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... described. In this house, or under the shade of some venerable tree, all ranks occasionally assemble in groups, from sun-rising to sun-set, and pass the time in chit-chat, or in conversation on public affairs. Their subjects are inexhaustible, and their tittle-tattle is carried on with surprising volubility, gaiety, and delight; their time thus occupied is so seducing, that they separate with great reluctance, sometimes passing the entire day in this, pratling, smoaking, and diversion: night, however, terminates these amusements: They assemble ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... shall dwell upon a journal that treats of trade, and be lavish in the praise of the author; while persons skilled in those subjects hear the tattle with contempt.—Watts's Improvement of ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... they know that I have not philosophy enough to admit into my house those I do not esteem; this may argue a want of charity; but my guardian-angel has maintained in me to this day a profound aversion for tattle, and also for dishonesty." ...
— Madame Firmiani • Honore de Balzac
... trial of the new power of nature. M. D'Eslon, a physician of great reputation, became a convert; and from that time, Animal Magnetism, or, as some called it, Mesmerism, became the fashion in Paris. The women were quite enthusiastic about it, and their admiring tattle wafted its fame through every grade of society. Mesmer was the rage; and high and low, rich and poor, credulous and unbelieving, all hastened to convince themselves of the power of this mighty magician, who made such magnificent promises. Mesmer, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay |
