"Busybody" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... incident occurred, which, however, proved a boon to me. Some busybody went to the trouble of telling Major Mabry about my return to Abilene the fall before and my subsequent escapade in Texas, embellishing the details and even intimating that I had squandered funds not my ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... most interesting examples of diary writing that we possess. Following are a few extracts,[181] covering only a few days in April, 1663, from which one may infer the minute and interesting character of the work that this clerk, politician, president of the Royal Society, and general busybody wrote to please himself: ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... the wife of Helsing the chancellor; his was the house at which the carriage had stopped. The trick that had served with the sergeant of police would not do now. She knew the king too well to believe that she could be mistaken about him; she was too much of a busybody to be content to pretend ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... from Charlemagne down until the last fifty years, is a series of going to pieces the moment the strong hand of authority is taken away from them. The German, and especially the Prussian policeman, has become the greatest official busybody in the world. No German's house is his castle. The policeman enters at will and, backed by the authorities, questions the householder about his religion, his servants, the attendance of his children at school, the status of the guests staying in his house, and about ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... side of the wall than on the top, stopping every few yards to see that the way is clear, but giving little heed to me or to the performing squirrel. In comparison the chipmunk is a demure, preoccupied, pretty little busybody who often watches you curiously, but never mocks you or pokes fun at you; while the gray squirrel has the manners of the best-bred wood-folk, and he goes his way without fuss or bluster, a picture of sylvan ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... The busybody gathered himself together and slunk behind the group of councilmen, while the Mayor slowly ascended the steps of the market cross. From this position he addressed us, speaking in a high piping voice which gathered strength as he proceeded, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and young, and was called the robin; and well would it be if its English namesake possessed its sterling virtues; for, with all its pleasant traits and world-wide reputation, the English robin is a pretentious, arrogant busybody, characteristically pugilistic and troublesome in the winged society of England. In form, dress, deportment, disposition, and in voice and taste for vocal music, the American robin surpasses the English most decidedly. In this our grave forefathers did more than ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... don't see why a man may not be a baker. You see, my lady, I look upon baking as a simple trade, and as such lawful. There is no machine comes in to take away a man's or woman's power of earning their living, like the spinning-jenny (the old busybody that she is), to knock up all our good old women's livelihood, and send them to their graves before their time. There's an invention of the enemy, if ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... All her code was absolutely against mixing in the private concerns of others uninvited. She had a sort of delicate hatred of curiosity. She longed to prove to the woman by the fire that she was wholly incurious now, wholly free from the taint of sordid vulgarity that clings to the social busybody. ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... we will let the reader into the secret of these singular proceedings. The plan for the fortification did really exist. But it had been suggested to the council by some busybody that it was not necessary to execute all the sections at once, and that it would be sufficient for the present to expropriate the land lying between the two arms of the river, while the portion covered by the Monostor vineyards ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... sky; more robins came, and after them bluebirds and redbirds and Peterbirds, and the impudent screaming robber jay that is so beautiful and so bold, and flute-voiced vireos, and nuthatches, and the darling busybody wren fussing about her house-building in the corners of our piazzas. The first red flowers of the Japanese quince opened flame-like on the bare brown bushes. When the bridal-wreath by the gate saw that, she set ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... her place in Mount Zion Church, with ole Br'er Shadrach Timmons liftin' up de tune, fat Sist' Mindy Sawyer fanning herself with a palm-leaf fan and swaying back and forth in time to the speretual, and busybody Deacon Williams rolling his eye to see that nobody took too long a swallow out of the communion cup he passed around. She thought of possum parties, with accompaniments of sweet 'taters and possum gravy. Her lip trembled, tears rolled down her black cheeks. She had been living ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... streamed in, to the number of over four thousand. They were a mere conglomeration of semi-independent units, mostly composed of raw recruits under officers who themselves knew next to nothing. As usual with such fledgling troops there was no end to the fuss and feathers among the members of the busybody staffs, who were numerous enough to manage an army but clumsy enough to spoil a platoon. It was said, and not without good reason, that there was as much gold lace at Harper's Ferry, when the sun was shining, as at a grand review ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... write with difficulty. What language is there to talk to you? How does one converse with a dream? Idiot phrases rant across the paper like little fat actors flourishing tin swords. I've come to distrust words. There are too many of them. Yet I keep fermenting with words. Interlopers. Busybody strangers. I can't think ... because of them.... Alas! if I could keep my vocabulary out of our love we would both be better off. Foolish chatter. I thought when I sat down to write to you that the sadness of your absence would overcome me. Instead, I ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... Everybody, Somebody, and Anybody, form a fifth head, called a Busybody. The Busybody is always anxious after something about Somebody. He'll keep company with Anybody to find out Everybody's business; and is only at a loss when this head stops his pursuit, and Nobody will give him an answer. ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... guilty as he said this that Conolly laughed outright at him. "You mean," he said, "that Marian is not quite alone. Well, very likely Douglas occupies himself a good deal with her. If so, there may be some busybody or another down there fool enough to tell her that people are talking about her. That would spoil her holiday; so it is lucky that you are going down. No one will take it upon themselves to speak to her when you are there; and if they say anything to you, you can let it in ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... a swindler, a professional hypocrite, a patriot for cash, a reformer, a lecturer, a lawyer, a conspirator, a rebel, a royalist, a democrat, a practicer and propagator of irreverence, a meddler, an intruder, a busybody, an infidel, and a wallower in sin for the mere love of it. The strange result, the incredible result, of this patient accumulation of all damnable traits is, that be does not know what care is, he does not know what sorrow is, he does not know what remorse is, his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... on the same day to hear a remonstrance from the doctor's wife, Mrs. Budworth, on the subject of her choice of a servant. Mrs. Budworth was a noted busybody, who knew everybody's business better than ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... us and put off going to thy friends, it will be better both for us and for thee: for the traces of sickness are yet upon thee and belike thou art going amongst talkative folk, who will prate of what does not concern them, or there may be amongst them some impertinent busybody who will split thy head, and thou still weak from illness.' 'This shall be for another day,' answered I and laughed in spite of my anger. 'Finish what thou hast to do for me and go in peace and enjoy ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... the idea of inviting a number of the servants of the neighbourhood to a festivity in honour of the King's birthday, one feature of which was to be a dance. The company duly assembled to the number of forty, but some busybody carried news of the gathering to a magistrate who, with fifty constables, quickly arrived on the scene to put an end to the merrymaking. Every servant in the tavern was taken into custody and marched off ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... somehow not so suddenly as to excite suspicion, Raffles had become the elderly busybody with nerves; why, I could not for the life of me imagine; and the policeman ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... that portraiture to look forward to. And now there's that yarn that some careless busybody started about Nanny Turner being left a fortune of eighteen thousand dollars. Everybody's been crazy, praising her luck to her face and envying her behind her back. Everybody most but Dell Parsons. Dell felt sick when she heard it because she and Nanny have been such friends and Dell just knew ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... to explain that owing to the meddlesomeness of some officious busybody on the Executive Council of the Society for Anthropological Research—an old maid she felt certain—Lord Henry Highbarn had been invited to go to Central China as the Society's plenipotentiary, in order to investigate the reasons of China's ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... his father. The old family servant takes up the tale, and says to the youth:—'When you grow up you must be more of a man than your father.' All the world are agreed that he who minds his own business is an idiot, while a busybody is highly honoured and esteemed. The young man compares this spirit with his father's words and ways, and as he is naturally well disposed, although he has suffered from evil influences, he rests at a middle point and becomes ambitious and ...
— The Republic • Plato
... other noise. I believe thee as well as a man can who is dealing with one who is not his close friend, and who therefore spareth truth to his friend because of many years use and wont. Come to thyself again and let us look at this matter square in the face, and speedily too, lest some unfriend or busybody come on us. There now! Now, in the first place dost thou know why I am come into this ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... as "a fussy, ostentatious, irrepressible busybody, without the faintest conception of delicacy or modesty, who seems to think he has a heaven-born right to patronize Gainsborough, and to take ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... is a tiresome busybody," said Caesar, "the most boresome fellow you could find. He stops you in the street to tell you things. The other day he made me wait a quarter of an hour at the door of a tourist agency, while he inquired the quickest way of getting to Moscow. ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... being called busybodies that even when we ought to step in we hesitate. No motives of delicacy should stop one when a wicked action is to be prevented. It's often the clergy's duty to interfere with other people's affairs. For my part, I will never shrink from doing my duty. People may call me a busybody if they like; hard words break ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... but then the other self which also talked inside her would plead that it was only sporting to screen a schoolfellow, and that no one but a sneak could have done otherwise. She sincerely hoped that Diana had escaped notice both going and returning, and that no busybody from the village would bring a report to Miss Todd. If the matter were to leak out, both girls would get into serious trouble—Diana for running away, and her room-mate for aiding and abetting her escapade. ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... proper, to Hilary and that girl. He had felt from the beginning that he was so much more the man to deal with an affair like this than poor old Hilary. When, therefore, Thyme put her head into his study and said, "Father, Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace!" he had first thought, 'That busybody!' and then, 'I wonder—perhaps I'd better go and see if I can ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Potato, Benevolence Prickly Pear, Satire Pride of China, Dissension Primrose, Early Youth Primrose, Evening, Inconstance Primrose, Red, Unpatronized Privet, Prohibition Purple Clover, Provident Pyrus Japonica, Fairies' Fire Quaking Grass, Agitation Quamoclit, Busybody Queen's Rocket, Fashion Quince, Temptation Ragged Robin, Wit Ranunculus, Are Charming Ranunculus, Wild, Ingratitude Raspberry, Remorse Ray-Grass, Vice Reed, Complaisance Reed, Split, Indiscretion Rhododendron, Danger Rhubarb, Advice Rocket, Rivalry Rose, Love Rose, Australian, All that is Lovely ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... conscious of not understanding on what terms the niece and aunts might be, and the St. Kenelm's estimate of the Beechcroft ladies was naturally somewhat different from that of the St. Andrew's congregation. Miss Mohun was popularly regarded in those quarters as an intolerable busybody, and Miss Adeline as a hypochondriacal fine lady, so that Gillian might perhaps reasonably object to put herself into absolute subjection; so, though Kalliope might have a presentiment of breakers ahead, she could say no more, and Gillian, ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... compass degrees and zones, and arrive always in the nick of time? Last August I saw him in the remotest wilds of the Adirondacks, impatient and inquisitive as usual; a few weeks later, on the Potomac, I was greeted by the same hardy little busybody. Does he travel by easy stages from bush to bush and from wood to wood? or has that compact little body force and courage to brave the night and the upper air, and so achieve ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... is a gentleman, and should keep company with gentlemen," answered the flushed youth. "Mr. Le Gallais is no mate for cavaliers. I say to his face that he is a cropeared rebel, a busybody, and ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... "I wish he would neglect me. He's turning out a perfect busybody, and he's getting as artful as they make 'em. I never would have ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... go talking to outsiders about Eugen—or any of us. His affairs are no business of Fraeulein Sartorius, or any other busybody." ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... He might have done so, however, without persuasion. In future, call me the busybody! I must go now. I have made you late for d'Alchingen's dinner. What a lesson to those about to make themselves useful! And how right you were not to get bitter! I take things too much to heart. I must pray for flippancy. Then, perhaps, ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... is ther a vara busybody, Whe will jest with me and call me fule and noddy, And sets his lads te spout Latin ayenst me, But ay spose then with Deparfundis Clam aui: And oftentimes he wil reason with me of the Sacarment, And say he can prove bay the New Testament That Chraist's body is in heaven placed; But ays ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... other respects you will not find me to be foolish. A man will not readily confess that he is intemperate; and that he is unjust, he will not confess at all. He will by no means confess that he is envious or a busybody. Most men will confess that they are compassionate. What then is ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... acorns, nuts, and corn when he can get it. He builds a nest of leaves and strips of bark, sometimes in a hollow tree and sometimes high up in the branches of an evergreen tree. He is a good jumper and jumps from tree to tree. He is a busybody and always poking his nose in where he has no business. He steals my stores whenever he can ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... you speak in that way. I know that I shall seem a busybody, or perhaps something worse, meddling with things that don't concern me. It would be easier for me to leave it alone, but I couldn't do that, because I can't think of you and your sister as strangers. I've heard something said about Thyrza that you ought to know. Be friendly ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... election were counted from the packed ballot box in the sure ward. In this manner five hundred votes were once returned from Crystal Springs precinct where there dwelt not over thirty voters. If some busybody made enough of a row to get the merry tyrants into court, there were always plenty of lawyers who could play the ultra-technical so well that the accused were not only released but were returned as legally elected ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... busybody. Yes, Sir, she certainly is a busybody. If there is anything going on in her neighborhood that she doesn't know about, it isn't because she doesn't try to find out. She is so small and spry that it is ...
— Mrs. Peter Rabbit • Thornton W. Burgess
... our factotum. He was stable-boy, steward, ladies'-maid, and professional busybody, as well as a bit of a character, though he possessed ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... find in the vicinity of your kitchen, who is not to be caught watching the dial to see how near it is to dinner-time,[359] nor gets so drunk as to throw himself down anyhow, but one who is generally sober, and a busybody, and thinks he ought to have a hand in your affairs, and wishes to share in your secrets, and as to friendship plays rather a tragic than a satyric or comic part. For as Plato says, "it is the height of injustice to appear to be just ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the old man; "I never saw either of them until two months ago, and I have never been in Africa in my life, so you can put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Busybody Holmes!" ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Warren, was himself a serious dramatist, who took his work seriously, and whose dramas may be obtained at any large reference library. The Red-Coats, as actors, amused their Tory public with such plays as "Tamerlane," "The Busybody," and "Zara;" and when they invaded the Southwark Theatre, around 1777, Major Andre, the presiding genius of the English soldier-actors, turned to good account his ability as a scene-painter, and painted a backdrop which was preserved ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists - 1765-1819 • Various
... a light shining brightly in Calliope Marsh's cottage, and some one wearing a hat came swiftly and drew down a shade. On the instant the matter was clear to me, who have a genius for certain ways of a busybody. Calliope must have known that this poor girl was coming; Calliope's warning to me to keep silence must have been a way of protection to her. And here to Calliope's cottage Delia More had come creeping, whom all Friendship would hold in ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... family were not known beyond the circle with which they disdained to associate when the lodging-house business was abandoned. There were a thousand chances to one that in her new abode Miss Dorrance would be identified by some busybody with the divorced Mrs. Lennox. She risked her fortunes upon the one chance, and won. I do not expect you to believe that the impostor was moved by any other consideration in contracting her second marriage than the wish to seek the more exalted sphere of society and influence which Fate had hitherto ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... busybody carried this, with other tattle, to Mr Swift, who questioned me also. I looked to see him mighty angry; and first his brows frowned, and then he laughed, as if a ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... what a meddlesome busybody I am," the guest laughed. "I don't know how to mind my own business, and the one luxury I enjoy most of all is regulating other people's affairs." He was still talking, still lecturing his hearers upon the obligations prosperity had put upon them, when he was summoned to the telephone by a long-distance ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... would dislike this busybody occupation, and others, such as Emerson perhaps, might not consider it justifiable; but Hawthorne is not to be censured for it, for his motive was an elevated one, and without this close scrutiny of human nature we should have had neither a Hawthorne nor a Shakespeare. There ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... was itching to know what manner of folk these seven might be, seeing that the devils themselves feared them so much. But ere long, the Clerk to the Crown calls them by name, as follows: "Mister Busybody, alias Finger-in-every-pie." This fellow was so fussily and busily directing the others, that he had no leisure to answer to his name until Death threatened to sunder him with his dart. Then, "Mr. Slanderer, alias Foe-of-Good-Fame," was called, but no response came. "He is rather ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... Goldsmith, "is what is least known in natural history, though one of the most curious things in it." While conversation was going on in this placid, agreeable and instructive manner, the eternal meddler and busybody Boswell, must intrude, to put it in a brawl. The Dillys were dissenters; two of their guests were dissenting clergymen; another, Mr. Toplady, was a clergyman of the established church. Johnson, himself, was a zealous, uncompromising churchman. None ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... his honour to rest in peace?" But this zealous pastor did not find himself so warmly seconded, as formerly, by the young ladies, who now joined my uncle against him, and accused him of having acted the part of a busybody with their grandpapa whose ears he had certainly abused by false stories to their prejudice, or else he would not have neglected them in such an unnatural manner. The young squire was much diverted with this ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... you to the horrors of uncertainty," the girl soliloquized. "How very, very stupid you are, Mrs. Daney, to warn me to protect him! As if I wouldn't lay down my life to uphold his honor! Nevertheless, you dear old bungling busybody, you are absolutely right, although I suspect no altruistic reason carried you forth on ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... a name known in all those coasts. The news of his treacheries and uprooting was bound to get there before long. Some long-headed busybody might stumble on our secret and undo us. My mind had been seeking a more solitary place, and, ranging to and fro, had lighted on the Ecrehou rocks, which I had visited once with my grandfather and Krok ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... very patient with him. "My dear little Busybody," he said. "Look at me and learn some dignity. See, you have to make those little jumps sixty times before I move! Sixty times!" And the Minute Hand took a short step. "There—now you begin again, while I wait. Watch me, take courage! ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... infatuation for you and your indifference to me? The maddening part of it is that I know perfectly well you are not indifferent. You are in love with me. You always have been. You'd have married me last fall if some busybody hadn't filled your ears with scandal. Confess, ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... a Mrs. Sparsit, who talked a great deal of her genteel birth, rich relatives and of the better days she had once seen. She was a busybody, and when she sat of an evening cutting out embroidery with sharp scissors, her bushy eyebrows and Roman nose made her look like a hawk picking out the eyes of a very tough little bird. In her own mind she had set her cap ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... a busybody who craftily found out how the old woman had so suddenly become rich. Thinking there was no good reason why she should not herself be equally fortunate, she washed clothes at the pool, keeping a sharp lookout ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... you. His uncle, Sir Joseph, prides himself on being an honest man, and if some busybody were to tell him that poor Stephen, as I am told people are saying, was no worse than harsh treatment had made him—for you know his father could not bear the sight of him till the day of his death—he would be the ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... a busybody. Nowadays everyone inquires of his fellow-man, 'How is your life ordered?' To which always there is added didactically, 'But you ought not to live as you are doing. Let me show you the way.' As though anyone can tell me how best my life ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... detestable men who endeavor to get up a reputation for philanthropy, and temperance, and bimetallism, and other virtues, by putting questions on the paper; and he could, I think, ask some counter question in this particular case that would ridicule the original busybody." ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... acknowledging her merit; she became a great favourite and constant writer for the stage, and an intimate friend of Farquhar and Steele. There is an absence of indelicacy in her plays, but not a little farcical humour, especially in the character of "Marplot" in "The Busybody," and of rich "Mrs. Dowdy" with her vulgarity and admirers in "The Platonic Lady." She often adopts the tone of the day in ridiculing learned ladies. In one place she speaks as if even at that time the founding of a college for ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... opportunity to pour your poisonous lies into their unsuspecting ears, when there is no third person to bear witness of your iniquity; making your victims believe, it is all out of your sincere regard for them; assuring them (as Betty says in the man of the world,) "That indeed you are no busybody that loves fending nor proving, but hate all tittling and tattling, and ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... "For, since we have this telegram, there must have been another message sent from Adele Rossignol to Aix saying that Marthe Gobin, that busybody, that inquisitive neighbour, who had no doubt seen M. Ricardo's advertisement, was on her way hither. Oh it will not be put as crudely as that, but that is what the message will mean. We shall have him." And suddenly his face grew very stern. "I MUST catch ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... not unwilling in what thou doest, neither selfish nor unadvised nor obstinate; let not over-refinement deck out thy thought; be not wordy nor a busybody. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... I trust I'm not an amateur anything. I am a business woman earning my own living by my own labors and I pay taxes and for the past year or so I have been a citizen and a voter. Please do not regard me merely as an officious meddler—a busybody with nothing to do except to mind other people's affairs. It was quite by chance that I came upon this poor child and learned something of ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... I write;" better, perhaps, "This is my handwriting." This signature and this concluding greeting are to be proof to them of the genuineness of the letter. It appears from other references in the same epistle (ch. ii. 2) that some busybody had been writing a letter to the Thessalonians, which purported to be a message from Paul; he puts them on their guard against these supposititious documents. At the end of the letter to the Galatians you find in the old version: "Ye see how large a ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... events was much like that of other instances of the kind. Clandestine letters, less frequent meetings—as opportunity offered—ran the usual risk; in due time, as might have been expected by any but ardent lovers, the secret oozed out. Some busybody or other lost no time in conveying the startling news to Stephen Dale, who had hitherto had no suspicion of the state ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... further counter, making a purchase of mole-traps, and saw and heard, and reported. The first meeting was held in Miffins' back-parlour; but fame had beat up for recruits, and that was found far too small; so they have adjourned to the Blue Boar, where, the tap being good, and the landlord a busybody, they are likely to remain a little longer than Muzzle-brains can see to draw up a report. The Curate's door is chalked, and adjacent walls—"No Kissing," "The Clerical Judas," "Who Kissed the School-mistress?" and many such-like morsels. But if fame has thus been playing with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... am not saying that we must spare absolutely all wrongdoers, for we must cut out of the way the daredevil and busybody, the man of evil nature and evil devices, who gives himself up to an unyielding, persistent baseness, just as we treat parts of the body that are quite incurable. But of the rest, who err through youth or ignorance or a misunderstanding or some other ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... man and man: of that I shall say something in the last chapter. The very sacredness of the relation in which two men stand to one another when one of them rescues the other from vice separates that relation from any connection with the work of the social busybody, the professional ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... whole world a more mischievous busybody than that notorious giant Manabozho. He was everywhere, in season and out of season, running about, and putting his hand ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... those papers!" growled Lebel savagely. "Curse you for an interfering busybody! It was I who got information that those pestilential aristos, the Montorgueils, far from having fled the country are in hiding somewhere in my district. I could have made the girl give up their hiding-place pretty soon, without any help ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... said Patty, with sparkling eyes. How she longed to scratch the powder from Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene's beak-like nose! Busybody, meddler! "I never suspected John ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... heavier bang, "a common-sense marriage, founded on suitability of position and property, and all that, is the only proper sort of match. And that's what's before you now, girl, so for goodness' sake don't go about like the parish pan, letting every busybody make mischief with you. My Betsy wouldn't if she had your chance—I can tell you that much, ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... am, it is not either maid or mistress, or anybody the least like them, that could realise my dream. But all the same, I am caught, for the moment, in their noose: and what is to be done now? For she will go straight back and tell it all, to this over-bearing busybody of a queen, and if now I do not go, it will seem an incivility almost equal to an insult. For queens do not like to be refused, and even their request is a kind of order, very difficult to disobey. Out, out, upon this red intrusive ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... Garrofat asked in harsh tones, "How now? Thou meddling busybody! Hast thou solved the ...
— Bright-Wits, Prince of Mogadore • Burren Laughlin and L. L. Flood
... local busybody of a minister, and it was he who first intimated to the then Mrs. Spalton that her dear and ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... represented and protected the people. Kirtley remarked that when the ordinary German began talking of God, which was rare, he was soon talking of the Emperor. Both deities were ever solicitous for him, working tirelessly in his behalf. The Kaiser was properly the national busybody, the head schoolmaster, who attended to everybody and everything and drove all constantly forward toward a unified and ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... the day after she threw Lady Maresfield's invitation into the wastepaper basket she received a visit from a certain Mrs. Donovan, whom she had occasionally seen in Hill Street. She vaguely knew this lady for a busybody, but she was in a situation which even busybodies might alleviate. Mrs. Donovan was poor, but honest—so scrupulously honest that she was perpetually returning visits she had never received. She was always clad in weather-beaten sealskin, and had an odd air of being prepared ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... the action was universally condemned by his best friends. They told him in plain terms that this was come as a judgment upon him for his loose life, his gluttony, drunkenness, and avarice; for laying aside his father's will in an old mouldy trunk, and turning stock-jobber, newsmonger, and busybody, meddling with other people's affairs, shaking off his old serious friends, and keeping company with buffoons and pickpockets, his father's sworn enemies; that he had best throw himself upon the mercy of the court, repent, and change his manners. To say truth, Jack heard these ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... his advantage," remarked my mother quietly. "But if you are indignant with Don Felipe, you will be equally delighted with Rosa. She is still Loyalist to the core, and makes no secret of it. She told San Martin the other day that he was a busybody, meddling in affairs that did not concern him, and that the people of Peru could settle their disputes ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... emulation I would cherish, while it proceeded neither from, nor to malevolence. Bales had his Johnson, Norman his Mason, Ayres his Matlock and his Shelley; yet Art the while was no sufferer. The busybody who officiously employs himself in creating misunderstandings between artists, may be compared to a turn-stile, which stands in every man's way, yet hinders nobody; and he is the slanderer who gives ear ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... was passing and Mouston told me you were here." He spoke slowly, giving her time to recover herself, thanking fate that she had collapsed into his arms rather than into those of some chattering village busybody. He had caught a glimpse of her face as she came through the church door and knew that her agitation was caused by something more than sorrow for Miss Craven, great as that sorrow was. He had seen fear in the hunted eyes that looked unrecognisingly ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... William thought him a busybody who had been properly punished for running into danger without any call of duty, and expressed that feeling, with characteristic bluntness, on the field of battle. "Sir," said an attendant, "the Bishop of Derry has been killed by a shot at the ford." "What took him ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... running to the rescue. "You can't move that alone. Susan! Stop!" It was too late, however. The small busybody had managed to stir the kettle, but, her youthful arms being quite unequal to sustaining its weight, she let it drop, retreating with a wild Indian yell of alarm. The stream of boiling water fortunately escaped her, but nearly put out the ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... reforming. Somebody's got to take the matter up, and I guess it's your mission to do it! I don't believe it's ever occurred to those girls to make a stand for their rights. They may support you, or they may call you an interfering busybody for your pains; you'll have to take your chance of that. With your free-born democratic standards, it's impossible for you to sit still and see things go on as they are. This annual meeting's your opportunity, so you'd best pluck up your courage and nerve yourself ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... another conclusion, namely, that the latter seems very like a device to throw the British Ministry off its guard. The terms of the two notes are widely divergent; and, in such a case, Pitt naturally accepted that of Lebrun and scouted that of Maret, as of a busybody or an intriguer. Grenville objected to this double-dealing;[174] and probably the presence of Burke at the Cabinet meeting sharpened the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... it. Thet ole busybody, Miss Pepper, she war in ther store wen I was gittin' somethin' fur mam, and she sed as how she'd run this village if she war a man, an' the feller as set fire ter a honest woman's pigpen 'd git his'n right peart. Like fun she wud," ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... so funny, not to have guessed who wrote the Star article. But she never saw it. Her precautions had all been taken at John's officious suggestion over the telephone. Busybody! An interview is nothing so terrible. The world has a right to know about me; and I don't suppose Aunt had an idea how grievously ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... that the Turkish Charge was an old busybody, always sniffing about for all sorts of information; that it was safer to be reticent and let him do the talking; and that almost every scrap of conversation with him was mentally noted and later transcribed for the edification ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... evident from the testimonies that Staplies was on both sides as to the guilt of goodwife Knapp, and when rumor and suspicion began to point to herself as a mischief-maker and busybody in witchcraft matters, to divert attention from his wife and set a backfire to the sweep of public opinion, Thomas sued Ludlow, and despite his strong and clear defense as shown on the record evidence, the court in his absence awarded damages against him for defamation and ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... least acquainted. But out of respect for their tremendous dignity, I decided to keep my plans secret from them, to approach under cover, to creep forward cautiously, soundlessly. To my dismay, as soon as I got within a quarter of a mile of them, some busybody of a sentinel would see me, and if I continued advancing, no matter how stealthily, the flock would move away. It seemed offish, not to say unfriendly; time and again I tried the same tactics, with the same result. I was ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... bad art and bad literature, to gratify it), every form of wrong-headedness and wrong-heartedness flourish like the seven plagues of Egypt. But it was all inevitable from the day that meddling German busybody invented printing—if not from the day his ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... wealthy. Yet this well-meant meddling probably did far more harm than all the explosions of his evil passions during the whole of his long reign. We could make shift to live under a debauchee or a tyrant; but to be ruled by a busybody is more than human nature ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay |
