"Busybody" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... yet, as some folks never can get it to rise, I don't see why a man may not be a baker. You see, my lady, I look upon baking as a simple trade, and as such lawful. There is no machine comes in to take away a man's or woman's power of earning their living, like the spinning-jenny (the old busybody that she is), to knock up all our good old women's livelihood, and send them to their graves before their time. There's an invention of the enemy, if ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... guiding of his conscience, even if it lead to his advantage," remarked my mother quietly. "But if you are indignant with Don Felipe, you will be equally delighted with Rosa. She is still Loyalist to the core, and makes no secret of it. She told San Martin the other day that he was a busybody, meddling in affairs that did not concern him, and that the people of Peru could settle their disputes ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... be a masculine peccadillo. So far as my observation goes, men are as much given to small talk as women, and it is undeniable that we have produced the highest type of gossiper extant. Where will you find, in or out of literature, such another droll, delightful, chatty busybody as Samuel Pepys, Esq., Secretary to the Admiralty in the reigns of those fortunate gentlemen Charles II. and James II. of England? He is the king of tattlers as Shakespeare is the king ...
— Mademoiselle Olympe Zabriski • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... few children are placed so entirely apart from evil influences as they were in those days. They were quick and restless, and full of spirit, but, as I have said, they were affectionate and tractable; and though often, before the last little busybody was safely disposed of for the night, Christie believed her strength and patience to be quite exhausted, her love for them increased ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... Jung, Chia Jui readily felt displeasure creep into his heart; and, although he did not venture to call Ch'in Chung to account, he nevertheless made an example of Hsiang Lin. And instead (of taking his part), he called him a busybody and denounced him in much abusive language, with the result that Hsiang Lin did not, contrariwise, profit in any way, but brought displeasure upon himself. Even Ch'in Chung grumbled against the treatment, as each of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Tancred's engagement! No one had heard a word about it. There had been talk of his going to Canada, and much chaff upon that subject—so ridiculous, Tancred emigrating! But of a prospective bride the most gossip-loving busybody at White's had never heard! It fell like a bombshell. And Lady Highford, as she read the news, clenched her pointed teeth, and gave a ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... go talking to outsiders about Eugen—or any of us. His affairs are no business of Fraeulein Sartorius, or any other busybody." ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... his father. The old family servant takes up the tale, and says to the youth:—'When you grow up you must be more of a man than your father.' All the world are agreed that he who minds his own business is an idiot, while a busybody is highly honoured and esteemed. The young man compares this spirit with his father's words and ways, and as he is naturally well disposed, although he has suffered from evil influences, he rests at a middle point and becomes ambitious ...
— The Republic • Plato
... from the testimonies that Staplies was on both sides as to the guilt of goodwife Knapp, and when rumor and suspicion began to point to herself as a mischief-maker and busybody in witchcraft matters, to divert attention from his wife and set a backfire to the sweep of public opinion, Thomas sued Ludlow, and despite his strong and clear defense as shown on the record evidence, the court in his absence awarded damages against him for defamation and for charging ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... a busybody in the shape of a too intelligent young coffee-planter, who possessed an aneroid barometer, brought that instrument to the smoking-room with a scared face. The needle was deflected to a part of the dial which the intelligent ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... through the circle like an electric shock. Men stopped in the act of pledging each other's healths to listen. Loungers straightened up; every topic was dropped. The man who had made the statement was the loose-lipped busybody who had suggested to his host that he give up his six-shooter since there ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... Neddy carried on the boiling down business successfully for some time, regularly shipping tallow to Melbourne in casks, until some busybody began to insinuate that their tallow was contraband. Then Joshua took to carrying goods up the country, and Neddy took to drink. He died at the first party given by Mother Murden at ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... guilty as he said this that Conolly laughed outright at him. "You mean," he said, "that Marian is not quite alone. Well, very likely Douglas occupies himself a good deal with her. If so, there may be some busybody or another down there fool enough to tell her that people are talking about her. That would spoil her holiday; so it is lucky that you are going down. No one will take it upon themselves to speak to her when you are there; and if they say anything ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... less respectfully. William thought him a busybody who had been properly punished for running into danger without any call of duty, and expressed that feeling, with characteristic bluntness, on the field of battle. "Sir," said an attendant, "the Bishop of Derry ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... be staying at Knype. If he could obtain that great aristocrat, that ex-Mayoress, that lovely witch, that benefactor of the district, to honour his Thrift Club as patroness, success was certain. Everybody in the Five Towns sneered at the Countess and called her a busybody; she was even dubbed "Interfering Iris" (Iris being one of her eleven Christian names); the Five Towns was fiercely democratic—in theory. In practice the Countess was worshipped; her smile was worth at least five pounds, and her invitation to tea was priceless. She could ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... poor against the wealthy. Yet this well-meant meddling probably did far more harm than all the explosions of his evil passions during the whole of his long reign. We could make shift to live under a debauchee or a tyrant; but to be ruled by a busybody is more than ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Addie, running to the rescue. "You can't move that alone. Susan! Stop!" It was too late, however. The small busybody had managed to stir the kettle, but, her youthful arms being quite unequal to sustaining its weight, she let it drop, retreating with a wild Indian yell of alarm. The stream of boiling water fortunately ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... to have guessed who wrote the Star article. But she never saw it. Her precautions had all been taken at John's officious suggestion over the telephone. Busybody! An interview is nothing so terrible. The world has a right to know about me; and I don't suppose Aunt had an idea how grievously ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... this matter Lucius had submitted himself to Lady Mason's wishes. On the previous evening they had talked the matter over with much serious energy. Lucius had been told in the streets of Hamworth by an intermeddling little busybody of an apothecary that it behoved him to do something, as Mr. Dockwrath was making grievous accusations against his mother. Lucius had replied haughtily, that he and his mother would know how to protect themselves, and the apothecary had ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... the horrors of uncertainty," the girl soliloquized. "How very, very stupid you are, Mrs. Daney, to warn me to protect him! As if I wouldn't lay down my life to uphold his honor! Nevertheless, you dear old bungling busybody, you are absolutely right, although I suspect no altruistic reason carried you forth ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... Smith (a remotely recollected figure) had besought Mr. Warwick for an interview, and gained it, by stratagem, 'to bring the man to his senses': but an ultra-Irishman did not compromise her battle-front, as the busybody supplications of a personal friend like Mr. Redworth did; and that the latter, without consulting her, should be 'one of the plaintive crew whining about the heels of the Plaintiff for a mercy she disdained and rejected' was bitter ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... active and intimate association with the caucus and the Federation know that in practice the new system, so far from destroying the rule of cliques, merely substituted one set of cliques for another. The active busybody, who had little business of his own to attend to, or to whom the position of member of a local committee was one to be striven after for the sake of the dignity attaching to it, became the ruling spirit of the caucus. In thousands of cases the older and more ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... couple quite by surprise—publicity. Ere Gerard had been gone a week, his adventures were in every mouth; and to make matters worse, the popular sympathy declared itself warmly on the side of the lovers, and against Gerard's cruel parents, and that old busybody the burgomaster, who must put his nose into a business that ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... write with difficulty. What language is there to talk to you? How does one converse with a dream? Idiot phrases rant across the paper like little fat actors flourishing tin swords. I've come to distrust words. There are too many of them. Yet I keep fermenting with words. Interlopers. Busybody strangers. I can't think ... because of them.... Alas! if I could keep my vocabulary out of our love we would both be better off. Foolish chatter. I thought when I sat down to write to you that the sadness of your absence would overcome me. ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... meddlesome busybody I am," the guest laughed. "I don't know how to mind my own business, and the one luxury I enjoy most of all is regulating other people's affairs." He was still talking, still lecturing his hearers upon the obligations prosperity had put upon them, when ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... You live here in comfort among us and then go away, write a book about our wretchedness and pose as altruistic heroes in your own silly set. How I loathe that word—altruism! As if the sacrifice of your personality does not always lead to self-deception, to hypocrisy! It is an excuse for the busybody-rich to advertise their charities. If they were as many armed as Briareus or the octopus, their charity would be known to each and every hand on their arms. These sentimental anarchs! They even marry our girls and carry them off to coddle their conscience with gilded gingerbread. Yet they would ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... a little busybody it is! May the frogs tick her! Must needs know everything. Lie down and sleep! (NAN lies down.) That's right! (Tucks her up.) That's right! There now, if you know too much you'll grow old ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... a thousand gentlemen of Virginia whose swords will leap from their scabbards at a breath of peril, on behalf of their women and their homes. And these," he added, taking snuff from a gold box, "are perhaps as potent spurs to action as the whims of a busybody or the gains of a ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... little circular wings to compass degrees and zones, and arrive always in the nick of time? Last August I saw him in the remotest wilds of the Adirondacks, impatient and inquisitive as usual; a few weeks later, on the Potomac, I was greeted by the same hardy little busybody. Does he travel by easy stages from bush to bush and from wood to wood? or has that compact little body force and courage to brave the night and the upper air, and so ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... system. He was far from being a man of deep knowledge or having a capacity for expressing his views with terseness or clearness. He had also a large fund of personal vanity which made him sometimes a busybody when inaction or silence would have been wiser for himself. We can only explain his conduct in relation to the constitutional controversy between Lord Metcalfe and the Liberal party by the supposition that he could not resist the blandishments of that eminent nobleman, ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... his scars, a few of his early habits and characteristics; as for instance, his love of levity slightly corrected; his love of indolence, and an occasional glass of whisky; his swaggering loquacity, a little improved; and once in a while the mischief of the busybody. But all regarded him, on the whole, as a reformed man, and were quick to give him credit and encouragement, where they could see any change for good; expecting that he would carry a few peculiarities with ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... put about now that he drank, because some busybody had seen a jar of spirits carried into the house from the wine merchant's cart. A jar of spirits had been delivered at the house at intervals for years and years, far back into his father's time, and every one of those who now expressed their disgust at his supposed drinking habits had ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... the other, in admiration; "and I hope you find him out, no matter who he may be. First they stone our camp; after that they try to burn us out; and now some busybody throws you into the ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... all kind friends good-bye. So that there may be no misunderstanding on the part of our charitable gossips, pray tell them at once that I have finally chosen the broad road as it really suits me best. As for Tessa—I bequeath her and her little morals to the first busybody who cares to apply for them. Perhaps the worthy Father Monck would like to acquire virtue in this fashion. I find the task only breeds vice in me. Many thanks for your laborious and, I fear, wholly futile attempts to keep me in the ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... "Mrs. Hind-Willet is a busybody!" said Lily, furious. "Let her fill her own drawing-room with freaks if it pleases her, but she has no right to send them abroad among self-respecting people who are too unsuspicious ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... emulation I would cherish, while it proceeded neither from, nor to malevolence. Bales had his Johnson, Norman his Mason, Ayres his Matlock and his Shelley; yet Art the while was no sufferer. The busybody who officiously employs himself in creating misunderstandings between artists, may be compared to a turn-stile, which stands in every man's way, yet hinders nobody; and he is the slanderer who gives ear ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Lebel savagely. "Curse you for an interfering busybody! It was I who got information that those pestilential aristos, the Montorgueils, far from having fled the country are in hiding somewhere in my district. I could have made the girl give up their hiding-place pretty soon, without any help from ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... a tiresome busybody," said Caesar, "the most boresome fellow you could find. He stops you in the street to tell you things. The other day he made me wait a quarter of an hour at the door of a tourist agency, while he inquired the quickest way of getting to Moscow. 'Are you thinking of going there?' ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... I told him he must follow her, go where she would, and let us know what she was up to down in Islip. Then I went round the neighbors, and one told me one tale, and another another. But it all comes to one—we have gotten A BUSYBODY; that's the name I gives her. She don't give in to that, ye know; she is a Latiner, and speaks according. She gave Master Giles her own description. Says she, 'I'm suspector-general of this here districk.' So then Giles he was skeared a bit—he have got an acre ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... said Patty, with sparkling eyes. How she longed to scratch the powder from Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene's beak-like nose! Busybody, meddler! "I never suspected ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... is a busybody. Yes, Sir, she certainly is a busybody. If there is anything going on in her neighborhood that she doesn't know about, it isn't because she doesn't try to find out. She is so small and spry that it is hard work to keep track of her, and she pops out at the most unexpected times and places. Then, ...
— Mrs. Peter Rabbit • Thornton W. Burgess
... writing that we possess. Following are a few extracts,[181] covering only a few days in April, 1663, from which one may infer the minute and interesting character of the work that this clerk, politician, president of the Royal Society, and general busybody wrote to please himself: ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... patient with him. "My dear little Busybody," he said. "Look at me and learn some dignity. See, you have to make those little jumps sixty times before I move! Sixty times!" And the Minute Hand took a short step. "There—now you begin again, while I wait. Watch me, take courage! If you can count up to sixty you will ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... Politically, the same fate was meted out to the peaceful citizens of the South End. The sceptre had passed from the hands of the sturdy old burghers of the South End. In their stead came a crop of office holders who, striving for personal popularity, catering to the meddler and busybody—a class who had no business of their own, but ever ready to attend to that of others. From a willing-to-be governed and peaceful city, discontent and confusion came. Every tinker, tailor or candle stick maker, every busybody in the city took it upon themselves, although without training, ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... the whole world a more mischievous busybody than that notorious giant Manabozho. He was everywhere, in season and out of season, running about, and putting his hand in whatever ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of him who does wrong, that it ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... friend, and who therefore spareth truth to his friend because of many years use and wont. Come to thyself again and let us look at this matter square in the face, and speedily too, lest some unfriend or busybody come on us. There now! Now, in the first place dost thou know why I am come into this perilous and ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... finally convinced him that this would be the considerate thing. That offensive little busybody, which pretended to have been a champion of "this people's institution" came out with a nasty editorial, entitled "The Post's Latest Flop." "Flop" appeared to be an intensely popular word in the Chronicle office. The article ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... they rest solely on Flexinna's ingenious conjectures. The notion is plausible and it is entirely congruent with Calvaster's character as I imagine it. Yet it is, after all, merely a plausible surmise. I am just as inclined to accept Calvaster's own explanation; he is an inquisitive busybody. ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... this, I was itching to know what manner of folk these seven might be, seeing that the devils themselves feared them so much. But ere long, the Clerk to the Crown calls them by name, as follows: "Mister Busybody, alias Finger-in-every-pie." This fellow was so fussily and busily directing the others, that he had no leisure to answer to his name until Death threatened to sunder him with his dart. Then, "Mr. Slanderer, alias Foe-of-Good-Fame," was called, but no response ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... bookseller Wilkie, of St. Paul's Churchyard, the weekly writing of "The Bee," a threepenny magazine of essays. It ended with its eighth number, for the public would not buy it. At the same time he was writing for Mr. Pottinger's "Busybody," and Mr. Wilkie's "Lady's Magazine." "The Bee," though unsuccessful, brought Goldsmith useful friends—Smollett and Garrick, and Mr. Newbery, the publisher—and with the New Year (1760) he was working with Smollett on "The British Magazine," and, immediately afterwards, on ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the Chief resumed, "is so large, the issues at stake so vital, that we at the top have to ignore the non-essentials and stick to the essentials. By the nonessentials I mean the little potty spies, actuated by sheer hunger or mere officiousness, the neutral busybody who makes a tip-and-run dash into England, the starving waiter, miserably underpaid by some thieving rogue in a neutral country—or the frank swindler who sends back to the Fatherland and is duly paid for long reports about British naval movements which he has concocted ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... long, for in a little while he heard of an old organist who had taken up Martin's role—a meddlesome busybody who fished in troubled waters, for the trouble's sake. What had such a mean man as this to do with lands, and titles, and coats of arms? And yet this man was talking under his breath in Cullerne of crimes, and clues, and retribution ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... Professor Leonard D. Gale, the friend of both men, makes the following comment in a letter to Morse of February 9, 1852: "I fear Henry and I shall never again be on good terms. He is as cold as a polar berg, and, I am informed, very sensitive. It has been said by some busybody that his testimony was incompatible with mine, and so a sort of feeling is manifested as if it were so. I have said nothing about it yet." It would have been more dignified on the part of Morse to have disregarded the imputations contained in Henry's testimony, or ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... I jolly well like," returned Talbot. "If I choose to dodge reporters, that's my pidgin. I don't have to give my name to every meddling busybody that—" ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... are they? Well, to-day they are things like this—an angry letter from an old friend to whom something which I said about him was repeated by a busybody. The thing was true enough, and it was not wrong for me to say it; but that it should be repeated with a deft and offensive twist to the man himself is the mischief. I cannot deny that I said it, and I can only affirm its truth. Was it friendly to say it? says my correspondent. Well, I don't ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... thirst for knowledge toward trifling and unworthy objects. There is great virtue in minding one's own business. The tell-tale is abhorrent even to the least developed moral sensibility. The gossip, the busybody, the scandalmonger is the worst pest that infests the average town and village. These mischief-makers take a grain of circumstantial evidence, mix with it a bushel of fancies, suspicions, surmises, and inuendoes, and then go from house to house peddling the product for undoubted fact. The scandalmonger ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... something over on the shore of the Big River," said Farmer Brown's boy to himself. "I'll go over there to see what it is. There isn't much escapes the sharp eyes of that black busybody. He has led me to a lot of interesting things, one time and another. There he is on the top of that tree over by ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... thing happened yesterday. You know there was an angling competition. The pen was kept full on purpose. Some mischievous busybody went and opened the sluices and let all the water out. The anglers' holiday was spoiled. No, the rain wouldn't have spoiled it anyhow, Alice; anglers LIKEe rain. The 'Rose and Crown' dinner was half of it wasted ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... sinecure, plenty to do, many irons in the fire, great doings, busy hum of men, battle of life, thick of the action. housewife, busy bee; new brooms; sharp fellow, sharp blade; devotee, enthusiast, zealot, meddler, intermeddler, intriguer, busybody, pickthank[obs3]; hummer, hustler, live man [U.S.], rustler * [U. S.]. V. be active &c. adj.; busy oneself in; stir, stir about, stir one's stumps; bestir oneself, rouse oneself; speed, hasten, peg away, lay about one, bustle, fuss; raise up, kick up a dust; push; make a push, make a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... faintest whiff of lingering incense rising and pervading the gray arches. Yes, the Virgin would know and have pity; the sweet, white-robed Virgin at the pretty flower-decked altar, or the one away up in the niche, far above the golden dome where the Host was. Titiche, the busybody of the house, noticed that Miss Sophie's bundle was larger than usual that afternoon. "Ah, poor woman!" sighed Titiche's mother, "she would be rich ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... Potato, Benevolence Prickly Pear, Satire Pride of China, Dissension Primrose, Early Youth Primrose, Evening, Inconstance Primrose, Red, Unpatronized Privet, Prohibition Purple Clover, Provident Pyrus Japonica, Fairies' Fire Quaking Grass, Agitation Quamoclit, Busybody Queen's Rocket, Fashion Quince, Temptation Ragged Robin, Wit Ranunculus, Are Charming Ranunculus, Wild, Ingratitude Raspberry, Remorse Ray-Grass, Vice Reed, Complaisance Reed, Split, Indiscretion Rhododendron, Danger Rhubarb, Advice Rocket, Rivalry Rose, Love Rose, Australian, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... to have seen in any other book, obvious though it is—steals it.[260] Fortunately for her, Nicodeme, who is of her acquaintance, and a general lover, has also given her, though not in earnest and for no serious "consideration," a similar promise: and by the help of a busybody legal friend she gets 2000 crowns out of him to prevent an action for breach. And, finally, Bedout, after displacing the unlucky Nicodeme (thus left doubly in the cold), and being himself thrown over by Javotte's elopement, takes to wife, being ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... account of the letters. That busybody of an administrator and censor has undone all! Better he had never been born. Why should a doctor neglect his patients to separate husband and wife? The wise way will be to march to the house at Chicago ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... writes pamphlet in favor of returning Canada to France in order to check the colonies, 79. "Busybody" ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... counsel for the Crown was short: a letter, found on the prisoner, would be produced, in which some busybody had falsely informed the prisoner that Mr. Frankl would meet his sister under a certain elm-tree: and the prisoner, in a crisis of passion, had hurried from the pulpit to that tree, on observing that ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... purchased without her husband's knowledge? Indeed it was the more difficult for her to do so as the First Consul knew very well that his wife had no money, and being, if I may be allowed the expression, something of the busybody, he knew, or believed he knew, all Josephine's jewels. The pearls were therefore condemned to remain more than a fortnight in Madame Bonaparte's casket without her daring to use them. What a punishment for a woman! At length her vanity overcame ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the boy's girdle; but the athlete extended one slim hand, seized the Spartan's arm, and with lightning dexterity laid the busybody flat on Mother Earth. He staggered upward, raging and ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... better than in the prefaces of the pamphleteers can evidence be found of the growing skepticism. The narrator of the Northampton cases in 1612 avowed it his purpose in writing to convince the "many that remaine yet in doubt whether there be any Witches or no."[73] That ardent busybody, Mr. Potts, who reported the Lancaster cases of 1612, very incidentally lets us know that the kinsfolk and friends of Jennet Preston, who, it will be remembered, suffered at York, declared the whole prosecution to be an act of malice.[74] The Yorkshire poet and gentleman, ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... interest to render to his constituents and which his constituents are by no means backward in demanding, he looks on himself as responsible for the conduct of things in general. He becomes a sort of universal foreman, not a man, but a man-orchestra, a busybody, so busy that he can apply himself to nothing. He cannot study, or think, or investigate, or, to speak accurately, ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... said that the Turkish Charge was an old busybody, always sniffing about for all sorts of information; that it was safer to be reticent and let him do the talking; and that almost every scrap of conversation with him was mentally noted and later transcribed for the edification of ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... Cicero was a busybody. Were there anything to do, he wished to do it, let it be what it might. "Cedant arma togae." If anything was written on his heart, it was that. Yet he loved the idea of leading an army, and panted for a military triumph. Letters and literary life were dear to him, and yet ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... the captain, bitterly. "I wish he would neglect me. He's turning out a perfect busybody, and he's getting as artful as they make 'em. I never would have ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... Burton," said old John Ellis in an ominous tone of voice, "I want to know if what that old busybody of a Mary Keane came here today gossiping about is true. If it is—well, I've something to say about the matter! Have you been courting that niece of Susan Oliver's ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... will let the reader into the secret of these singular proceedings. The plan for the fortification did really exist. But it had been suggested to the council by some busybody that it was not necessary to execute all the sections at once, and that it would be sufficient for the present to expropriate the land lying between the two arms of the river, while the portion covered by the Monostor vineyards could wait twenty years. Now the speculators ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... peeking between the plush curtains on this occasion, for some heartless busybody during the day had told her that her son and husband was both renegades now. And strangely enough, she begun to get back her strength from that very moment—seeing that exclusive and well-known young debby-tant consorting in public with the reprobates. I'm darned if ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... Philosophical Oration, given to one distinguished for a certain peculiarity, subject, "The Advantage of a Great Breadth of Base." Latin Oration, to a vain person, subject, "Amor Sui." Dissertations: to a meddling person, subject, "The Busybody"; to a poor punster, subject, "Diseased Razors"; to a poor scholar, subject, "Flunk on,—flunk ever." Colloquy, to a joker whose wit was not estimated, subject, "Unappreciated Facetiousness." When a play upon ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... and the court-house common sparkled with frosty rime, he had seen the Widow Weatherwax accost Ruth Temple. The girl had stopped when addressed, but almost immediately walked on, as if to escape the little busybody who, nothing daunted, trotted at elbow for a rod or more. Then Ruth came down the slope alone, and was intercepted by ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... No motives of delicacy should stop one when a wicked action is to be prevented. It's often the clergy's duty to interfere with other people's affairs. For my part, I will never shrink from doing my duty. People may call me a busybody if they like; ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... people. Kirtley remarked that when the ordinary German began talking of God, which was rare, he was soon talking of the Emperor. Both deities were ever solicitous for him, working tirelessly in his behalf. The Kaiser was properly the national busybody, the head schoolmaster, who attended to everybody and everything and drove all constantly forward toward a unified and ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... reputation for philanthropy, and temperance, and bimetallism, and other virtues, by putting questions on the paper; and he could, I think, ask some counter question in this particular case that would ridicule the original busybody." ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... accomplishment from the world, but who really trained Perikles for his political contests just as a trainer prepares an athlete for the games. However, Damon's use of music as a pretext did not impose upon the Athenians, who banished him by ostracism, as a busybody and lover of despotism. He was ridiculed by the comic poets; thus Plato represents some one ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... two of the greatest empires in the world should be virtually united so as to form one irresistible mass, was a question with which other states had nothing to do, a question about which other states could not take counsel together without being guilty of impertinence as gross as that of a busybody in private life who should insist on being allowed to dictate the wills of other people. If the whole Spanish monarchy should pass to the House of Bourbon, it was highly probable that in a few years England would cease to be great and free, and that Holland would be a mere province ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... afternoon stroll.... Ellenora passed the intervening days in a flame of expectancy. She conjectured all sorts of reasons for the concert. Why should Arthur give it so early in the season? Where did he get the money for the orchestra? Perhaps that old, stupid, busybody, portrait-painting friend of his had advanced it. But when did he compose the symphonic poem? He had said absolutely nothing about it to her; and she was surprised, irritated, a little proud that he had finished ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... busybody who craftily found out how the old woman had so suddenly become rich. Thinking there was no good reason why she should not herself be equally fortunate, she washed clothes at the pool, keeping a sharp lookout for ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... trust I'm not an amateur anything. I am a business woman earning my own living by my own labors and I pay taxes and for the past year or so I have been a citizen and a voter. Please do not regard me merely as an officious meddler—a busybody with nothing to do except to mind other people's affairs. It was quite by chance that I came upon this poor child and learned something ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... Schwerin. News of the war in the South? Well,—they said in Schwerin that Marshal Villars had left Wirtemberg with his army, but there was a letter in his bag from Wirtemberg for the Fraeulein von Graevenitz, and perchance she would be able to tell them. At mention of this a busybody ran up the narrow street, calling loudly: 'Fraeulein Wilhelmine! Fraeulein Wilhelmine! there is a letter from your brother! Come and tell us the news of the army. He may tell when to expect ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... city all winter, have seen its life and stir and bustle, and you have seen much of the social side of the problem which is puzzling me. Is it so much better, this city life, than the home life in the country? There, every busybody is interested in his neighbor; here, we are met on every hand by strangers who do not know, or wish to know anything in regard to us. Here a hundred strangers in the great railway stations are objects of but little interest. Randy, do you realize the commotion which one arrival ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... searchers. He drew a long breath and made a swift dash to further obscurity in the lee of the Penniman woodshed. He skirted the end of this structure and peered about its corner, estimating the distance to the side door. But this was risky; it would bring him in view of a kitchen window whence some busybody might observe him. But there was an open window above him giving entrance to the woodshed. He leaped to catch its sill and clambered up to look in. The woodshed was vacant of Pennimans, and its shadowy silence promised ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... unsuspecting ears, when there is no third person to bear witness of your iniquity; making your victims believe, it is all out of your sincere regard for them; assuring them (as Betty says in the man of the world,) "That indeed you are no busybody that loves fending nor proving, but hate all tittling and tattling, and gossiping and backbiting," ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... Kennedy had had installed on the window ledge one of those mirror-like arrangements, known as a "busybody," which show those in a room what is going ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... it. Thet ole busybody, Miss Pepper, she war in ther store wen I was gittin' somethin' fur mam, and she sed as how she'd run this village if she war a man, an' the feller as set fire ter a honest woman's pigpen 'd git his'n right peart. Like fun she ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... the agitation against slavery. He was, as we have seen, one of the partners who bought Owen's establishment at New Lanark; and his religious scruples were afterwards the cause of Owen's retirement. These, however, were only a part of his multifarious schemes. He was perhaps something of a busybody; his head may have been a little turned by the attentions which he received on all hands; he managed the affairs of the duke of Kent; was visited by the Emperor Alexander in 1814; and interviewed royal personages on the Continent, in order to obtain their support in attacking ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... some lines in the Ethics of Aristotle, quoted by the philosopher from an old poet, in which the poor outcast Philoctetes laments over his own stupid officiousness, as he calls it, which had been the cause of his misfortunes. Was he not a busybody too? Why could he not let well alone? Better men than he had lived and died in the English Church. And then what if, as Campbell had said, all his so-called convictions were to vanish just as he entered the Roman pale, as they had done on his father's death? He ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... darkness, he insisted that no meetings should be held without a light; and the Brethren set their faces against superstition. They forbade ghost-stories; they condemned the popular old-wives' tales about tokens, omens and death-birds; they insisted that, in case of illness, no meddling busybody should interfere with the doctor; and thus, as homely, practical folk, they aimed at health of body ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... done who read in Terence's "Self-Tormentor" the line, "I am a man, and nothing human is foreign to me,"[29] and imagine that this is the sentiment of an enlightened Christian, although the context shows that it is only the boast of a busybody and parasite. What Confucius taught under the fifth relation is not universality, and, as compared to the teachings of Jesus, is moonlight, not sunlight. The doctrine of the sage is clearly expressed in the Analects, and amounts only ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... took himself off in a hurry. His chief emotion over the lady seems to have been satisfaction that she wanted nothing to do with him. As for her story of being his father's deserted wife, he had long supposed his father capable of anything. As for the lady herself, he wrote her down a tiresome busybody and perhaps he was ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... in time induce him to return, after the novelty of his new passion should be wore off; and this hope served to support her under the sorrow and disgrace of her disappointment. At length, however, the squire and his new mistress disappeared; and some busybody was officious enough to communicate this piece of news to the forlorn shepherdess, with this additional circumstance, that they were gone to a neighbouring parish to be joined ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters" (1 Peter 4:15). These are cautions to Christians to persuade them to take heed to themselves, their tongues and their actions, that all be kept within the bounds of the Word. For it would be a foolish thing to say, that these are cautions to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... absorbed by some worthless half-breed in "old man" Smith's saloon. She had one of those keen, active brains which refuses to become dull and torpid in an atmosphere of humdrum monotony. Luckily her nature never allowed her to become a mischievous busybody. She was too ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... Titchfield Street a special order came in, and Madame held a kind of rehearsal, that the girls might know exactly what to do if the inspector called. The inspector represented the State, which, in the opinion of Madame and Miss Rabbit and all the assistants, male and female, was an interfering busybody hampering industry, and preventing honest workers from earning useful pay for unlimited overtime. To Great Titchfield Street, by day, came private letters by express messenger for Gertie, and more ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... fire,[40] and at last found a place at which to light his lantern. Then as he had made a rather long circuit, he shortened the way back, for he went home straight through the Forum. There a certain Busybody in the crowd {said to him}: "Aesop, why with a light at mid-day?" "I'm in search of a man,"[41] said he; and ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... is known that you are much exasperated, and that any allusion to him excites and annoys you. Now, my opinion is, justice, that some busybody is raising these reports and writing these letters on purpose to annoy you. It may be somebody at West Lynne, very near to us, for all ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... of each statue, the marble softened to flesh and blood, and the breath came back to it until all of the Prince's train were alive again; but as for the Wizard, the water could not pass the gold thread, so there he sits until this day—unless some busybody has untied the magic knot. Then the fairy flew away, singing ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... all inconsistent with the obligation to bear a decided testimony against all that we believed contrary to the precepts of the Bible. He sent me another letter, in which he declared D.L. was to him as a 'heathen and a publican,' and I was a 'busybody in other men's matters.' Here I think the matter will end. I feel that I have done what was required of me, and I am willing he should think of me as he does, so long as I enjoy the testimony ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... blue that had been so timid and so tentative overspread the sky; more robins came, and after them bluebirds and redbirds and Peterbirds, and the impudent screaming robber jay that is so beautiful and so bold, and flute-voiced vireos, and nuthatches, and the darling busybody wren fussing about her house-building in the corners of our piazzas. The first red flowers of the Japanese quince opened flame-like on the bare brown bushes. When the bridal-wreath by the gate saw that, she set industriously to work upon her own wedding-gown. The yellow jessamine was ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... is extremely difficult to correct. The white man, as well as the Negro, is bound and barred by the color-line, and many a scheme of friendliness and philanthropy, of broad-minded sympathy and generous fellowship between the two has dropped still-born because some busybody has forced the color-question to the front and brought the tremendous force of unwritten ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... he reiterated, sinking his voice to a whisper; "sooner or later some meddlesome busybody who sits in the Assembly of the Convention will get wind that little Capet is no longer in the Temple prison, that a pauper child was substituted for him, and that you, citizen Heron, together with the commissaries ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... sir, I am no busybody, nor do I love fending nor proving; and, I assure you, sir, I hate all tittling and tattling, and gossiping and backbiting, and taking ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... took a look through a chink in the shutter was one of these infernal policemen standing right opposite and staring up at the windows. He hadn't epaulets nor a sword, like our traps, but for all that there was a sort of family likeness, and the same busybody expression. Whether they followed me all the time, or whether the woman that let me the bed didn't like the looks of me, is more than I have ever been able to find out. He came across as I was watching him, and noted down the address ...
— My Friend The Murderer • A. Conan Doyle
... am quite at home in it; and I honestly believe that it has never known a more officious busybody, thrusting himself into its ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Frances confided to me that Mrs. McLeod had forbidden Esther visiting them again, since some busybody had carried the news of our picnic to her ears. But she promised me that if I could direct the hunt on the morrow within a few miles of the McLeod ranch, she would entice my sweetheart out and give me a chance to meet her. There was a roguish look in Miss Frances's eye during this disclosure which ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... that everybody in the company is whispering about my infatuation for you and your indifference to me? The maddening part of it is that I know perfectly well you are not indifferent. You are in love with me. You always have been. You'd have married me last fall if some busybody hadn't filled your ears ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... along with stuffed cheek-pouches, traveling more on the side of the wall than on the top, stopping every few yards to see that the way is clear, but giving little heed to me or to the performing squirrel. In comparison the chipmunk is a demure, preoccupied, pretty little busybody who often watches you curiously, but never mocks you or pokes fun at you; while the gray squirrel has the manners of the best-bred wood-folk, and he goes his way without fuss or bluster, a picture of ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... would plead that it was only sporting to screen a schoolfellow, and that no one but a sneak could have done otherwise. She sincerely hoped that Diana had escaped notice both going and returning, and that no busybody from the village would bring a report to Miss Todd. If the matter were to leak out, both girls would get into serious trouble—Diana for running away, and her room-mate for aiding and abetting her escapade. That she was really in some danger ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil |
