"Gossiping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "You've been gossiping with that young squirrel!" she snapped. "I'll have you know that I'm not shaken up at all. But I'd shake you up if I ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... were the only parties within its walls. We were locked in from without: until the attendant returned and unclosed the door there was no possibility of either entering or quitting the dwelling. I was alone with the dead for upward of an hour—no enviable vigil—when it pleased her unfeeling and gossiping retainer to return and release me. Believe it, say you? I do believe it—and most firmly—as fact and ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... said Tarling, impatient and anxious to finish his conversation with this gossiping surgeon; ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... if you were forty, I should question its propriety; if you were thirty, I should veto it, and you are but a little more than twenty. How do you know that this stranger will not show your letter to anybody or everybody? How do you know that he will not send it to one of the gossiping journals like the 'Household Inquisitor'? But supposing he keeps it to himself, which is more than you have a right to expect, what opinion is he likely to form of a young lady who invades his privacy with ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... aforesaid dilapidated wharf, and the third looking across a narrow lane, and along a portion of Derby Street. All three give glimpses of the shops of grocers, block-makers, slop-sellers, and ship-chandlers, around the doors of which are generally to be seen, laughing and gossiping, clusters of old salts, and such other wharf-rats as haunt the Wapping of a seaport. The room itself is cobwebbed, and dingy with old paint; its floor is strewn with grey sand, in a fashion that has elsewhere fallen ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... play with. A soft twilight had followed the day, and there was just enough obscurity to hide from a willing eye the Northern and New World facts of the scene, and to bring into more romantic relief the citadel dark against the mellow evening, and the people gossiping from window to window across the narrow streets of the Lower Town. The Terrace itself was densely thronged, and there was a constant coming and going of the promenaders, who each formally paced back and forth upon the planking for a certain time, and then went quietly home, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the sooner you get it out of your silly heads the better. Pity you can't find something more sensible to talk about. Why don't you read, and fill up your empty brains? There are heaps of good books in the library, if you'd only get them out. You spend all your spare time gossiping." ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... the long, dim corridor, which opened upon a sunny courtyard hung with blossoming rose vines. Huge water-jars were ranged against the wall. A fountain played in the center, and round the pool beneath, some soldiers in uniform were lounging and gossiping. Marcel glanced curiously at these as he followed his father up the winding stair. The arched hall above, with its Spanish windows, opened into ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the least subdued. She was burning with resentment with every one—with Percy and his prejudice; with the gossiping world; with her friends for making this a trial of power; with Arthur for having put forward his poor young wife when it cost her so much. 'He knew I should not have given way to him! Feebleness is a tyrant to the strong. It was like putting the women and children on the battlements of a besieged ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... should faint. She was rooted where she stood. Fifth Avenue pushed gayly and busily by her under the leaden sky. Furred old ladies, furred little girls, messenger boys and club men, jostling, gossiping, planning. Only she stood still. And after a while she looked again where Warren had been. He was gone. But had he seen her? her heart asked itself with wild clamor. Had he ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... children playing in the open doorways, its shops offered East End food—mussels and whelks, "two-eyed steaks," reeking fish-and-chips, and horsemeat for the cheap foreign element. There were several public-houses with groups of women outside drinking and gossiping, all wearing the black shawls which are as emblematic of the lower class London woman as a chasuble to a priest, or a blue tattooed upper lip to a high-caste Maori beauty. A costermonger hawked frozen rabbits from a donkey-cart, with a pallid woman following ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... Do you know you are in high favor here, and any one who belongs to you gets good quarters? Your grandmother just now is at supper, I doubt not, with my mother; and a jolly time they will have of it, gossiping together." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... formative period of the Pin-and-Needle Combine, had never so succeeded in enlisting her sympathy and support,—otherwise she would not have turned him off in the summary fashion that had kept society smiling and gossiping ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... store, meat-house, and waggon-house, facing each other on either side of this oblong space, formed a short avenue-the main thoroughfare of the homestead—the centre of which was occupied by an immense wood-heap, the favourite gossiping place of some of the old black fellows, while across the western end of it, and looking down it, but a little aloof from the rest of the buildings, stood the house, or, rather, as much of it as had been rebuilt after the cyclone of 1897. As befitted their ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... after this, for he had learned all that the poor gossiping woman could tell him. Finally ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... you saying?" the white mare asked in a sour tone. "Are you gossiping about me?" She laid her ears back and showed ...
— The Tale of Pony Twinkleheels • Arthur Scott Bailey
... "does a lot of harm and makes a lot of folks miserable. It's a good thing to keep away from, and if I ever hear of your gossiping about anybody, I'll shut you up in your room for two weeks and keep you on bread ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... women in the street below. Naked brown babies climbed up and down the ladders and paddled in the shallow river Indian women with scarlet shawls across their shoulders filled their ollas at the river and stood gossiping, the brimming ollas on their heads. In the early morning the men had trudged to the alfalfa and melon fields and returned at sundown to be greeted joyfully by the women ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... flowers, and plants in all kinds, which they are most ambitious to get, curious to preserve and keep, proud to possess, and much many times brag of. Their merry meetings and frequent visitations, mutual invitations in good towns, I voluntarily omit, which are so much in use, gossiping among the meaner sort, &c., old folks have their beads: an excellent invention to keep them from idleness, that are by nature melancholy, and past all affairs, to say so many paternosters, avemarias, creeds, if it were not profane and superstitious. In a word, body and mind must be exercised, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... of faith and integrity, and the mind being overcharged with woe, naturally seeks some confidant, upon whose sympathy it can repose itself. Indeed, his great aim was to make himself necessary to her affliction, and settle a gossiping correspondence, in the familiarity of which he hoped his purpose ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... about the gossiping abilities of most people, she drove up the long driveway and entered the house. The long hall with its wide staircase and large, splendidly furnished rooms opening on either side, struck her as being cold and gloomy. The polished chairs and tables shone dully ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... running down its face, and pretty well draggled and seedy; but when we started out with the sun shining against our cheeks and the hills looking so warm and lazy and the hollows kind of smiling to themselves over something, and the prairie-dogs gossiping worse than a ladies' self-culture meeting, I tell you, it all looked good to me, and I told ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... nose-bags, while their drivers were perhaps gone through the hospitable sacred doors to kneel before the blessed Virgin on this morning of her Nativity. On the broad marble steps of the Duomo there were scattered groups of beggars and gossiping talkers: here an old crone with white hair and hard sunburnt face encouraging a round-capped baby to try its tiny bare feet on the warmed marble, while a dog sitting near snuffed at the performance suspiciously; there a couple of shaggy-headed boys leaning to watch a small pale cripple ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... with the higher-class periodicals that come to us from D'Oyley's library," said Lady Angleby, pointing to the brown, buff, orange, green, and purple magazines that furnished her round-table. "The novels are well read, so are the social essays and the bits of gossiping biography; but dry chapters of exploration, science, discovery, and politics are tasted, and no more: the first page or two may be opened, and the rest as often as not are uncut. And as they come to Brentwood, so, but for myself, they would go away. ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... drank at feasts. Drinking is no sin; it is a sin, sure enough, to swill like a pig or to sit without talking when good folk are gossiping, but not to drink the gift of God to the bottom. You just drink my ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... From the gossiping pages of the Labadist missionaries who came to America in 1697 we find hints of good fare ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... on her way to Dolores's room, and declared she would have no messing and gossiping in one another's rooms. Miss Mysie was getting spoilt ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... It was as if Hrolfur had neither time nor inclination for gossiping, even though it was the district ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... meddlesomely curious at least, or at worst, dishonest. It is impossible to overstate the misfortune of this temperament. The servant who is "watched" for fear she "won't work," listened to for fear she may be gossiping, suspected of wanting to take a liberty of some sort, or of doing something else she shouldn't do, is psychologically encouraged, almost driven, to do these ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... had been afloat. Descriptive articles had been written about the young Member of Parliament who was accused of such a terrible crime. His every word had been commented on. His appearance had been discussed. The evidence given had been the subject of thousands of gossiping tongues. And so the court that day was simply thronged with an intense, eager crowd. Moreover, the inwardness of the trial had seized upon the imaginations of the people. It was more real, more vivid to them than it had been the day before. And when Paul entered the dock, accompanied by two policemen, ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... look out of the window from about half-past eight till ten at the regular passers in the street; she caught their glances, remarked on their gait, their dress, their countenance, and almost seemed to be offering her daughter, her gossiping eyes so evidently tried to attract some magnetic sympathy by manoeuvres worthy of the stage. It was evident that this little review was as good as a play to her, and perhaps her ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... Through which my shrinking sight did pass Until it seemed I must behold Immensity made manifold; Whispered to me a word whose sound Deafened the air for worlds around, And brought unmuffled to my ears The gossiping of friendly spheres, The creaking of the tented sky, The ticking of Eternity. I saw and heard, and knew at last The How and Why of all things, past, And present, and forevermore. The universe, cleft to the core, Lay open to my probing sense That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence But ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... published a novel, translated by Mary Howitt, which is one of the most interesting, new, and truly original books I have seen this quarter-century. Its title does not do it justice. Our Neighbours: which might lead you to expect a gossiping book, or at best something like Annals of my Parish—tout au contraire; it is sketches of family life, a romantic family, admirably drawn—some characters perhaps a little overstrained, but in the convulsions of the ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... country first and then the human race'—and, indeed, we get little news from home on the subjects which especially interest us. My sister sends me heaps of near things, but she is not in the magnetic circles, nor in the literary, nor even in the gossiping. Be good to us, you who stand near the fountains of life! Every cup of cold water is worth a ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... for you, in the second place. And Jonathan Walker is a sinner, because he is sent to prison. But here am I, half way, having but a poor kind of disposition at best, and yet hating sin, and all that leads to it, such as wasting, and extravagance, and gossiping,—and yet all this lies right under my nose in the village, and I am not saint enough to be vexed at it; and so I scold. And though I had rather be a saint, yet I think I ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... hospitals, which were still emptying themselves and whose men were coming to us, sent the survival of the fittest. Most of the beds were carried out under the trees after the morning dressings were done, and the men lay gossiping and smoking when they could get tobacco. Outside visitors were rare. The Serbian ladies do not go round the hospitals with cigarettes and sweets, and to find a Serbian woman ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... golden green blending with the blue of the deep vault overhead, scores of swift-darting birds were wheeling about in the still air, uttering sharp clear cries, as though calling one another to rest below, women stood at their house-doors gossiping with their neighbours; peals of laughter and the incessant chatter of feminine voices mingled with the din of horses' hoofs on the hard road and with the never-ending jingle of the harness-bells. Gazing lazily ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... had never been educated to submit to any. To dress with the most careful attention to neatness, though there was "nothing but a pack of women to look at her"—to listen to "a prosy book"—a book, I forgot to say, was read aloud in the work-room—instead of gossiping and having a little fun; and to walk out on Sundays under the wing of that old, hideous harridan, Mrs. Sterling, instead of going with her companions where she pleased. In short, it was worse "than negro slavery," but there was no help for it—there she was, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... being in "the shaving-house" one day with certain of the brethren having their tonsures looked to, and gossiping, as men do on such occasions, one "Friar Lawrence did say that the King was dead." Then said Croxton, "thanks be to God, his Grace is in good health, and I pray God so continue him;" and said further to the said Lawrence, "I ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... Hals in the local gallery. There are other good Hals elsewhere, but the portraits of rotund, jolly men and women of his day, in the Haarlem Town Hall, are unapproached by those of any of his contemporaries. Fat, laughing burghers, roystering, knickerbockered Dutchmen and vrous gossiping, smoking, laughing, or drinking, are human documents of the time more graphic than whole volumes of fine writing or mere repetitions of historical fact. All these attributes has Haarlem's collection of ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... you doing gossiping with that lying hussy, sir?" demanded my Uncle, the General Robert, with instant belief in the word of that Gouverneur Faulkner, turning his anger upon me, who stood and took it with such a joy in my heart from the truth that had come into it from those eyes of the night stars, ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... above water. He filled the place one winter of Washington corespondent to the New York "Enquirer;" and while doing so he fell in by chance in the Congressional library with a volume of Horace Walpole's gossiping society letters. He was greatly taken with them, and he said to himself: "Why not try a few letters on a similar plan from Washington, to be ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... that wise maxim-man, enjoy themselves quite as well as the moody Hamlet, the perturbed Laertes, or even gallant Mercutio or love-sick Romeo. Friar Lawrence, who is a good old man, is perhaps the happiest of all in the dramatis personae—unless we take the gossiping, garrulous old nurse, with her sunny recollections of maturity and youth. The great thing is to have the mind well employed, to work whilst it is yet day. The precise Duke of Wellington, answering every letter with "F.M. presents his ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... was not silly subjects that were discussed here, worldly babblings, or gossiping about absent friends, but the great questions that ruled humanity: philosophy, politics, society, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Ellangowan was able to hear the news of what had passed during her confinement, her apartment rung with all manner of gossiping respecting the handsome young student from Oxford who had told such a fortune by the stars to the young Laird, 'blessings on his dainty face.' The form, accent, and manners of the stranger were expatiated upon. His horse, bridle, saddle, and stirrups did not remain unnoticed. All ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... undoubted talents, but not of genius," whose tempers are "rendered yet more irritable by their desire to appear men of genius"—should be written up on the study walls of everyone commencing author. His description, too, of his period as "this age of personality, this age of literary and political gossiping, when the meanest insects are worshipped with sort of Egyptian superstition if only the brainless head be atoned for by the sting of personal malignity in the tail," conveys a warning to writers that is not of an age but for all time. Coleridge ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... about four in the afternoon, a score of workmen and gossiping women had collected in front of a shop. A stout woman, standing on the lowest step, like an orator in the tribune, held forth and related for the twentieth time what she knew, or rather, did not know. There were listening ears and gaping mouths, even ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... feasters, pausing over their spiced wine. Who is He? asked the women, gossiping over the new sensation. Suddenly, conscience touched an old memory in Herod's heart. In terror the despot rose from the banquet. As in the legend, when the murderer's finger touched the gaping wound the blood began again to flow—a silent witness against the unsuspected ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... it so happened that day, that Neykia, she of woodland grace and beauty, was strolling in the sunshine with her Little Pine; while on every side the trees were shaking their heads and it seemed gossiping about the hunting plans of that reckless little elfin hunter, Hymen, who was hurrying overland and shooting his joyous arrows in every direction, till the very air felt charged with the whisperings of countless lovers. It made me think ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... pink-stuccoed village, with its hill-top church, its odd little shrines, its grim-grotesque ossuary, its faded frescoed house-fronts, its busy, vociferous, out-of-door Italian life:—the cobbler tapping in his stall; women gossiping at their toilets; children sprawling in the dirt, chasing each other, shouting; men drinking, playing mora, quarrelling, laughing, singing, twanging mandolines, at the tables under the withered ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... you are right," said Mrs Flutethroat; "but I must not stay here gossiping, for I have no end of work to do this morning." Saying which the hen blackbird shook out her long dusky wings, cried "Pink-pink-pink," and flew off to the laurel bush to attend to her little ones; while the thrush hopped up into a tree ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... I should like to know? If Judy'd been here you'd have sat gossiping till all hours—and you can't even give me five minutes! It's always the same story. Last night I couldn't get near you—I went to that damned vulgar party just to see you, and there was everybody talking about ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... like those Which over Arctic regions close. I married one, to my fond eyes An angel draped in human guise. Alas! she had one failing; No secret could she keep In spite of all my railing, And curses loud and deep. No matter what the danger Of gossiping might be, She'd gossip with a stranger As quickly as with me. One can't be always serious, And talking just for show, For that is deleterious To fellowship, and so I oft with her would chatter, Just as I felt inclined, Of any little matter I chanced to call to mind. Alas! on one ill-fated day, ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... faint murkiness in the air it was still day. There was light enough for the four men playing pinochle on the upper deck, though the women of their party, gossiping in chairs grouped near at hand, had at last put aside their embroidery. The girl who sat by herself at a little distance held a magazine still open on her lap. If she were not reading, her attitude suggested it was less because ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... following the dawn when the world was at its sweetest, when the chattering weaver birds went in and out of their hanging nests gossiping loudly, and faint perfumes from little morning flowers gave the air an ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... in Egypt who still speak slightingly of Wyndham bimbashi, but the British officer who buried him hushed a gossiping dinner-party a few months ago in Cairo ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... noblemen, ambassadors and strangers of quality. When abbots dined in their own private hall, the rule of St Benedict charged them to invite their monks to their table, provided there was room, on which occasions the guests were to abstain from quarrels, slanderous talk and idle gossiping. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... much light and warmth; there were bright fires and softly shaded lamps; velvet-footed servants stealing softly among the guests, with immense burdens of tea and cake; men of more or less celebrity chatting about politics in corners; women of more or less beauty gossiping over their tea, or flirting, or wishing they had somebody to flirt with; people of many nations and ideas, with a goodly leaven of Romans. They all seemed endeavouring to get away from the men and women of their own nationality, in ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... not stop to reason even after he had vented the first edge of his rage upon the innocent bill poster. He let himself intuitively guess at the whole damning chain of the Fat Baritone and his eternal gossiping and the pretty actress and the acquisitive manager. The intensity of his manner when he pulled open the manager's door frightened the manager's stenographer into an unwilling admission that Mr. Graemer had just left for Brooklyn. And a dazed taxi starter, who decided that somebody's ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... through our minds, until at last, unable to endure the suspense, I entered the bank myself, and stood there, pretending I was waiting for some one. I sharply scrutinized every one and everything. Mac was somewhere out of sight in the private offices. The clerks were gossiping together, and that fact to me was suspicious. Then, to my alarm, a bank clerk entered from the street with an eagle-eyed man, a Hebrew, evidently, of about 45 years of age. Both passed hurriedly into the private office, leaving ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... and the nights full of peace. The air was good, for nothing but the wild creatures breathed it, and the firs had touched it with their fragrance. The faraway surge of the sea came up faintly till the spruces answered it, and both sounds went gossiping over the hills together. On all sides were the woods, which, on the north especially, stretched away over a broken country beyond my ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... the Nassaus and Barneveld and Buys, or pores with Farnese over coming victories and vast schemes of universal conquest; he reads the latest bit of scandal, the minutest characteristic of king or minister, chronicled by the gossiping Venetians for the edification of the Forty; and after all this prying and eavesdropping, having seen the cross-purposes, the bribings, the windings in the dark, he is not surprised if those who were systematically deceived did not always ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... popular gossiping establishment I heard a little story told by the son of Sydney Smith. His father had been sent for to see an old lady who was one of his most troublesome parishioners. She was dying. Sad to say, she had always been querulous and quarrelsome. It may have been constitutional, ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... address by Pogner ("Das schoene Fest, Johannis-Tag"), in which he promises the hand of Eva, "with my gold and goods beside," to the successful singer on the morrow, which is John the Baptist's Day. After a long parley among the gossiping masters, Pogner introduces Walter as a candidate for election. He sings a charming song ("So rief der Lenz in den Wald"), and as he sings, the marker, concealed behind a screen, is heard scoring down the faults. When he displays the slate it is found to be covered with them. ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... a dangerous thing to form an opinion from gossiping reports. What I have heard may not be correct; but if it be so, I cannot hide from you what it would only disturb your peace of mind to know. Therefore, I say, make your own inquiries, seek information from people you can trust, and trust only your own observations ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... hate affectation, my dear. It's very grand, I dare say, for a young man's services to be in such request that he cannot find time to say his prayers. He'll find plenty of time for gossiping by and ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... retaliating, if not in kind yet in plentiful measure of vengeance. Dorothy's odd ways, lawless movements, and what the rest of the ladies counted her vulgar tastes, had for some time been the subject of remark to the gossiping portion of the castle community; and it seemed to Amanda that in watching and discovering what she was about when she supposed herself safe from the eyes of her equals and superiors, lay her best ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... I not tell you that I have sent Summers express, with a note to Lady Ellinor begging her to come here? I did not see, on reflection, how I could decorously accompany Miss Trevanion alone, without even a female servant, to a house full of gossiping guests. And even had your uncle been well enough to go with us, his presence would but have created an additional cause for wonder; so as soon as we arrived, and while you went up with the Captain, I wrote my letter and despatched my man. I expect Lady Ellinor will be here ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... feelings came thronging upon me. It was a place that always seemed to sober me, and bring me to reflection. Now, especially, it looked so deserted and melancholy; the furniture displaced about the room; the chairs in groups, as their departed occupants had sat, either in whispering tete-a-tetes, or gossiping clusters; the bottles and decanters and wine-glasses, half emptied, and scattered about the tables—all dreary traces of a funeral festival. I entered the little breakfasting room. There were my father's ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... The Thynnes are just the best bred people in the world. I don't know what you mean. A couple of old ladies living in a little place, and gossiping about everything,—everybody has the same opinion. And this is just what it comes to, when no attention is paid. And they say you have actually let him come here, let Chatty meet him, to take away every scrap of respect that people might have had. He never heard of such a mistake, Eustace ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... affairs. He mocked at an old aunt of his, who was wont to cover her hair with roses the better to conceal bald spots, and added that this aunt was a great favourite at the Court of the Tsar, on account of her incomparable gossiping stories. It apparently never occurred to him that such intimate family relations were a rather strange subject for conversation in ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... seen by a small knot of wagoners and farm-hands, who were drinking and gossiping on the benches before the Fish and Anchor, to wile away the time of waiting for the King's arrival. At first they thought the royal cavalcade must be in sight, though not expected for an hour or more; and hurried up in ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... from the decaying leaves! The rain falling on the freshly dried herbs and leaves, and filling the pools and ditches into which they have dropped thus clean and rigid, will soon convert them into tea,—green, black, brown, and yellow teas, of all degrees of strength, enough to set all Nature a gossiping. Whether we drink them or not, as yet, before their strength is drawn, these leaves, dried on great Nature's coppers, are of such various pure and delicate tints as might make the ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... condemned to walk around the Basin of the Pagans until the end of time,—one without arms, the other without a face,—offer a severe lesson to those who are too proud of their broad shoulders and brute force, and gossiping flirts of girls with smiling faces and wicked hearts; the case of Sylvestre Ker teaches young men not to listen to the demon of money; the blow of Josserande's axe shows the ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... and down the long galleries: and sometimes of dark nights the whole Abbey in a manner has been lit up; and shouting and laughing enough to waken all the church-yards round Snowdon. But I mustn't stand gossiping here, master: I've my cows to fetch up, and fifty things to do before ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... the town have made their preparation for the festival in honor of the patron saint, San Diego, and are gossiping about it, and about the arrival of Maria Clara, accompanied by her aunt Isabel. They rejoiced over it, because they liked her, and admired her beauty very much. They also rejoiced in the change it had made in the priest, Father ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... distinctive physiognomies in the different classes of the middle-class society: thus, "the wives of the financiers are dignified, stern, severe; those of the merchants are seductive, active, gossiping, and alert; those of the artists are free, easy, and independent, with a strong taste for pleasure and gayety—and they give the tone." As we approach the end of the century, the bourgeoisie begins to assume the airs, habits, extravagances, and ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... asked the Doctor of his housekeeper, as she came home from a gossiping visit to the landing one afternoon. "What new piece of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... with his old neighbor in her more prosperous surroundings would have been, if only for the sake of later gossiping about it, he felt it would be inconsistent with his pride and his assumption of present business. More than that, he was uneasily conscious that in Mrs. Tucker's simple and unaffected manner there was a greater superiority than he had ever noticed during their previous ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... coarseness which are generally to be found in similar places in Europe. One would almost believe that he was among a crowd of school-girls who had given the sour moral lessons of their governess the slip, and were thinking of nothing else than innocently gossiping away some hours. After a while the dance begins, accompanied by very monotonous music and singing. The slow movements of the legs and arms of the dancers remind us of certain slow and demure scenes from European ballets. There is nothing indecent in this dance, but we learn that there ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... his apron and established himself on a beer-barrel which stood outside before the gate. On the bench opposite sat the older inhabitants of the street, puffing at their pipes and gossiping about everything under the sun. Now the bells sounded the hour for leaving off work. Madame Rasmussen was beating her child and reviling it in time with her blows. Then suddenly all was silent; only the crying of the child continued, like a feeble evening hymn. Old Jeppe was talking about Malaga—"when ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... ridiculous at all. I see every practical reason in favor of it. In the first place, if they are gossiping—oh, yes, Thompson told me, and I wonder that they hadn't before: these villages are dreadful places—I couldn't very well stay, you see; and then where should I put all my things? In the second place, I have so much stuff, and there's no house fit for it but—but ours; and if ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam
... you are going to be violent towards your mother, I had better go," she said, with an attempt at dignity. "I suppose Letty has been gossiping with her servants about me. Oh! I knew what to expect!" cried Lady Tressady, gathering up fan and handkerchief from the sofa behind her with a hand that shook. "I always said from the beginning that she would set you against me! She has never treated me as—as ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Stedman!" called Mrs. Tree from the parlor. "Don't stand there gossiping with Direxia; I didn't send for you ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... church with the newcomers on the day after their arrival, the day of the christening. They had not gone into Aaron's house, for you are looked askance at in Thrums if you pay visits on Sundays, but they had stood for a long time gossiping at the door, which is permitted by the strictest. Ailie was in a twitter, as of old, and not able even yet to speak of her husband without an apologetic look to the ladies who had none. And oh, how proud she was of Tommy's fame! ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... But on running into the station (ours was the first carriage) I had noticed a man standing with a valise in his hand, and I saw him following the train down the platform when we stopped. He addressed himself to a little group of conductors who had already alighted, and were gossiping idly among themselves, having nothing else to do. One of them indicated our particular attendant, to whom he spoke, and who brought him directly to ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... "You gossiping Ailie, to go ripping up old grievances. I am going to ask Miss Curtis not to let the story go any farther, now you have relieved your mind ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... learned "bring me," "fetch me," and other verbs. When the old woman was present, the two girls were silent and shy; but as Quizmoa was fond of gossiping, and so was greatly in request among the neighbors, who desired to learn something of the habits of the white man, she was often out; and the girls were then ready to talk as much as Roger wished. For a time it seemed to him that he was making no progress whatever with the ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... founded, of the ferocious hostility of the people; of whom we may instance Cesare Federici (1569), whose narrative is given in Ramusio, vol. iii. (only in the later editions), and in Purchas. A good deal is also told of them in the vulgar and gossiping but useful work of Captain A. Hamilton (1727). In 1788-1789 the government of Bengal sought to establish in the Andamans a penal colony, associated with a harbour of refuge. Two able officers, Colebrooke of the Bengal Engineers, and Blair of the sea service, were sent to survey and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... shame, but none came forth. But the third blast of the herald struck upon a woman's heart, afar. And the woman straightway left her baking and sweeping and the rattle of pans; and the woman straightway left her chatting and gossiping and the sewing of garments, and the woman stood before the King, saying: "The servant ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... of people. Monsieur shone by his absence; he was at the ramparts, or was supposed to be there; but his wife, his children, his bonne, and his kitchen wench issued forth, oblivious alike of dull care and of bombarding Prussians, to enjoy themselves after their wont by gossiping and lolling in the sun. The Strasburg fetish had its usual crowd of admirers. Every bench in the Champs Elysees was occupied. Guitars twanged, organs were ground, merry-go-rounds were in full swing, and had it not been ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... amusing himself in his own country to find time for any other, with the exception of an occasional run over to Paris. Now, if he stopped in England it would be difficult to evade officious friends, and soon everybody would be gossiping about his quarrel with Northmorland. The Duchess ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... two books (for besides the Dramatic Works in two thick volumes, there are prose stories in two also, and I have one long tale, almost a novel, to write),—it is the one comfort of this labor that I shall see our names together on one page. I have just finished a long gossiping preface of thirty or forty pages to the Dramatic Works, which is much more an autobiography than the Recollections, and which I have tried to make as amusing as if it were ill-natured. That work is dedicated to our dear Mr. Bennoch, another consolation. I sent the dedication to ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... a strange life, and a character fit for romance and poetry. All the early part of her life, I suppose, and much of her widowhood, were spent in the quiet of a home, with kinsfolk around her, and children, and the lifelong gossiping acquaintances that some women always create about them. But in her decline she has wandered away from all these, and from her native country itself, and is a vagrant, yet with something of the homeliness and decency of aspect belonging to one who ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the Mississippi is by no means of a curious disposition—malgre the statements of gossiping tourists—the unexplained and forlorn appearance I presented on my return was enough to excite a degree of interest even among the most apathetic people; and a number of the guests of the hotel had gathered in the lobby around the door of my chamber, and were eagerly ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... the present members as to the complexion of the next house. There are other points of view which I cannot now state to you, in which the result I speak of may seriously affect the main question. Let me therefore entreat your serious attention to this matter. Be careful of this. Your city is a gossiping place, & what you tell to one man in confidence is soon in the mouths of hundreds. You can impress our friends on this subject without connecting ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... lanterns swinging over the crowded causeways, signs of friendly interest and companionship. Here were we, poor peasants, in a waste of frost and hills, cut off from the merry folks sitting by fire and flame at ease! Even our gossiping, our ceilidh in each other's houses, was stopped; except in the castle itself no more the song and story, the ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... pleasure, but who might be mild and gentle in his rule. Such were the tyrants of Sicyon, spoken of in our last tale. The tyrants of Corinth, the state adjoining Sicyon, were of a harsher character. Herodotus, the gossiping old historian tells some stories about these severe despots which seem ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... sat gossiping on the sofa; and Fanny, who in the course of the day had received more than one reproving look from her mother-in-law for flirting with Delphin, was now doing penance with the old ladies, to whom Pastor Martens had ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... their daily toil on the hills, and only a few white-headed children were making dust pies by the churchyard gate, two or three women, with babies in their arms, gossiping at ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... his Sacred Hymns, published in this devout and joyous time. But Manzoni was never a Catholic of those Catholics who believed in the temporal power of the Pope. He said to Madam Colet, the author of "L'Italie des Italiens", a silly and gossiping but entertaining book, "I bow humbly to the Pope, and the Church has no more respectful son; but why confound the interests of earth and those of heaven? The Roman people are right in asking their freedom—there ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... by this disturbance in the hall. He doesn't know exactly, what it is, so he sticks close. Then he thinks of making his escape down the back stairs, but unfortunately some of his feminine neighbors are gossiping on the stairs below. He could not go down that way without attracting attention that might prove awkward later. Suddenly he hears the door of his apartment open, and some person enter. He watches, and discovers that his daughter has come home, ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... outside garment in our dreadful winters, with a perseverance which leads the good woman of the house to suspect her neighbor of being better off than herself, in one particular at least, for the coming Sabbath. But just now the door opens—the gossiping neighbor springs up with a laugh—the bundle is untied—the children scream, and the wife jumps about her husband's neck as if he had been absent ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... did not wait for the clergyman to give his permission. "I say no," she repeated defiantly. And to Farvel, "Please consider me, will you? I'm not going to have a lot of hypocrites gossiping about me!"—this with a pointed stare at the ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... "We were just gossiping. It's been years since I've been in Greater Washington. Lee Chang tells me that Sid Jakes is now a Supervisor. I worked with him for a while, when I first joined Section G. How about a glass ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... Savage! I cannot more effectually retaliate upon him for all his invectives against us than by admitting his gossiping trash into the Magazine. No part of the dialogue will be mistaken for Southey's; nor even for Porson's inspirations ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... had looked out their train in last month's Bradshaw, unwitting of the autumn alterations, and was kept from you till the next day. You took the left instead of the right side of the square on your way home, or you stood for a minute gossiping at your neighbour's door, and there came by some one who ultimately altered and embittered your whole life, and who, but for that accidental meeting, you would, probably, never have seen again; or some evil adviser was ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... blasting and devastating, like the questions of a child. He would not have been afraid even of the nightmares of cosmogony, for he had no fear in him. To him the world was small, not because he had any views as to its size, but for the reason that gossiping ladies find it small, because so many relatives were to be found in it. If you had taken him to the loneliest star that the madness of an astronomer can conceive, he would have only beheld in it the features ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton |
