"Hearsay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... passed and the months. Sometimes they heard At home, by letter, from the sloop, or word Of hearsay from the fleet. But by and by Along about the middle of July, A time in which they had no news began, And holding unbrokenly through August, ran Into September. Then, one afternoon, While the world hung between the sun and moon, And while the mother and her girls were sitting ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... volunteer help of a number of ladies who understood the children of the poor and knew how to pass judgment on books proposed for their reading. It was definitely understood that every book should be read by the reviewers from cover to cover. We would not depend upon advertisements, hearsay, or vague recollections of books read by ourselves years ago, but every book should be read from beginning to end with the immediate question in view of the admission of the book to the little libraries to be read by the poor in the homes of the poor. Publishers and book-dealers sent us books for ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... So far as they touch on this case, absolute loyalty and truth are the ones paramount. Tell him that I have studied my own heart as well as one can, and I know its weakness as well as I do its needs. That is why I decline to hear his pleas, whatever they may be. I did not condemn him through hearsay or doubtful evidence, and that is why I made no charge. But, since he persists in hearing what he already well knows, you ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... and wonders, ye will not believe." He saw that the nobleman wanted Him to come and stand beside the child. This man had not the faith of the centurion—"Only speak a word." He had faith. It was faith that came from hearsay, and it was faith that did, to a certain extent, hope in Christ; but it was not the faith in Christ's power such as Christ desired. Still Christ accepted and met this faith. After the Lord had thus told him what He wished—a faith that could fully trust Him—the nobleman cried the second time, "Sir, ...
— The Master's Indwelling • Andrew Murray
... the streets, trying to think things out. His burning desire was to go straight to Eleanor and lay the whole matter before her. But according to his ethics it was a poor sport who would discredit a rival, especially on hearsay. He must leave it to Rose, and let her furnish the proof she ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... nothing solid to go upon in crying down the credit of the 54th beyond hearsay and the self-evident fact that they are half their nominal strength. To assume they won't put up a fight is a certain way of making the best troops gun-shy. We are standing up to our necks in a time problem, and the tide is on the rise. There is not a moment to spare. The Turks have reinforced ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... to find out, Mr. David Kent; not by hearsay, but in good, solid terms of fact that will appeal to a level-headed, conservative newspaper editor like—well, like Mr. Hildreth, of the Argus, let us say. Are you big enough ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... can recall experiences of their very early years which they have actually learned from hearsay, from countless repetition ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... of the post office, travelling over considerable tracts of country, would naturally become the means of conveying local gossip from stage to stage, and of spreading hearsay news as they went along. In this way, and as being the bearers of welcome letters, they were no doubt as gladly received at the doors of our forefathers as are the postmen at our own doors to-day. Indeed, complaint was ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... Old-School physicians, only know Hom[oe]opathy by hearsay, and look upon it through the dim glasses of the prejudices of the past. None of those who have abused Hom[oe]opathy have previously examined and studied the matter thoroughly, because all those who have conscientiously ...
— Allopathy and Homoeopathy Before the Judgement of Common Sense! • Frederick Hiller
... saying that her beauty beggared description. "So fair is she," he added, "that painters flock to draw her portrait, to whom, within the limits of decorum, she displays the marvels of her beauty." "Then there is nothing for it but to go and see her," answered Socrates, "since to comprehend by hearsay what is beyond description is clearly impossible." Then he who had introduced the matter replied: "Be quick then to follow me"; and on this wise they set off to seek Theodote. They found her "posing" to a certain painter; and they took their stand as spectators. ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... phrases as she introduced to Marion and Doris the young lady who picked out books for Aunt Alice, had all helped to crush out the vaguely hostile impulse Norma Sheridan had toward rich little members of a society she only knew by hearsay. Norma had found herself sitting on Leslie's big velvet couch laughing and chatting quite naturally, and where Norma chatted naturally the day was won. She could be all friendliness, and all sparkle and fun, and presently Leslie ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... wives before the war, and was reputed to be none too good to them, a fact which was known at home only on hearsay; for he always took his wives from plantations at a distance ...
— Old Jabe's Marital Experiments - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... taking the form of a series of weekly feasts, many of which resembled that of Belshazzar, in so far as a spirit hand was at the very time writing the bankruptcy of the host upon the wall. However, my knowledge of the details of these feasts was derived only from hearsay. But any special banquets, whether great or small, that fell to the lot of our own house I saw with my own eyes and it is about these that I now propose ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... consciousness that this prisoner was too royal in mien to be an ordinary Jewish visionary. It was as though He said: "Dost thou use the term in the common sense, or as a soul confronted by a greater than thyself? Do you speak by hearsay or by conviction? Is it because the Jews have so taught thee, or because thou recognizest Me as able to bring order and peace ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... From the obscure and hearsay evidence, Gerard Vossius (de Poetis Graecis, c. 6) and Le Clerc (Bibliotheque Choisie, tom. xix. p. 285) mention a commentary of Michael Psellus on twenty-four plays of Menander, still extant in Ms. at Constantinople. Yet such classic studies seem incompatible with the gravity or dulness ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... answered John Gayther, "and Dr. Paltravi had heard many such stories, but most of them were founded upon traditions and myths and the vaguest kind of hearsay, and some were no more than the fancies of story-tellers. But the doctor wanted to work on solid and substantial ground, and he believed that his wife's exceptional ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... thirty-four years. His Travels relates what he saw and heard in his wanderings through Ethiopia, Persia, Tartary, India, and Cathay. What he tells on his own authority, he vouches for as true, but what he relates as hearsay, he leaves to the reader's judgment ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... claim to which her undoubted fidelity was an ample pledge. Still, however, she was often absent from Court at moments of great importance, and was obliged to take her information, upon much which she has recorded, from hearsay, which has led her, as I have before stated, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... failure, the South took issue with Old and New England on the question of negro slavery being an evil, social, political, or moral, and called for the proof. No proof could be given except that drawn from England, from hearsay evidence, and from theoretical teaching of that system of education designed to support European despotisms, and to destroy American republicanism. This has opened the eyes of the South to the necessity of establishing schools and colleges of its own to uphold American civilization. ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... curious man, to be present at this experiment and to participate in it. But even this morning I warned you, that there have been such experiments before and that they have always ended in ignominious failure, at least those of which we know personally; while those of which we know only by hearsay are dubious as regards authenticity. But you have begun the business—and go on with it. We ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... easiest, for it devolved upon him to eulogize an author, many of whose works, by reason of his ecclesiastical position, he was not supposed to have read. The acquaintance that he shows with them, however, is rather too intimate to credit his assertion that his judgment is drawn from hearsay: but with due deference to public opinion and his supposed position, the archbishop lauds rather the character of the man than the excellence of the author, declaring that it is not so much for the multitude of his books, though welcomed by ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... must testify of their own knowledge. Usually they are barred from telling what they simply believe to be the fact or what they have learned from hearsay. ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... consistently tell me of any of the corporation's transactions? I know of them, of course, by hearsay, but I should be glad to receive ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... could have found nothing to reproach. This was indeed Mary's great and real crime: one single imperfection in face or figure, and she would not have died upon the scaffold. Besides, to Elizabeth, who had never seen her, and who consequently could only judge by hearsay, this beauty was a great cause of uneasiness and of jealousy, which she could not even disguise, and which showed ...
— Quotes and Images From "Celebrated Crimes" • Alexander Dumas, Pere
... with me to the porter's cottage, where I will shortly write out the substance of what he has said, and get him to sign it. You will then have far better grounds for interfering between Mr. and Mrs. Manston than if you went to them with a mere hearsay story.' ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... old host, and engaged a room for the night. He was talkative and curious, and sat by my side when he had prepared my supper in the dingy dining-room downstairs. I felt quite sure that he would be able to tell me what I wanted, or at least to give me a hint from hearsay. But he at once began to talk of last year, and how much better his business had been then than it was now, as country ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... for his hero. Mr. Garnett holds that the characterization of Insarov, the Bulgarian, in On the Eve, is a failure, and puts this down to the fact that Turgenev drew him, not from life, but from hearsay. I think Mr. Garnett is wrong. I have known the counterpart of Insarov among the members of at least one subject nation, and the portrait seems to me to be essentially true and alive. Luckily, if Turgenev could not put his trust in Russian men, he believed with all his heart in the ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind. So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful and having a sense of his beauty. The former may be obtained by hearsay, but the latter only by seeing the countenance. There is a wide difference between mere speculative rational judging anything to be excellent, and having a sense of its sweetness and beauty. The former rests only in the head, speculation only is concerned in it; but the heart ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... manoeuvred, know a little about weapons and military engines, the differences between line and column, cavalry and infantry tactics (with the reasons for them), frontal and flank attacks; in a word, none of your armchair strategists relying wholly on hearsay. ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... be," she said; "we have nought but hearsay of other lands. If we ever knew them we have ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... returned the smiling girl, whose unmoved and natural manner proved how little she was thinking of anything more than parental or fraternal regard, "you are beginning to see the folly of forming friendships for people before you know anything about them, except by hearsay." ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... that there was not the shadow of evidence to prove, that any other persons, excepting the Soldiers, had form'd a design to commit disorders at that or any other time: Unless credit is to be given in a court of law, to the hearsay of an hearsay; the story which one man told another at sea, and months after the facts were committed: Evidence which was in vain objected to by the council for the crown; but to the honor of one of the prisoners council was by him interrupted and stopped. This worthy gentleman ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... convoy that waits for me on the other side, doth lie as a glowing coal at my heart. I see myself now at the end of my journey; my toilsome days are ended. I am going to see that head that was crowned with thorns, and that face that was spit upon for me. I have formerly lived by hearsay and faith, but now I go where I shall live by sight, and shall be with him in whose company I delight myself. I have loved to hear my Lord spoken of; and whenever I have seen the print of his shoe in the earth, there I have coveted to set my foot too. His name has been to me as a civet-box, ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... is, my lady Elizabeth is put from that degree she was afore; and what degree she is at now, I know not but by hearsay. Therefore I know not how to order her, nor myself, nor none of hers that I have the rule of; that is, her women and her grooms. Beseeching you to be good lord to my lady and to all hers; and that she may have some rayment. For she hath neither gown, nor kirtle, nor petticoat, nor no manner ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... that, my daughter. The Holy Father is a man like other men. Shall I tell you something of his life? The world knows it only by hearsay and report. You shall hear the truth, and when you have heard it you will go to him as a child goes to its father, and no longer ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... metallurgists had accomplished; and I am strongly inclined to the belief that—at least among the priests—knowledge had been gained of a process quite unlike that known to us for producing a gold fulminate. I was not so fortunate as to gain more knowledge of this matter than could be learned from hearsay, but from several sources I heard of the splitting asunder of a certain great rock by the Priest Captain—which wonder was accompanied by a thunderous noise and a gleam of flame and a bursting forth of ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... what heroism, in word or thought or action, will you ever get from the like of him? He, in his necessity, has taken into the benevolent line; warms the cold vacuity of his inner man to some extent, in a comfortable manner, not by silently doing some virtue of his own, but by fiercely recommending hearsay pseudo-virtues and respectable benevolences to other people. Do you call that a good trade? Long-eared fellow-creatures, more or less resembling himself, answer, "Hear, hear! Live Fiddlestring forever!" Wherefrom follow Abolition ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... best type of Italian tenement life. We are not left to guesswork in the matter. Settlement workers and students of social questions are actually living in the tenement and slum sections, so as to know by experience and not hearsay. One of these investigators, Mrs. Lillian W. Betts, author of two enlightening books,[72] has lived for a year in one of the most crowded tenements in one of the most densely populated sections of the Italian quarter. We condense some of her statements, which reveal ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... leads towards the Kingdom of Mien,' on which 'you ride for two days and a half continually downhill,' was the route from Yung-ch'ang to T'eng-Yueh, must be at once abandoned. Marco was, no doubt, speaking from hearsay, or rather, from a recollection of hearsay, as it does not appear that he possessed any notes; but there is good reason for supposing that he had personally visited Yung-ch'ang. Weary of the interminable ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of John Hewlett's warning, thinking that it rested on the authority of a sick nervous woman, and that there was no distinct evidence but that of the young man who would not speak out, and only went by hearsay. ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... people the Parc de Sylvie with a rustic colony of thatched maisonettes and install his favourites therein in a weak imitation of what had been done in the Petit Trianon. The note was manifestly a false one and did not endure, not even is its echo plainly audible for all is hearsay to-day and no very definite record of the ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... hunter, the fighter, From the unlucky French of Gallipolis he descended, Heir to Old World want and New World love of adventure. Vague was the life he led, and vague and grotesque were the rumors Through which he loomed on the people,—the hero of mythical hearsay, Quick of hand and of heart, impatient, generous, Western, Taking the thought of the young in secret love and in envy. Not less the elders shook their heads and held him for outcast, Reprobate, roving, ungodly, infidel, worse than a Papist, With his whispered fame of lawless ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... shot. Before the trial the witness of the act dies. He was the sole witness. There is no other testimony to be had. Under our system of practice, those to whom the statement was made cannot be allowed to testify to it. Such testimony would be "hearsay." It would put before the jury two questions, first whether such a statement was really made, and then whether, if made, it was true. The law of evidence says that they ought not to be ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... torero. He risks his life at every point of the conflict, and it is his coolness, his courage, his dexterity in giving the coup de grace so as to cause no suffering, that raise the audience to such a pitch of frenzied excitement. I speak wholly from hearsay, for I have myself only witnessed a corrida de novillos—in which the bulls are never killed, and have cushions fixed on their horns—and a curious fight between a bull and an elephant, who might have been described as an "old campaigner," ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... hadn't. You tell your father that I'll tell him about it, when he comes. I ain't goin' to be doctored by hearsay. Did you see Sol Bassitt's barn, as you come over ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... decision of war is always the attitude of the fighting men, and it is generally by their enthusiasm that successes are won. Now, therefore, the fact that a few men drawn up for battle with valour on their side are able to overcome a multitude of the enemy, is well known by every man of you, not by hearsay, but by daily experience of fighting. And it will rest with you not to bring shame upon the former glories of my career as general, nor upon the hope which this enthusiasm of yours inspires. For the whole of what has already been accomplished by us in this war ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... the broad ideas would be rather of the hearsay order, at least to most people, unless their application were worked out in the trifle ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mysterious volume ycleped 'The Nigramansir,' said to be by John Skelton the poet-laureate who lived under five kings and died in 1529. Many of Skelton's works, perhaps even the majority of his writings, are known to us by title and hearsay alone; but who shall say that his 'Speculum Principis,' or 'the Commedy Achademios callyd by name,' which he himself mentions, are lost beyond all hope of recovery? 'The Nigramansir' was actually seen by Thomas Warton, the poet-laureate, in the 'fifties of the eighteenth century, and is ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... dangers from which wise people and brave should shrink; and I fear for the future of the Theosophical Society if it follows the track of many of the religions and lets go its hold of knowledge of the other worlds, and comes to depend on hearsay, tradition, belief in the experience of others, and the avoidance of the reverification of experience. For it must be remembered that in giving a vast mass of knowledge to the world, H.P.B. distinctly stated that these are facts which ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... and moral demands of Pennsylvania, Illinois, or California. The value of all of these in his thought is the relation which he holds individually to any one. The circle of his interests grows by the widening of his knowledge. The law of his being is to accept nothing on hearsay. He must prove all things and cleave only to that which he finds true. This, however, is the path to missionary ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... which is supposed to place so great a chasm between them and ecclesiastical writings. Why should I look with more respect on the napkins taken from Paul's body (Acts xix. 12), than on pocket-handkerchiefs dipped in the blood of martyrs? How could I believe, on this same writer's hearsay, that "the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip" (viii. 39), transporting him through the air; as oriental genii are supposed to do? Or what moral dignity was there in the curse on the barren fig-tree,—about which, ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... the cause, and dissipation, That is clear — Maybe friend or kind relation Cause of beer. And the talking fool, who never Reads or thinks, Says, from hearsay: 'Yes, he's clever; ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... hateful insinuations which were made about her. The imagination, however, refuses to conceive that a man of serious age and of high functions should have degraded himself to the level of a Peeping Tom in this way; all the French historians, nevertheless, repeat the story though on the merest hearsay evidence. And they also relate, with more apparent truth, how a double treachery was committed upon the unfortunate prisoner by stationing two secretaries at these openings, to take down her conversation with a spy who had been sent to her ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... first witness called. The law of evidence, or at least the practice in Salem at that time, was quite different from the present. Hearsay testimony was freely admitted in the case of Goody Nurse. Mr. Parris stated that he was called to see a certain person who was sick. Mercy Lewis was sent for. She was struck dumb on entering the chamber. She was asked to hold up her hand, if she saw ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... and urged the old arguments against Oregon—the savage tribes on ahead, the forbidding desolation of the land, the vast and dangerous rivers, the certainty of starvation on the way, the risk of arriving after winter had set in on the Cascade Range—all matters of which they themselves spoke by hearsay. All the great West was then unknown. Moreover, Fort Hall was a natural division point, as quite often a third of the wagons of a train might be bound for California even before the discovery of gold. But Wingate and his associates felt that the ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... pretty sure that this was all a bluff, but the other men gathered about and promised the same thing. So threatening were they, that Dotty was thoroughly scared, and Tod, though not really afraid of arrest, began to think that these men could make things very unpleasant for them. He knew by hearsay of the rough manners and ugly tempers of this particular lot of fishermen. He had heard stories of their dislike for the summer guests, who sometimes visited them out of curiosity and ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... length the chairman got them to the specified crime. "An abolitionist! An abolitionist!" they cried with intense rage,—some of them were too drunk to pronounce the word,—but the more sober ones prevailed, and they examined the evidence. The hearsay amounted to nothing, and they plied me with questions as to my views on slavery. I answered promptly, but briefly and honestly, that I held no views on that subject to which they should object, and that I had never interfered ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... course of this narrative I have expressed my regret in not being an active witness of this or that scene, a regret which, as I am drawing most of these pictures from hearsay, is perfectly natural. What must have been the varying expressions on each face! Warburton, who, though there was tumult in his breast, coolly waited for Karloff to make the next move; Annesley, who saw his terrible secret in the possession of a man whom he supposed to be ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... folly to be getting myself ill-will in my old age. Jason did not marry, nor think of marrying Judy, as I prophesied, and I am not sorry for it: who is? As for all I have here set down from memory and hearsay of the family, there's nothing but truth in it from beginning to end. That you may depend upon, for where's the use of telling lies about the things which everybody knows as well as ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... my father more gently; 'I will not press you farther. I believe I ought to be glad that these habits are only hearsay to you.' ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... difficulty comes in, that they ask artlessly whether such a story as the miracle of Cana, or the feeding of the five thousand, is true. I reply frankly that we cannot be sure; that the people who wrote it down believed it to be true, but that it came to them by hearsay; and the children seem to have no difficulty about the matter. Then, too, I do not want them to be too familiar, as children, with the words of Christ, because I am sure that it is a fact that, for many people, ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... would not be known till the people had got home from Brent, and then but by hearsay, till the sheriff's men had proclaimed me in ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... was a matter of hearsay, as Isabella saw her not after the trial; but she has no reason to doubt the truth of what she heard. Isabel could never learn the subsequent fate of Fowler, but heard, in the spring of '49, that his children had been ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... had spent a glorious half-term holiday with her family in their flat at Naples, and was delighted to describe every detail of her experiences. She chatted about her relations till Lorna knew Mr. and Mrs. Beverley and Vincent absolutely well by hearsay, though she had never met them in the flesh. The accounts of their doings gave her a peep of home life such as she had not ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... author's title-page; and there is not so much as the author promises in his preface, of shooting the wild moors and fishing the waters, of days spent by "fell and flood," and light and joyous nights in mountain bivouacs and moorland huts. There is too much hearsay, and storytelling not to the purpose, and trifling gossip of "exquisite potatoes" and "rascally sherry"—details which would disgrace a half-crown guide book, and ought certainly not to be set forth with spaced large type in hotpressed octavos at a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... things was so clear, deep, intense, and calm,—that the reader could hardly fail to feel that the earnestness of the preacher had its source in the experience of the man, and that his belief in the facts of the spiritual world came from insight, and not from hearsay. His biography confirms this impression. We now learn that he was tried in many ways, and built up a noble character through intense inward struggle with suffering and calamity,—a character sensitive, tender, magnanimous, brave, and self-sacrificing, though not thoroughly cheerful. The heroism ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... first hours of my life for me to relate anything of myself but by hearsay; it is enough to mention, that as I was born in such an unhappy place, I had no parish to have recourse to for my nourishment in my infancy; nor can I give the least account how I was kept alive, other than that, as I have been told, some relation of my mother's took me away for a while as a nurse, ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... hearsay only that he prescribed. He had been to all these places, and tested them perhaps, which would account for his serene demeanour and that even health which he seemed to enjoy. He had traveled without perturbment, it would seem, for his journeys had left no wrinkles on his bland forehead, ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... were but gleaned from hearsay and evidence: Ileen had theories of her own. One, in particular, she disseminated to us untiringly. Flattery she detested. Frankness and honesty of speech and action, she declared, were the chief mental ornaments of ...
— Options • O. Henry
... save for the briefest visit at Thanksgiving or Christmas time. The stay-at-home lad is a warm farmer, and the little school-teacher a mother whose unlined face shows the record of a placid life; but David cannot know even this, save by hearsay, for he never sees them. He is a moneyed man, and not a year ago, gave the town a new library. But is he happy? Or does the old wound still show a ragged edge? For that may be, they tell us, even "when you ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... above the middle height, of a freckled complexion, and with sandy hair, but nevertheless good-looking. Leigh Hunt himself was at No. 32 for some years before 1853, when he removed to Hammersmith. He mentions, on hearsay, that Coleridge once stayed in the square, but this was probably only on the occasion of a visit to friends. In recent times Walter ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... had a short time before this been despatched to Macao for the protection of the China trade. I speak of course from hearsay, as what I am about to relate occurred just before I came into existence; indeed, of many other subsequent events which I shall venture to describe I cannot be said to have any very vivid recollection, although present at the ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... exhibiting so wobegone an aspect, has always had a bad liver; and you will never persuade him to look on the bright side of life. While this bustling, vivacious personage, who approaches us with such a springy step, and rapid merry glance, has never known a day's illness—is indebted to hearsay for his belief in nerves—and is ready to challenge Europe to beat him at a hearty guffaw—he is perplexed by the shadow of a long face, marvels with all his might at a heavy eye, and cannot unriddle the philosophy of a bent brow. When shall we learn that the result of looking depends ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... in his Japanese Homes, published on hearsay a very strange error when he stated: 'The Buddhist household shrines rest on the floor—at least so I was informed.' They never rest on the floor under any circumstances. In the better class of houses special architectural arrangements are made for the butsudan; an alcove, recess, or other ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... know much about you, except by hearsay, you know. I am glad you are here to-night. I shall study ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... did not know. We knew of Leipzig Fair by sad experience, of Bartholomew Fair by tradition, of the Fair of Novgorod by hearsay; but of Morlaix Fair we had ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... this interview are added others, which somewhat reflect upon the disinterestedness of Lochiel. They rest, however, upon hearsay evidence; and, since conversations repeated rarely bear exactly their original signification, some caution must be given before they are credited: yet, even if true, one can scarcely condemn a man who is forced into an enterprise from which he shrinks, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... which devils alone reside, of wonderful monsters and animals, and of miracles the strangest ever wrought. He invents nothing. What he relates of Ireland he states to have found in books, or to have derived from hearsay. The following extract must therefore be taken as a specimen of Irish Folk-lore in the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... enumerate them: First, I knew nothing, except by the merest hearsay, of the art of brewing tea. Second, I had failed to provide myself with a teapot or similar vessel. Third, in the natural confusion of the moment I had left the tea on board the train. Fourth, there was no milk, neither was there cream or sugar. A sense of lassitude, ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... and accumulated? Evidently, and only, by perception and feeling. Never either by reasoning, or report. Nothing must come between Nature and the artist's sight; nothing between God and the artist's soul. Neither calculation nor hearsay,—be it the most subtle of calculations, or the wisest of sayings,—may be allowed to come between the universe, and the witness which art bears to its visible nature. The whole value of that witness depends on its being eye-witness; ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... this "duck-under" lies under water, it can only be described from hearsay. Here, so the blacks say, a solid wall of rock runs out into the river, incomplete, though, and complicated, rising and terminating before mid-stream into a large island, which, dividing the stream unequally, sends the main body of water swirling away along its northern borders, while the lesser ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... assembled, the prisoner was placed at the bar and the trial began. It was an eminently irregular trial, looking at it from a legal point of view, for the verbal evidence all was hearsay. But it also was extra-legal in that it was brief and decisive. Brown gave his testimony in the shape of a repetition of the story that Jaune had told him had been told by Mr. Badger Brush's groom; and when this was concluded, Jaune produced the jacket, razors, shears, and shaving brush, and ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... whole of mankind should obey the voice of this minister without making him known as such? Is it just to give him as his sole credentials certain private signs, performed in the presence of a few obscure persons, signs which everybody else can only know by hearsay? If one were to believe all the miracles that the uneducated and credulous profess to have seen in every country upon earth, every sect would be in the right; there would be more miracles than ordinary events; and it would be the greatest miracle if there were no miracles wherever ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... Q. We want no hearsay evidence here; how can you swear that she has had them when you did not see her have them? A. She told me ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... buried their dead under the bed within the house, these detestable Kaylees ate not only their prisoners, but their defunct friends, whose bodies were "bid for directly the breath was out of them;" indeed, fathers were frequently seen to devour their own children. Bowdich evidently speaks from hearsay; but the Brazil has preserved the old traditions of cannibalism ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... miss," said the groom, "but the hoss is sold. My master has paid his money. He is a friend of Captain Winstanley's. They met somewhere in Scotland the other day and my lord bought the hoss on hearsay; and I must say I don't think he'll be disappointed ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... had some trouble to make a Native complainant understand that the evidence upon which he relied was entirely hearsay and therefore of no avail against the man he wished to charge with a crime of theft. While talking an elderly Tebele arrived and I put the matter to him. He listened gravely and when I had finished he turned to the other ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... a belief in the truth of that attack lingered long afterwards—but not in the minds of those who could distinguish between honest conviction, based upon actual knowledge, and pre-conceived opinions, based upon hearsay and a superficial acquaintance with ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... nothing about the loving but manly devotion of a St. Lewis, but I strongly suspect that Mr. Mivart has taken him, too, upon hearsay. ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... credible to critics or professors who are working upon them. All the particulars of a great battle or of some famous event that can be gleaned out of some ancient monkish annalist, who must always have collected his information by hearsay and often after many years, are treated as authentic so long as they do not sound improbable; but if they offend against the canon of probability set up by a library-hunting student, they are liable to be summarily rejected. ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... scientific man makes is to distinguish between the two kinds of truth in each respective realm, and to separate that kind which may be demonstrated to the experience from that which must be taken on hearsay. That is, in the natural realm, in the department of chemistry, for example, the laws of chemical action can be put to the laboratory test of experiment, while the history of the science of chemistry must always be taken on hearsay. And, in the spiritual realm, those truths stated in the spiritual ...
— The Church, the Schools and Evolution • J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant
... exactly. In fact, I hardly know how to explain myself to you, since I know nothing save by hearsay, ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold
... misdeeds, but demanded his accuser like a trumpet. And blind Hans's boy came forward, but was sifted narrowly by my master, and stammered and faltered, and owned he had seen nothing, but only carried blind Hans's tale to the chief constable. 'This is but hearsay,' said my master. 'Lo ye now, here standeth Misfortune backbit by Envy. But stand thou forth, blind Envy, and vent thine own lie.' And blind Hans behoved to stand forth, sore against his will. Him did my master so press with questions, and so pinch and torture, asking him again and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... is fair to observe that all the discrepancies in the story of the 'warning' are not more numerous, nor more at variance with each other, than remote hearsay reports of any ordinary occurrence are apt to be. And we think it is plain that, if Lord Lyttelton WAS Junius, Mr. Coulton had no right to allege that Junius went and hanged himself, or, in any other ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... you what happened only from hearsay. Aunt Jed came and took you and what was left of Jeanette, your mother. Sometime you must stop in the churchyard down yonder under the steeple and look for a little slab that tells nothing—nothing except that Jeanette died a wife before the law ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... "Only hearsay. Stones of his brave deeds and big hunting on the Labrador and westward! He had a sense of game that comes very rarely; he moved with the animals instinctively, so that the best pelts were always his. And he had luck. One year, he brought in three of the six silver-fox ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... was in raptures: he knew something, he said, of the lady's father, and enough of the family, by hearsay, to confirm all I had said of them; and besought me to do my utmost to bring the ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... of danger. She next heard him open the door opposite to that which he had just locked and enter a room where the counts of Herouville slept when they did not honor their wives with their noble company. The countess knew of that room only by hearsay. Jealousy kept her husband always with her. If occasionally some military expedition forced him to leave her, the count left more than one Argus, whose incessant spying proved ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... mind. If these were punchers from the Bar T outfit he was indeed in a bad way, for no one knew better than Larkin (by hearsay) the wild stories told of Beef Bissell's methods ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... and made off, running with the best will in the world. But the trouble was, we did not know in what direction, and must continually return upon our steps. Ballantrae had indeed collected what he could from Dutton; but it's hard to travel upon hearsay; and the estuary, which spreads into a vast irregular harbour, turned us off upon every side with a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... discussion of the many interesting problems referred to, but is put forward as an effort to assist physicians and their patients in answering the often recurring question of the wisdom of a change to Colorado, from some safe standpoint and not merely from hearsay reports unsupported by evidence or reasonable inference. Viewing this subject of Climate as resting upon a scientific basis, and not alone upon empirical knowledge gained in particular regions, I have followed ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... the elephant out at all, if there was going to be such a to-do about it. Even the minister sulked, though he wore a pretense of dignity; for he had concocted a short address with very little history in it, and that all hearsay, and the doctor had said lightly, looking it over, "Well, old man, not much of it, is there? But there's enough of it, such as ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... strayed, and gazed on the crosses and tombstones, Sat by some nameless grave, and thought that perhaps in its bosom He was already at rest, and she longed to slumber beside him. Sometimes a rumor, a hearsay, an inarticulate whisper, Came with its airy hand to point and beckon her forward. Sometimes she spake with those who had seen her beloved and known him, But it was long ago, in some far-off place or forgotten. "Gabriel Lajeunesse!" they said; "yes! we have seen him. He was with Basil the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... to complain of her ruin by Grandier; the name of no single victim of his alleged immorality was given. The conduct of the case was the most extraordinary ever seen; it was evident that the accusations were founded on hearsay and not on fact, and yet a decision and sentence against Grandier were pronounced on January 3rd, 1630. The sentence was as follows: For three months to fast each Friday on bread and water by way of penance; to be inhibited from ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... evidence upon which many judges look askance—that sort of evidence which is circumstantial and that sort which purely is hearsay. In this connection, and departing for the space of a paragraph or so from the main theme, I am reminded of the incident through which a certain picturesque gentleman of the early days in California acquired a name which he ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... that which was given me; beside, I do not speak of men of this sort other than by hearsay. They are far too unimportant, and too foreign to the mission which I am in charge of, to merit their occupying my attention for any length of time. They are, at most, passive instruments," continued ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... his eyes on me, but did not answer. Stooping, I lifted the lantern and put it in his hand. He was quaking like a leaf, but there was a determination in his face far beyond the ordinary. What made him quake—he who knew of this dog only by hearsay—and what, in spite of this fear, gave him such resolution? I followed in his wake to see ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... coming to that," said her mother. "The fishing, to be sure! Why, we are going to write letters to just everybody we know, and some we only know by hearsay, and find out if there isn't a niche for ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... McClean would come to him. He suspected, though, that there would prove to be a rider of some sort to her agreement as regarded marrying him, for he had young Cunningham in mind; and he knew enough of Englishmen from hearsay and deduction to guess that Cunningham would interject any obstacle his ingenuity ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... would say, "criticise anyone or anything on hearsay. See for yourself and then make up your own mind; but don't hurry to put it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... the fibres of her life about him as his shirt of destiny: following the threads nearer, always nearer, toward the present, until he reached the day on which he had first met her on his in the wilderness. From that time, he no longer relied upon hearsay, but drew from his own knowledge of her to fill out and so far to end all these fond tapestries ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... a random shot, as she did not know Billings or any other town save by hearsay, but it made a bull's-eye. Susie knew it by the startled look which she surprised from him, and Smith could have throttled her as ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart |
