"Gossip" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... found herself so much at home already, that without delay she instituted a preliminary examination of the children all round—which Mr Toodle much admired—and booked their ages, names, and acquirements, on a piece of paper. This ceremony, and a little attendant gossip, prolonged the time until after their usual hour of going to bed, and detained Miss Tox at the Toodle fireside until it was too late for her to walk home alone. The gallant Grinder, however, being still there, politely offered to attend ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... telling how Cardan was about to publish certain new mathematical rules in a book on Algebra, and hinting that in all probability these rules would prove to be Tartaglia's, whereupon he at once jumped to the conclusion that Maphio's gossip was the truth, and that this book would make public the secret which Cardan had sworn to keep. He left many of Cardan's letters unanswered; but at last he seems to have found too strong the temptation to say something disagreeable; so, in answer to a letter from ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... cast-iron tables and uncomfortable chairs that repose on a flooring of chill cement tiles—where, in sheer desperation, two or three of us, muffled up to our ears, congregate before dinner to exchange gossip ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... battle songs in which Lawrence Minot sang the early victories of Edward from Halidon Hill to the taking of Guines, and inspired Geoffrey le Baker to repeat with absolute confidence every malicious story which gossip told to the discredit of the French king and his people. It was under the influence of this spirit that the steps were taken, which we have already recorded, to extend the use of English, notably in ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... on a divan, and proceeded to plunge into all the flying gossip of the day. Incidentally she managed to hint that Servius Maccus, her devoted admirer, had told her that the night before Lucius Ahenobarbus and some of his friends had attacked and insulted a lady on her way ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... they are in bed," he said. "They always have a good long gossip; and, as long as they are down in good time I don't like to be too strict. But, my dear Lee. You don't think there is ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... in those tent-roofed cottages which were so common in the old mining camps, and now three of them appeared in their proper garb, well-gowned young housewives and discreet to a degree which must have exasperated those of their neighbors inclined to gossip. For these ladies had nothing to say concerning whence they had come or the business of their husbands. Two of those husbands were now spending much of their time in other camps and came home but seldom to pay brief visits to their wives. The third ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... this same connection, tells several other stories, vague in origin, and sounding like mere gossip, but still worthy of consideration. According to one of them, Washington maintained a public ferry, which was customary among the planters, and the public paid regular tolls for its use. On one occasion General Stone, the authority for the previous ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... 7,500,000 bales of cotton, worth $450,000,000, and its cash equivalent in grain, grasses and fruit. This enormous crop could not have come from the hands of sullen and discontented labor. It comes from peaceful fields, in which laughter and gossip rise above the hum of industry, and contentment runs with the singing plough. It is claimed that this ignorant labor is defrauded of its just hire, I present the tax books of Georgia, which show that the negro twenty-five years ago a slave, ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... ladies have chatted for a time about the latest official appointments, some court gossip, the latest fashion in robe ornamentation, and the newspaper news at home and abroad—for the Chinese have ten or a dozen newspapers in Peking, among which is the first woman's daily in the world—the hostess invites her guest to see her garden. They pass ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... so apparent in his social intercourse; and before he has been three months in Ashfield, he has given tongue to gossip, and all the old ladies comment upon his enslavement to the pretty Rose Elderkin. And they talk by the book; he is desperately enamored. Young clergymen have this way of falling, at sight, into the toils, which is vastly refreshing to middle-aged observers. But we have no occasion to detail ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... picture—straight, prim, opinionated, with a sharp tongue that wrought discord wherever it went. She dealt in other people's shortcomings, and if Burleigh had not known her too well to give her false tales credence, she might have worked some serious mischief. As it was, everyone took her gossip with a grain of salt, remarking, with a smile and a shrug after she had gone away, "Of course, that may be true, but ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... would have dared to exhibit. This album contained portraits, about thirty in number, of her intimate friends, whom the world, first and last, had given her as lovers. The number was a calumny; but had rumor said ten, it might have been, as her friend Madame d'Espard remarked, good, sound gossip. The portraits of Maxime de Trailles, de Marsay, Rastignac, the Marquis d'Esgrignon, General Montriveau, the Marquis de Ronquerolles and d'Ajuda-Pinto, Prince Galathionne, the young Ducs de Grandlieu and de Rhetore, the Vicomte ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... picking up the widely-scattered grains of corn by millions till the bushel measure is piled high; and lo!—the five grains that are the grains always escape its sight and roll away and hide themselves. The poor devil, being a primitive creature, shrieked and flew away in despair at his failure. Gossip hugs its false measure and says loftily that the five real grains are ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... that even in her absorption Minty noticed the change. "But ye're not goin' to tarry over there, ner gossip—you hear? Yer to take this yer message. Yer to say 'that it will be onpossible for me to come back there, ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... to tragedy. Seizing the first available weapon, a flail, which he wielded with uncommon skill, in one mad moment the indignant youth smote the other hip and thigh,—the first, and for years the only, time he was ever known to lose control of himself. In ten seconds the battered gossip was sprawled full length, and they who would have rushed to tear his assailant away stood amazed to see him tearfully imploring ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... of the concierge at the sub-prefecture at Sedan. She was a worker in Delaherche's factory, and he applied to her for information regarding the course of the battle, as she was in a position to hear the gossip of the officers and officials. When Napoleon III decided to request an armistice from the Prussians, it was Rose who furnished a tablecloth to be used as a white ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... dressed up every day, and with a joyful look went down to the harbor to gossip with the other wives. She said that this delay was but natural: was it not the same event every year? These were such safe boats, and had such ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... outdone. He very quietly explained the reasons which had influenced him in choosing these rooms, the principal one being that there was no concierge, and he was therefore assured absolute liberty in his movements, as well as entire immunity from indiscreet gossip. "Certainly, my dear mother," he added, "it is a lonely and unattractive neighborhood; but you will find all the necessaries of life near at hand. The owner of the house lives on the floor above. I ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... have added a peculiar zest. Now, let us go and appear before the world, and smile, and laugh, and eat, and gossip. Let the heart throb with a dull pain, if it will; the mask is ours to ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... play cards as they travel homeward. Others talk gossip, and tens of thousands waste too much time on ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... quite vex myself about my stupid joke," said Wilhelm. "I ought to have known him better; he is of a strange, unhappy character. Give me your hands! We will mention to no one what has occurred; it would only give occasion to a deal of gossip, and wound him deeply, and he is an ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... sounded, that the writing should, in every case, be subordinated to the speaking. [Footnote: I do not know whether the advocates of phonetic spelling have urged the authority and practice of Augustus as being in their favour. Suetonius, among other amusing gossip about this Emperor, records of him: Videtur eorum sequi opinionem, qui perinde scribendum ac loquamur, existiment (Octavius. c. 88).] This, namely that writing should in every case and at all costs be subordinated ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... a hint not at all likely to be thrown away upon Mr. Leek, who was the grand gossip-monger of the place, and he treasured it up in order to see if he could not make something of it which would ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... field of Austerlitz. My father took a different view. He declined to take advantage of this opening into the upper world, because, as he said, I don't know from what experience, the conversation turned chiefly upon petty personal gossip. The feasts of the great were not to his taste. He was ascetic by temperament. He was, he said, one of the few people to whom it was the same thing to eat a dinner and to perform an act of self-denial. In fact, for ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... or try to eat, even though the realities of life have been blown away, and one is moving in a sort of dream, with the fear of awakening always present—Captain Dan, coming into the house for dinner, expressed his opinion of Trumet gossip mongers. ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... modest. Comfortably I'd sit with them and sew, With one or two mayhap at the spinning wheel. On moonlight nights Gathered for cozy confidences, About the hearthfire, or in the dark, We'd tell each other what the people say, The gossip of the town, the scandals, Discuss the fashions and the last election. I surely would rise above the average— I would be an artist needlewoman, Broidering on silk and velvet The flowers of the field, And other patterns, copied from models, So rich in color as to make them ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... in the novel-reading world some doubts as to who really wrote this book; and various rumours, more or less romantic, have been current in Mayfair, the metropolis of gossip, as to the authorship. For example, Jane Eyre is sentimentally assumed to have proceeded from the pen of Mr. Thackeray's governess, whom he had himself chosen as his model of Becky, and who, in mingled love and revenge, personified him in return as Mr. Rochester. In this case, it is evident that ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... so artfully adorned with scandalous details, and persons of so great eminence and importance were apparently mixed up in it, while, at the same time, the evidence was so circumstantial, that it was no wonder the matter gave food for plenty of curiosity and gossip. ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... returned Edna, "I am old enough to have the right to choose my own friends, and I shall certainly decline to drop them just because the Court chooses to make my friendships a subject for foolish gossip." ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... of aesthetic and refined tastes, a comfortable and congenial home with a Duchess. The Advertiser, who is a person of much intelligence, and a most agreeable gossip, regards her pleasant companionship as an equivalent for the social advantages (including carriage-drives, and an introduction to the very best society), for which she is prepared to offer the very handsome remuneration of ten ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... on, and, his former train of thought being entirely disturbed, he went to the 'Mother Huff,' where he was a frequent visitor, his elaborate courtesies to Mrs. Buggins enabling him to hear from that lady's pious lips all the latest news, scandal and gossip, true or untrue, concerning the ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... I hope Trebell will believe I have no personal feelings in this matter, but we may as well face the fact even now that O'Connell holding his tongue to-morrow won't stop gossip in the House, club gossip, gossip in drawing rooms. What do the Radicals really care so long as a scandal doesn't get into the papers! There's an inner circle with its eye ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... one of its stems murmured the Fountain of Mimir, in Niflheim or Mistland, from whose urn welled up the ocean and the rivers of the earth. Odin had his outlook in its top, where kept watch and ward the All-seeing Eye. In its boughs frisked and gambolled a squirrel called Busybody, which carried gossip from bough to root and back. The warm Urdar Fountain of the South, in which swam the sun and moon in the shape of two swans, flowed by its celestial stem in Asgard. A tree so much extended as this ash of course had its parasites and rodentia ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... think it's altogether the correct thing to make remarks about a gentleman in his presence. I'm aware that ladies are given to gossip, but they generally do it behind a fellow's back. I've done nothing to deserve this ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... with us, reminiscences and gossip about her long went on in the house. Such gossip referred mostly to her will, which she had made shortly before her death, and of which, as yet, no one knew the contents except her bosom friend, Prince Ivan Ivanovitch. I ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... significant request that he might "pull down one partition, and so make two rooms—one." Neville, in a friendly letter beginning with "hearty commendations unto you and to Mrs. More," and ending with light gossip, urged Sir William to let the rooms to Farrant, and recommended Farrant as a desirable tenant ("I dare answer for him"). Neither letter mentioned the purpose for which the rooms, especially the large room referred to by Farrant, ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... was at first of cows; thence it passed to village gossip, pigs, hedgehogs, and so back to cows once more. Knowing the imaginative bent of her mind, I put the question to her: "Wouldn't you like to know just what becomes of the milk you send off to Leeds ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... word of editorial, and containing a small number of well-selected paragraphs of news. It had also occasionally a short notice of the plays of the night before, and a few items of what we now call society gossip. The advertisements, after the paper had been in existence three years, averaged about fifty a day, most of them very short. Its price was threepence, English, equal to about twelve cents of our present currency. The paper upon which it was ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... leave their own abode early in the morning, and to reach that of Mr Prentiss before sunset. There was the house of a new settler about half-way, and several huts where refreshment could be obtained, so that their visits became still more frequent and expected. Even in the bush gossip is not impossible, and it became pretty generally reported that the two Mr Gilpins were about to marry the two daughters of ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... personally from Mr. Wright; but it was common gossip about town that he had visited the newly-discovered vein several times, and spent one entire ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... "Yes. For the gossip is that she's an English Princess. Now, what's the good of being a powerful Emperor, if he can't even pick out a wife to please his ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... the Post it was a busy week for Mr. MacDonald and his people, for all the Bay hunters and Indians had trading to do, and most of them remained at least one night to gossip and discuss their various prospects and enjoy the hospitality of the kitchen; and then there was a dance nearly every night, for this was their season of amusement and relaxation in the midst of the months of bitter hardships ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... the flesh-pot chattered high, The knives were whetted and — then came I To Mahbub Ali the muleteer, Patching his bridles and counting his gear, Crammed with the gossip of half a year. But Mahbub Ali the kindly said, "Better is speech when the belly is fed." So we plunged the hand to the mid-wrist deep In a cinnamon stew of the fat-tailed sheep, And he who never hath tasted the food, By Allah! he ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... into Sasa's pretty head—one of those brilliant, clever, feminine ideas—that seemed to us, in that triumphant moment, to be the means of untangling all our difficulties. Though it was eight o'clock, and there was the risk of gossip in my driving Sasa French alone about the Municipality at such an hour, I put her into my buggy, whipped up my horse, and set a straight course for Seumanutafa, the high chief of Apia. He laughed a good deal, demurred somewhat, and was finally persuaded to squeeze his Herculean dimensions ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... knows Boccaccio need hardly trouble himself to know Margaret of Navarre. The second is that it is a loose if not obscene book, disgraceful for a lady to have written (or at least mothered), and not very creditable for any one to read. The third is that it is interesting as the gossip of a certain class of modern newspapers is interesting, because it tells scandal about distinguished personages, and has for its interlocutors other distinguished personages, who can be identified ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... had struck up a secret friendship with a young shopman, who did not care for the old woman, but persuaded her he did to make her give him money. And one day, when Abrosim was gone out to buy some new wares, the shopman called to gossip with Fetinia, when by chance he espied the duck; and, taking her up, he saw written under her wing in golden letters: "Whoso eats this duck will become a Tsar." The man said nothing of this to Fetinia, but begged and entreated her for love's sake to roast the duck. Fetinia told ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... these hills. Still following the slipper, we shall choose one somewhere east of the inn and present ourselves confidently at the front door. Failing there, we shall assault the postern and, perhaps, enrich our knowledge of life with the servants' gossip." ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... have two clear purposes: Their first purpose is to make certain that this Nation's security is not jeopardized by false servants. Their second purpose is to clear the atmosphere of that unreasoned suspicion that accepts rumor and gossip as substitutes ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... unlighted by gas, it is difficult at night, should it prove rainy and dark, to keep out of the gutters. At the point where four streets meet, you may generally observe a well, and around this well a knot of idlers, men and women, congregate and gossip, leaning against its palings; but the respectable portion of the inhabitants are never to be found in the streets, although they may be seen, on summer evenings, walking on the terrace of ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... custom of setting two chairs at the table to which they may return at any minute? Miss Hunter, what I do in the loneliness of that great house is not worth the gossip of ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... Isel. "She's a tongue as long as a yard measure, and there isn't a scrap of gossip for ten miles on every side of her that she doesn't hand on to the first comer. She'd know all I had on afore I'd been there one Paternoster, and every body else 'd know it too, afore the day ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... time when people tell you the stale gossip of Paris," added Galli, "you can tell them from me that they are mistaken about the Duprez expedition. I know Duprez's adjutant, Martel, personally, and have heard the whole story from him. It's true ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... French and was impudent to Madame," whispered Bobby, who knew all the school gossip. "Mrs. Eustice canceled ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... the principal apartment in the palace. Flambeaux and torches glowed from the roof and from the sides of this hall, and here the Court had assembled, half amused, half serious, as to the arrival of the peasant girl, about whom there had been so much strange gossip stirring. Now the grass grows in wild luxuriance over the pavement, and the ivy clings to the old walls of that noble room, in which, perhaps, the most noteworthy of all recorded meetings between king and subject then ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... and melancholy kindness with which the French lady received her, soothed and pleased Miss Ethel. She came and reposed in Madame de Florac's quiet chamber, or sate in the shade in the sober old garden of her hotel; away from all the trouble and chatter of the salons, the gossip of the embassies, the fluttering ceremonial of the Parisian ladies' visits in their fine toilettes, the fadaises of the dancing dandies, and the pompous mysteries of the old statesmen who frequented her grandmother's apartment. The world began for her at night; when she ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... selfishness. What can I do in the world? I have no interest in the game outside of her. No, Mart, the consumptive is right, 'tis up to you to slip away, genteel and quiet, so that your widow will not be troubled by anny gossip." ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... no one had recognised him. He had arrived the night before, and taken a room at the Pack-horse, nobody asking his name; had sat after supper in a corner of the smoking-room and listened to the gossip there, saying nothing. ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... usual acquaintances, and that she was capable of spending some time in theaters, concerts, and society without looking for him. Full too of talk of her frocks and neighbors, without wishing to interrupt the empty gossip with a look or a kiss to let him know that she was conscious of his presence, and in the middle of her idle talk to say nevertheless that her heart was with him. On the other hand, she showed the tenderest ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... excitement in Sturatzberg. Rumor flies fast, and the moment it was whispered that the city gates were watched, that Captain Ellerey, of his Majesty's Horse, was to be arrested, men began to stop and gossip at street corners, and women to stand upon their thresholds ready to give, or to receive, information. Strange stories grew current in this manner, which served to keep the excitement alive until more definite news were forthcoming. There was unwonted stir in the secret societies ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... neighbors felt worried and troubled but as no attention was paid to their remarks, they gradually ceased, and by the time Mary's preparations were completed, curiosity and gossip seemed to have subsided altogether. She was quite a favorite in the neighborhood, and on the morning when she left home, there was many a kind good-bye, and word of love spoken to her by those who came to see her off. Mr. Knight carried her to ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... words, if they are acid enough, are quoted and re-quoted. They pass from mouth to mouth, gaining in authority. By the time they reach the friendly country at which they are directed, they have taken on the appearance of an opinion representative of a nation. The Hun is well aware of the value of gossip for the encouraging of divided counsels among his enemies. He invents a slander, pins it to some racial grievance, confides it to the fools among the Allies and leaves them to do the rest. Some of them wander about in a merely private capacity, nagging without knowledge, ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... thin-skinned? What good does it do you? You are pining away in this hole of a lodging. You squirm when Mrs. Myers tries to be friendly with you; and I sometimes laugh at your expression when Eliza treats you to a little blarney about your looks. Now I would just as soon gossip and swear at her as go to tea ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... mother, the widow of the famous diplomat of imperishable memory," and Dona Emilia, forgetting her situation, fancying she was in the good old times, went to everything, in the same black gown, annoying with her "my dears" and her gossip the great ladies whose maids were richer and ate better than she and her daughter. If some old gentleman took refuge beside her, the diplomat's wife tried to overwhelm him with the majesty of ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... said Mr. Merriman, "you may have heard, since gossip occasionally concerns herself with me, that in my ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... of course, a business man and has no time to overthrow Caesar. Recently, however, the imperialistic stew became hot and too much for him. The marriage of Miss Alice Roosevelt produced such a bad odor of court gossip, as to make the poor American Brutus ill with nausea. He grew indignant, draped his sleeve in mourning, and with gloomy mien and clenched fists, went about prophesying the ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... headquarters of the picturesque corps of horse-tamers, the 'Remonta,' who are responsible for the mounting of the cavalry and the artillery of Spain. Conyngham had, at the suggestion of General Vincente, made such small changes in his costume as would serve to allay curiosity and prevent that gossip of the stable and kitchen which may follow a traveller to his hurt from one side of ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... more ill-natured passages, tells us that Temple was an Epicurean, thinking religion to be fit only for the mob, and a corrupter of all that came near him. Unkind words these, with just, perhaps, those dregs of truth in them which make gossip so hard to bear patiently. Was it true, as Courtenay thinks, that jealousy of King William's attachment to Temple disturbed the episcopal equipoise of soul, rendering his Lordship slanderous, ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... a most remarkable personality. From the first I had been compelled to admit that whatever the Russian public had said, there was a certain amount of basis for the gossip. His was the most weird and compelling personality that I had ever met. Even Stolypin had been impressed by him, though the Holy Synod had declared him to ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... which you subbed on the gossip club," finished Jane, jumping up. "I've got to go back to my room. Don't let me hurry anyone," she said indifferently. Then, just as a strange figure turned from the big boxwood bumper into ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... was dining here with a set of pretty well-known New York men and I had my back to his table. Suddenly I heard Roger's name and a great deal of laughing and in a moment I found myself overhearing (unavoidably) a disgusting and scandalous piece of gossip. In some strange way a garbled account of his marriage has come in from Boston, and Dodge, with that infernally suggestive way of his, was cackling about Roger's "jumping over the broomstick" with a "handsome gypsy" and letting ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... brought the fruit to the table, Mistress Stagg made room for her kindly enough; and she sat and drank her wine and went to her world of dreams, while her companions bartered town and country gossip. It has been said that the small white house adjoined a larger building. A window in this structure, which had much the appearance of a barn, was now opened, with the result that a confused sound, as of several people speaking at once, made itself heard. Suddenly the noise ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... them? He did not say so even to himself, but turned round and hurried back, stumbling through the darkness which hid and blinded him. In the village he met a woman with a lantern, who he did not doubt was Lizzie's grandmother, the village authority; no doubt a gossip, quite disposed to search into other people's mysteries, quite unaware of the secret story which had connected itself with his own. She passed him in a little mist of light in the midst of the dark, raising her head instinctively as he passed with ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... a bad pet; he is useless in the field, is somewhat snappish, has little sagacity, and is very cowardly: but there is an air of bon ton about him which renders him a fashionable appendage to a fine lady."—Parisian Gossip. ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... mansion—a superb villa—at Auteuil, and the handsomest turnout on the road, which he presented to a banker's wife, without letting any one know his reason for doing so; all this was sufficient to make him the central point around which revolved the social gossip of the day. But, besides this, the handsome stranger makes his appearance at the theatres in the company of a lady in Grecian dress, whose transcendent beauty and countless diamonds awake alike admiration and cupidity. Like moths around the flame, society flutters ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... and hospitable, and told him his own version of all that had passed between him and Philip Feltram, and presented himself in an amiable point of view, and pleased the Doctor with his port and flatteries—for he could not afford to lose anyone's good word just now; and the Doctor was a bit of a gossip, and in most houses in that region, in one character or another, every ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... broken-hearted and in poverty. Drummond of Hawthornden states that Ben Jonson told him that Spenser "died for lack of bread in King Street, and refused 20 pieces sent to him by my Lord of Essex, and said He was sorrie he had no time to spend them." The story is probably a bit of exaggerated gossip. He was buried close to the tomb of Chaucer in the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, his fellow-poets bearing the pall, and the Earl of Essex defraying the expenses of the funeral. Referring to the death of Spenser's great ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... for the Hearticulturist in August. If the Gossip Weed and Scandalwood have been kept in check, the young Heart Gardener will have ample time to enjoy the feast of color and sweetness that his labor and devotion ...
— Cupid's Almanac and Guide to Hearticulture for This Year and Next • John Cecil Clay
... not be supposed to know the secret source of the chaplain's eloquence, and his withering denunciations were supposed to arise from a consciousness of his own pure and open heart. The female admirers of Cargrim particularly dwelt in after-church gossip on this presumed cause of the excellent sermon they had heard, and when the preacher appeared he was congratulated on all sides. Miss Tancred for once forgot her purse story, and absolutely squeaked, in the highest of keys, in her efforts to make the young man understand the amount ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... but they try to think of something which limits the praise bestowed upon him, or altogether counteracts it. It seems to be an instinctive hostility to superiority as involving an implied criticism of one's own inferiority. It is that curious love of the worst that lies at the root of gossip. ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... he had nothing but his aim to consider, and he reached it. But tie yourself up with a woman and, like a chained convict, you lose all freedom! And all you have of hope and strength merely weighs you down and torments you with regret. Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, and triviality—these are the enchanted circle I cannot escape from. I am now going to the war, the greatest war there ever was, and I know nothing and am fit for nothing. I am very amiable and have a caustic ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... peculiarities of Africa yet to be explained is the almost supernatural rapidity with which rumour travels. Across the whole breadth of this darkest continent a mere bit of gossip has made its way in a month. A man may divulge a secret, say, at St. Paul de Loanda, take ship to Zanzibar, and there his own secret ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... "Too low for a hawk, too high for a buzzard." That homely old saying seemed to sum me up. And suppose I COULD still take pleasure in the company of my own old upper-middle class, how would that class regard me now? Gossip percolates. Little by little, I was sure, the story of my Keeb fiasco would leak down into the drawing-room of Mrs. Foster-Dugdale. I felt I could never hold up my head in any company where anything of that ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... rich, he bought him fine clothing, and hired him servants, and lived in grand style, performing all the duties of his office as though he had been used to it all his life. People noticed, however, that the new deputy-ranger never went out without his ax, which occasioned some gossip at first; but some one having suggested that he did so to show that he was not ashamed of his former condition, folk were satisfied,—though the truth was that he carried the ax ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... Catie, by dint of many questions, had discovered why the Methodist minister's wife was buried in the churchyard with a slice of marble set up on top of her, and why the blacksmith's bob-tailed cat lacked the major portion of her left ear. If ever there was a gossip in the making, it was Catie Harrison. More than that, her accumulated gossip was sorted out and held in reserve, ready to be applied to any end that suited her small convenience. Scott Brenton found that fact out to his cost, when the story ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... the truth, if you will believe me, I say unto you, that from this town of Zamora there is gone forth a traitor to kill you; his name is Vellido Dolfos; he is the son of Adolfo, who slew Don Nuo like a traitor, and the grandson of Laino, another traitor, who killed his gossip and threw him into the river; and this is as great a traitor as the rest of his race; look to yourself therefore and take heed of him. I say this to you, that if peradventure evil should befall you by this ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... more this part of my subject. I called your attention in my last lecture to the true character of several words and forms in use among our country people, and claimed for them to be in many instances genuine English, though English now more or less antiquated and overlived. 'Gossip' is a word in point. I have myself heard this name given by our Hampshire peasantry to the sponsors in baptism, the godfathers and godmothers. I do not say that it is a usual word; but it is occasionally employed, and well understood. ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... head and looked at her. "No," she was about to say shortly, just as she had repulsed many little offers of Polly's for the past few days; but somehow this morning the crackling of the fresh sheet in the girl's hand, suggestive of crisp bits of gossip, was too much for her to hear indifferently, especially as she was in a worse state of mind than usual over ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... remembered "it's fur her." The factory-girls with boisterous good-nature had tried to make her sociable when she first came; they invited her to stroll with them by the river in the summer evenings, to stand and gossip with them at the street corners, to join in their parties of pleasure on Sundays. But they soon found it was of no use; Maggie's one idea, when work was over, was to throw her little checked shawl over her head, and turn her steps quickly towards a certain house in ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... for much of his information. In compiling from the first of these sources, he is very liable to mis-statement, by investing everything in a new dress to conceal his piracies; and the latter source leaves him open to imposition—for much of his matter will be sheer gossip, partial statements, or unfounded tradition, which a long experience only could detect, and place in ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... Mr. Rainer was for going on and taking vengeance on the kidnappers. But Sir Tancred dissuaded him, pointing out that there was no need to have every gossip in Europe talking about Dorothy. If the police, who were in a bustle from Mentone to Genoa, caught them, it must be endured. But Dorothy had escaped unharmed, and the less fuss made ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... away. That was natural enough; no man likes to be disturbed in a conversation with a lady famed for her elegance and sensibility. But in truth the subject bored Madame de Lionne, since her personality could by no stretch of reckless gossip be connected with this affair. And it irritated her to hear it advanced that there might have been some woman in the case. This irritation arose, not from her elegance or sensibility, but from a more instinctive side of her nature. It became so great at last that she peremptorily forbade the ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... Gossip said that things were in a dreadful way at the Rectory; the external prosperity of that red-brick building surrounded by laurels which did not flower, heightened ironically the conditions within. The old lady, his mother, ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... making his own plans as he went along. "If I tell these villagers outright that Mother Huldah is in need, each person will think, 'O well, Neighbor Jude, or Gossip Dorcas has more to spare than I. Someone else will take care of the poor old lady, I am sure.' And it will end in her getting nothing at all. I will not talk about her, but to each person I will talk about himself, for that is the ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl
... moreover, by the attitude of his friends. To be sure, they laughed, but in their laughter there was no trace of the ridicule he had feared. They took the situation as a very good joke on Henry, but at the same time, because gossip had already begun to build up a theory to explain that situation, there were several of them who wished that a similar joke, with a similar nubbin, might be played on themselves. They told this to Henry, they urged him to go ahead and become a strictly moral ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... billiard-table was under repair; and there were but two really skilled whist-players among the guests. In the atmosphere of dullness thus engendered, the men not only caught the infection of the women's curiosity, but were even ready to listen to the gossip of the servants' hall, repeated to their mistresses by the ladies' maids. The result of such an essentially debased state of feeling as this was not slow in declaring itself. But for a lucky accident, ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... and mischief for the sake of moral advantages may be studied in the case also of our womankind. The absorption in their toilettes guards them from many dangers to family sanctity. And from how much cruel gossip is not society saved by the prevalent passion ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... friend was quite unjustly suspected of having had a hand. Mr. Hall was also reported, whether truly or falsely, to have been a member of Wilkes's famous confraternity of Medmenham Abbey; and from this it was an easy step for gossip to advance to the assertion that the Rev. Mr. Sterne had himself been admitted to that ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... to them without exposing herself to much that was unpleasant, for the governor's free retainers and their friends, not to mention the guard of soldiers who, now that the gates were closed, were still sitting in parties to gossip; they would certainly not break up for some time yet, since the slaves were only now bringing out ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Selma's attention was constantly attracted to the Williamses by prominent newspaper allusions to their prosperity and growing fashionable prestige. What they did and where they went were chronicled in the then new style journalistic social gossip, and the every-day world was made familiar with his financial opinions and his equipages and her toilettes. The meeting in the street was an ordeal for Selma. Flossy had been shopping and was about to step into her carriage, the door of which was held open by an imposing liveried ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... discreet, and related at the time nothing of what had passed at that interview. But that the interview itself had taken place under such conditions was enough to set the tongue of gossip wagging. An echo of it reached the King, together with the story of that other business in the garden, and he was glad to know that the Duke of Buckingham was back in London. Richelieu, to vent his own malice against the Queen, sought to feed the ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... cannot dispose of his real estate without her consent; He cannot even deprive her of it by will. She may bring up his children carelessly and idiotically, cursing them with abominable manners and poisoning their nascent minds against him, and he has no redress. She may neglect her home, gossip and lounge about all day, put impossible food upon his table, steal his small change, pry into his private papers, hand over his home to the Periplaneta americana, accuse him falsely of preposterous adulteries, affront his friends, and lie about him to the neighbours—and he ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... the three days' old infant had, for a time, quieted its incessant cries. This sudden mention brought every dark face to bend low over the cradle, which Bessie, the nurse, had brought hither from the house, that she might share the gossip ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... the nearest public-house. That is the centre of country gossip. They would have told you every name, from the master to the scullery-maid. Williamson? It conveys nothing to my mind. If he is an elderly man he is not this active cyclist who sprints away from that young ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that first one and then another began to hunt the captain to question him, but only to obtain short polite answers, that officer being too busy to gossip after the fashion wished. They fared worse with the chief and second officers, who were quite short; and then one of the most enterprising news-seekers on board captured old Bostock, literally button-holing him with ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... literary gentleman, "I recognized YOUR HOOF" in any periodical whatever? Suppose the 40,000 subscribers, which the writer to New York "considered to be about the mark," should be between 90,000 and 100,000 (and as he will have figures, there they are)? Suppose this back-door gossip should be utterly blundering and untrue, would any one wonder? Ah! if we had only enjoyed the happiness to number this writer among the contributors to our Magazine, what a cheerfulness and easy confidence his presence ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... stories of court gossip respecting the Queen and the Duchess of Marlborough, whose affection for one another was a byword throughout the realm. The Duke and Duchess were also most tenderly attached; and the private lives of Anne and her Prince George, and of the Duke and Duchess ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Vansen. Gossip! Let the duke alone. The old cat looks as though he had swallowed devils, instead of mice, and could not now digest them. Let him alone, I say; he must eat, drink, and sleep, like other men. I am not afraid if we only watch our opportunity, At ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the next Parliament, took place the celebrated negotiation respecting the Infanta. The would-be despot was unmercifully browbeaten. The would-be Solomon was ridiculously over-reached. Steenie, in spite of the begging and sobbing of his dear dad and gossip, carried off baby Charles in triumph to Madrid. The sweet lads, as James called them, came back safe, but without their errand. The great master of king-craft, in looking for a Spanish match, had found a Spanish war. In February ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... too much muss!" tugging savagely at the clenched and unconscious hand. "Sacreminton! What for a death-grip is this Kerls? If I cut his hand off so iss there blood and gossip right away already. No—too much muss. Wait! I try ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... To be gossip, a thing must go through two mouths at least, and I had it first-mouth. I tell it you because I think it ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... came into Madge's room for a bit of the gossip that she dearly loved, but, as usual, obtained little information or surmise from the young girl. "I'm glad you came down," she said, "if only to prove to Graydon that you were ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... have heard her mutter to herself; could they have seen, it would have been to observe how frequently she looked up over the Mount, reproving the dawn for its promptness; if it had been possible for them to gossip, not improbably they would have said to each other, "Our friend is in a hurry this morning; the mouths she goes to feed ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... precision, the happy, distinguished melancholy sometimes united in a good-looking judge.... You watched the weighing of each word at its exit from the shaved, working lips, and the closure of their inexorable adamant behind its heels. As the last commonplace of club gossip, smoke-room heroics, and music-hall sentiment issued from these portals, transfigured by the moderate discount that made it twice itself, you not only saw it was final truth, or virility's quintessential emotion; you felt he had done something decisive, even gallant, ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... sight; and he also knew there's a sort very frank and honest to their fellow men, but very much the reverse to their fellow women. So he just took stock and had speech with Richard off and on and heard the gossip and figured up Dick ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... through the car with his towering load of varicolored periodicals, and rather than be forced to the final resort of the unaccompanied traveler, she welcomed the advent of an acquaintance possessed of volubility of an ejaculatory, eruptive variety. After many gentle jets and spurts of gossip much remained to be told, as the lady hastily gathered up her impedimenta preparatory to alighting at ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... and so it had been kept dark. Quite intelligible, but so sad! Enough misgiving however remained in their minds, to prevent their going to condole with the dear Vicar; but not enough to prevent their roundly contradicting the rumours and gossip already coming to their ears. And then one day, when their friend Mrs. Curtis had said too positively: "Well, she doesn't wear a wedding-ring, that I'll swear, because I took very good care to look!" they determined to ask Mr. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... but there may be a straggler or two to come in later. Does the Shining One no longer know where his own thunderbolts have struck, that he sends his hired servants to gather up the gossip of the market-place?" ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... Kilauea. The baggage animals ought already to have started, but we found they had been kept back, in case we should happen to forget anything. Quite a crowd assembled to see us off, and a good deal of gossip had to be got through, so that it was half-past nine before we were all mounted and ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... been busy with the wife of the Richest Trustee—as the widow she did not relax her hold. What the trustees said that day they only repeated from gossip: the little gray wisp of a woman was a nonentity—nothing more—with the spirit of a mouse. She held no position in society, and what she did with her time or her money no one knew. The trustees smiled inwardly and reckoned silently with themselves; at least they would ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... and ate it. He sat down with his back to an adobe wall and rolled a cigarette. The peons, loafing in the cool of the evening, naturally fell into gossip. Steve, intent on his own thoughts, did not hear what was said until a word snatched him out of his indifference. The word was ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... income as a workman but, under the influence of Gordon Hart, demanded also a swinging profit on the building materials. Ben now drove about town in a vehicle called a buckboard and spent the entire day hurrying from job to job. He had no time now to stop for a half hour's gossip with a prospective builder of a barn, and did not come to loaf in Birdie Spinks' drug-store at the end of the day. In the evening he went to the lumber office and Gordon Hart came over from the bank. The two men figured on jobs to be built, ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... demanded admiration, courtship, love. They always had; they always would. The literature of the ages attested it. He had been too precipitate—too hasty. He must give her time to recover from the shock she must have experienced from hearing the spiteful gossip about himself and Fanny Dodge. On the whole, he admired her courage. What she had said could not be attributed to the mere promptings of vulgar sex-jealousy. Very likely Fanny had been disagreeable and haughty in her manner. ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... not permanently, I think, in the case of the artistic novel. As yet the women, who form the largest, if not the only cultivated class among us, have not taken very cordially to the Sunday edition, except for its social gossip; they certainly do not go to it for their fiction, and its fiction is mainly of the inferior sort with which boys and men beguile ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... my gayer moods, distraction for my cares, solace for my griefs, gossip for my idler moments, tears for my sorrows, counsel for my doubts, and assurance against my fears—these things my books give me with a promptness and a certainty and a cheerfulness which are more than human; so that I ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... as a private rather than risk not getting to Cuba at all. But, of course, he'll get his commission back again." The Sergeant's manner fooled neither Grafton nor Crittenden; both respected the old Sergeant's unwillingness to gossip about a man who had been his superior, and Grafton asked ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... very little of the truth ever did leak out. When it was known, as Herrick took good care it should be known, that Mr. Rose had gone to Italy to join his wife, who was wintering there, and would return with her after a few weeks spent together by the shores of the Mediterranean, gossip was ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... thin hand and laid it appealingly on Jane's. "I don't like to tell you. But—it's this: I told all my friends what you wanted. They know you, care for you, and they said for me to trust Fay to you. Women will talk, you know. It got to the ears of Mormons—gossip of your love for Fay and your wanting her. And it came straight back to me, in jealousy, perhaps, that you wouldn't take Fay as much for love of her as because of your religious duty to bring up another girl for ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... better man than Frank Ayres. Frank Ayres was only a popinjay. Beneath the tails of his coat he snapped his fingers at Frank Ayres, while he listened, with his own agreeable smile, to Mademoiselle de Cressy's devilled gossip. ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... alone with his housekeeper, man-servant, and cook. He got up between ten and eleven in the morning, and after making his toilette he repaired to the confectioner's shop of Dona Romana, where he found congenial spirits, who told him all the current gossip of the place, and when this was exhausted, he withdrew to the dark, greasy-looking little room, pervaded by an overpowering smell of pastry, at the back of the shop, and there seating himself at a table, which matched its surroundings in dinginess, he indulged ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... with Mr. Spanker, followed by a long, desultory gossip, brought me another couple of hours nearer the final reward of my orthodox upbringing. In another hour, my horses were saddled, and I was having a drink of tea and a bit of brownie in ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... hospitality. Even the poorest cottage welcomed the festive season with green decorations of bay and holly—the cheerful fire glanced its rays through the lattice, inviting the passenger to raise the latch, and join the gossip knot huddled round the hearth, beguiling the long evening with legendary jokes and ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... day, one of the kloofs on the farm gave up a wig of golden hair, all muddy and weed-entangled. The natives hung it on a bush to dry, and there was much gossip among them that day, hastily hushed when any European ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... nothing that your friends need not hear, not even our great cavalry leader, General Wood. I was passing after a late errand, and seeing your light it occurred to me that I might come up to you and speak of some strange gossip that I have ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... just one poor one, whom they called the little peasant. He had not even so much as a cow, and still less money to buy one, and yet he and his wife did so wish to have one. One day he said to her: 'Listen, I have a good idea, there is our gossip the carpenter, he shall make us a wooden calf, and paint it brown, so that it looks like any other, and in time it will certainly get big and be a cow.' the woman also liked the idea, and their gossip the carpenter cut and planed the calf, and painted it as it ought ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... the affair as it stands at present, how is it that a nation plunged in materialism of the grossest kind has accepted idle rumours and gossip of the supernatural as certain truth? The answer is contained in the question: it is precisely because our whole atmosphere is materialist that we are ready to credit anything—save the truth. Separate a man from good drink, ...
— The Angels of Mons • Arthur Machen
... later when Young Thomas heard that he was to be married to Adelia Williams in June. Eben Clark, the blacksmith, told him when he went to the forge to get his horse shod. Young Thomas laughed his big jolly laugh. Valley View gossip had been marrying him off for the last thirty years, although ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... works of fiction—the only ones admitted to the convent library—in which the hero was always a Legitimist vicomte who fought duels by the dozen but went twice a month to confession; and in part of the strong social scent of the gossip of her companions, many of them filles de haut lieu who, in the convent-garden, after Sundays at home, depicted their brothers and cousins as Prince Charmings and young Paladins. Euphemia listened and said nothing; ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... The reason and fancy, before they can be competent to appreciate such truths, must be trained in the study and worshipful meditation of subjects of commensurate mystery and sublimity. It is no wonder that when minds and hearts familiar only with houses and clothes and food, the trivial gossip and vanity of the hour, are summoned to grasp the idea of spiritual survival and an everlasting destiny of conscious adventures, they are overwhelmed and helplessly fail to represent to themselves the possibility of any such truth. This cause of doubt is very prevalent and effective; for ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... half. Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor then followed, and the others were left by themselves, to talk of the travellers, and feel their own dullness, till Mrs. Jennings was summoned to her chaise to take comfort in the gossip of her maid for the loss of her two young companions; and Colonel Brandon immediately afterwards took his ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... till after Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste had sailed away (November 18) that a piece of gossip came to King's ears that caused him uneasiness. According to the rumour, Lieutenant-Colonel Paterson, of the New South Wales corps, had stated that one of the French officers had told him that one of the purposes of the expedition was ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... An Arab told me that a pillar had fallen; it was all the same to me, to him, to the others, too. The sun came out hot. I like heat. My men sprawled in the tents; some watered, some went up to the town to gossip in the bazaar. I mounted and cast bridle on neck—you see how much I cared where I went! In two hours we had completed a circle—like a ruddy hawk above El Teb. And my horse halted beside the ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... of the ladies, however, I am informed, who interests herself in the construction of these most ingenious toys. Possessed of ample means, and more than ample leisure, she amuses herself in hours which might otherwise be devoted to gossip and tea, in putting together these various models of buildings, all differing in style, and of most singular materials. The church, for instance, is built of fragments of clinker, gathered from stove and grate, and held firmly together ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various |
