"Hearsay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... still all hearsay to me. I had been pulled into headquarters and given routine administration work for training. Six months of this had me slightly ga-ga and I wanted out. Since no one seemed to be in a hurry to give me an assignment I had found one ...
— The Misplaced Battleship • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... 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 ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... perhaps, that we have known. He had a way of going out before his fellows— it is the way of genius—and he had gone far, indeed, before them. If we would trust Dr. Holcomb we have much to live for; our religion is not all hearsay and there is a great deal in science still unthought of. It is an unfortunate case; but there is much to be learned in the circumstance that led the great doctor ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... personification, she has of course never had any real existence. For that very reason she has been so hard to kill. Nothing is so long-lived as a chimera, nothing so difficult to lay as a ghost. From her first appearance, or rather mention, in literature, Mrs. Grundy has been a mere hearsay, a bugaboo being invented to frighten society, as "black men" and other goblins have been wickedly invented by nurses to frighten children. In the old play itself where we first find her mentioned by name, she herself never comes on the stage. ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... some misgivings, for the new camel-drivers were Beila men, and frankly owned that their knowledge of the country lying between Gwarjak and Noundra (where we were to leave the caravan-track) was derived chiefly from hearsay. ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... trust and no faith in the gossip and hearsay-anecdotes of the early Fathers, Irenaeus not excepted. "Within less than a century of St. John's time." Alas! a century in the paucity of writers and of men of education in the age succeeding the Apostolic, must be reckoned more than equal to five centuries since ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... trapper, the 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 Wherethrough he loomed on the people, the hero of mythical hearsay,— Quick of hand and of heart, insouciant, 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 exploits ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... amused at our fancying there was something unusual in red pepper pods; she gave us several of them, and I felt fearful lest a hard mistress might blame her for it. How very childish does ignorance make us! and how very ignorant we are upon almost every subject, where hearsay evidence is all ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... reaction were at work. Religion, striving to maintain itself upon the dogmatic creeds of the past, was rapidly petrifying into a mere "dead Letter of Religion," from which all the living spirit had fled; and those who could not nourish themselves on hearsay and inherited formula knew not where to look for the renewal of faith and hope. The generous ardour and the splendid humanitarian enthusiasms which had been stirred by the opening phases of the revolutionary movement, had now ebbed away; revulsion ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... by the authors of more pretentious works are second-hand or hearsay; the author of this treatise, however, has no confidence in the accuracy of such material, therefore he has not made use of any such data. His material has been thoroughly sifted, and the reader may depend upon the absolute truth of ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... Sefton calmly. "Nobody ever is convinced by hearsay. When a person has once seen a spirit—or thinks he has—he thenceforth believes it. And when somebody else is intimately associated with that person and knows all the circumstances—well, he admits the possibility, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... said, and hesitated. After all, her mother would not understand, and it would only make her uneasy. "I suppose it is rank hearsay to say it, but I ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... whether or no he is a foreign devil. I may decide this in private, but I must have depositions on oath before I do so, and at present I have nothing but hearsay. Perhaps you gentlemen can give me the evidence I shall require, but the case is one of such importance that were the prisoner proved never so clearly to be a foreign devil, I should not Blue-Pool him till I had taken the King's pleasure concerning ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... Knowing well, by hearsay, all these facts, you can easily imagine my feelings, at finding myself face to face with one of these fierce animals, alone and without weapons, save my bow and arrows and knife. It is true, there was abundance of timber near at hand, but unfortunately the ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... borrows only from heterogeneous works is not a plagiarist. All fiction, worth a button, is founded on facts; and it does not matter one straw whether the facts are taken from personal experience, hearsay, or printed books; only those books must not be ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... that evidence like this of Magendie's cruelty is only "hearsay." Is not this generally the case where inhumanity is concerned? When Wilberforce described the atrocities of the African slave trade, or Shaftesbury the conditions pertaining to children in coal-mines and cotton mills, their ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... of those who could go about, she would, I think, have read Nanny better than the rest of us, for her intellect was bright, and always led her straight to her neighbours' hearts. But Nanny visited no one, and so Jess only knew her by hearsay. Nanny's standoffishness, as it was called, was not a popular virtue, and she was blamed still more for trying to keep her husband out of other people's houses. He was so frank and full of gossip, and she was so reserved. ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... have chiefly drawn, ends his story thus:—"I make known to all readers of this little book that the things which I say I have seen and heard of the king are true, and steadfastly shall they believe them. And the other things of which I testify but by hearsay, take them in a good sense if it please you, praying God that by the prayers of Monseigneur St. Louis it may please Him to give us those things that He knoweth to be necessary as well for our bodies as for our ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... illustration and example as affording unproved or hearsay evidence, I, in fact, decidedly reject not only all tradition, as proof on occult subjects, but all assertion from any quarter, however trustworthy, asking the reader to believe in nothing which he cannot execute and make sure unto himself. Tradition and ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... blow, he mastered him; and set up trophies worthy of the name, seeing that he left behind him imperishable monuments of prowess, and bore away on his own body indelible marks of the fury with which he fought; (1) so that, apart from hearsay, by the evidence of men's eyes his valour ...
— Agesilaus • Xenophon
... volume has been in the press Sir G. Arthur's Life of Lord Kitchener has appeared, giving a different version of this story and probably the correct one. Walter Kitchener was speaking, I think, from hearsay.] ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... prosecutor; as it was found that the monk's recollection must have extended back considerably upward of a century. [265] The claim of Balthazar was negatived. His proofs that Christopher Columbus was a native of Cuccaro were rejected, as only hearsay, or traditionary evidence. His ancestor Domenico, it appeared from his own showing, died in 1456; whereas it was established that Domenico, the father of the admiral, was living upwards of thirty ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... the landlady, as she had no reasonable grounds for her wild statements. Nevertheless, she made a determined attempt to substantiate them by hearsay evidence. "Mr. Berwin," said she in significant tones, "lives all ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... orientation, the so-called demonstrative categories ("this" and "that" in an endless procession of nuances);[76] how frequently the form expresses the source or nature of the speaker's knowledge (known by actual experience, by hearsay,[77] by inference); how the syntactic relations may be expressed in the noun (subjective and objective; agentive, instrumental, and person affected;[78] various types of "genitive" and indirect relations) and, correspondingly, in the verb (active and passive; active ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... 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
... once, dug up the family history to its farthest known point, and divided the subject among them. Miss Lucy followed these letters closely, and remembered them wonderfully, though (as I afterwards found) she had never seen Bath, and knew no more of the people mentioned than the little hearsay facts she had gathered ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Government, in connexion with these fables, is (and we grieve to say it) that of having echoed them, in an ambiguous way, at one point of the trials; not exactly assuming them for true, and resting any other truth upon their credit, but repeating them as parts inter alia of current popular hearsay. Now this, though probably the act of some subordinate officer, does a double indignity to Government; it is discreditable to the understanding, if such palpable nursery tales are adopted for any purpose; and openly to adulterate with falsehood, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... these Reminiscences, with the following just and considerate reflection: "When it is recollected that the noble owner of Strawberry Hill was speaking of very remote events, which he reported on hearsay, and that hearsay of old standing, such errors are scarcely to be wondered at, particularly when they are found to correspond with the partialities and prejudices of the narrator. These, strengthening as we grow older, gradually pervert or at least alter, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... is called, and it will long tremble as on a lance's point. This sumptuous house shall, for ages hence, be but from hearsay known. ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... restless temper? I do not know. At last, some one told me that she was dead, speaking thoughtlessly, not knowing that I loved her. He who told me had heard the news from another, who had received it on hearsay from a third. None knew in what place her spirit had parted; none knew by what manner of sickness she had died. Since then, I have heard others say that she is not dead, that they have heard in their turn from others that she yet lives. An hour ago, I knew not what to think. To-day, ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... of that owner amounted to superstition; and he confined his feelings regarding him to muttered innuendoes and private comminations. I don't pretend to be intimately acquainted with the mode of living customary in those days at Wuthering Heights: I only speak from hearsay; for I saw little. The villagers affirmed Mr. Heathcliff was near, and a cruel hard landlord to his tenants; but the house, inside, had regained its ancient aspect of comfort under female management, and the scenes of riot common in Hindley's ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... before all the congregation, instead of before the elders only. Both variations seem to have the common purpose of enhancing the wonder, and confirming the authority of Moses, to a generation to whom the old deliverances were only hearsay, and many of whom were in contact with the leader for the first time. The fact that we have here the beginning of a new epoch, and a new set of people, goes far to explain the resemblance of the two incidents, without the need of supposing, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... some exaggeration about the exploits of Big Ferre and the number of his victims. The story just quoted is not, however, a legend; authentic and simple, it has all the characteristics of a real and true fact, just as it was picked up, partly from eye-witnesses and partly from hearsay, by the contemporary narrator. It is a faithful picture of the internal state of the French nation in the fourteenth century; a nation in labor of formation, a nation whose elements, as yet scattered and incohesive, though under one and the same name, were fermenting each in its own ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... wavered. He really could have done nothing that would not have made the matter worse, and he confined himself to speculating upon the character and history of the man whom he knew only by the incoherent hearsay of two excited women, and by the brief record of hope and passion left in the notes which Lily treasured somewhere among the archives of a young girl's triumphs. He had a morbid curiosity to see these letters again, but he dared not ask for ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... Her portion, though, was brought upon a china dish, because Susanna feared the gentlewoman's fastidious palate would dislike the flavor of a wooden plate. But then, intimate as she was through hearsay with the Mansion household, Susanna had yet never heard about burnt suppawn, and how an old-time gentlewoman can eat it without grimacing, even though she choke in the event. And Alfaretta—Her happiness must be guessed at. There isn't time to tell ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... knew by hearsay had gone home first—gone to Paradise beyond the blue skies. Theo said so. This dear mother would be waiting, with wistful welcomes, for each one of her dear ones when they, too, went to that other far-off ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... several dollars in their pockets. Certain editors have joined in the same "hue and cry" with their worthy compeers. The reasons were evident in their case. They knew I was invading their dearest worldly interests. There were others who only knew me from hearsay. Why should they become my enemies? It was because I held in my possession secrets, whose exposition would make many of them tremble. It would be to them like the interpreted handwriting upon the wall. Hence they were ready to contribute ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... advertisements of their plays, by their authority, are published only in this paper and the Daily Courant, and that the publishers of all other papers who insert advertisements of the same plays, can do it only by some surreptitious intelligence or hearsay, which frequently leads them to commit gross errors, as, mentioning one play for another, falsely representing the parts, &c., to the misinformation of the town, and the great detriment of the said theatre." And the Public ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... less objectionable, and, incidentally, less exacting in the matter of accommodation. It is a large copper vessel resembling nothing so much as the fire-extinguishing cylinders one sees in public buildings at home. About our gas-pumps I know nothing except by hearsay. They are in charge of "corporals" in the chemical corps of the sappers, and your corporal is, in nine cases out of ten, a man whose position in the scientific world at home is one of considerable distinction. He is usually ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... with 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 De Chemerant to himself, "and they are probably very indirectly ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... sheer ridge, thick with divers trees, which screen the river from distant view. Biorn had also a dog of extraordinary fierceness, a terribly vicious brute, dangerous for people to live with, which had often singly destroyed twelve men. But, since the tale is hearsay rather than certainty, let good judges weigh its credit. This dog, as I have heard, was the favourite of the giant Offot (Un-foot), and used to watch his ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... inquire My pleasure's pedigree, if so it please, Nobly, I mean, nor renegade to art. The Grecian gluts me with its perfectness, Unanswerable as Euclid, self-contained, 250 The one thing finished in this hasty world, Forever finished, though the barbarous pit, Fanatical on hearsay, stamp and shout As if a miracle could be encored. But ah! this other, this that never ends, Still climbing, luring fancy still to climb, As full of morals half-divined as life, Graceful, grotesque, with ever new surprise Of hazardous ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... boycotted the fish, he had sent his steamer and purchased it from the company. Now the boot was on the other leg. The Commission and even the lawyers have all told me that they were prejudiced against the whole Mission by hearsay and misinterpretations, before they even began their exhaustive inquiry. Their findings, however, were a complete refutation of all charges, and ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... authority was evidently the alleged confession of Tyrell and Dighton, obtained second-hand. This, though true in the main, may not have been absolutely correct, even as it was first delivered, and may have been somewhat less accurate as it was reported to Sir Thomas, who perhaps added from hearsay a few errors of his own, like that about ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... listen and nod with comprehension. They had never met any one who was so well qualified to discuss the pros and cons of the barb-wire fence question, and they learned many things which they had never heard before. This was very gratifying to Mr. Elkins, who drew largely upon hearsay, his own vivid imagination, and a healthy logic. He was very glad to talk to men who had the welfare of the range at heart, and he hoped soon to meet the man who had taken the initiative in giving barb wire its first serious setback on that ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... it. And what am I to go by? My brain. That is the only light I have from nature, and if there be a God, it is the only torch that this God has given me by which to find my way through the darkness and the night called life. I do not depend upon hearsay for that. I do not have to take the word of any other man, nor get upon my knees before a book. Here, in the temple of the mind, I go and consult the God—that is to say, my reason—and the oracle speaks to me, and I obey the oracle. What should I obey? Another man's oracle? ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... in confinement by this brute. Much moved by this recital, the visitor felt impelled to demand the interference of the police. They told her this was impracticable unless she was able to furnish proof of her allegation. She knew the facts only upon hearsay, and only in case a misdemeanor were actually proved would it be possible for the police to interfere as she desired. The charitable feelings of the lady would not permit her to stop here. She made inquiries among benevolent societies. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... you don't mind, we'd better talk it out. You see I do really need to know about him, and you're the only one that can tell me. Mother's is chiefly hearsay." ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... It has lately combined with the Mine d'Or d'Abowassu (Abosu), the capital being quoted at five millions of francs. Thus the five working mines are reduced to four, while the 'Izrah' and others are coming on (May 1882).]) I had thus an opportunity of gathering much hearsay information, and was able to compare opinions which differed widely enough. I also had long conversations with Mr. A. A. Robertson, lately sent out as traffic-manager to the Izrah, and with Mr. Amondsen, the Danish sailor, then en route to the hapless ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... the clippings again, then added, "There are just two more points connecting Radnor Gaylord with the murder that need explaining: the foot-prints in the cave and the match box. The foot-prints I will dismiss for the present because I have not seen them myself and I can't make any deductions from hearsay evidence. But the question of the match box may repay a little investigation. I want you to tell me precisely what happened in the woods before you went into the cave. In the first place, how many older people were there ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... and endeavored to discover whether the latter had spoken, but he learned nothing. He was not quite ready to ask frankly whether Snaffle had betrayed him, and short of doing so he could not discover. Still Fenton told himself that the only thing he had to fear was some hearsay that might have reached the ears of the Executive Committee, and he trusted to ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... extending over all European history and penetrating deep into that of his own country. Nevertheless, the picture his mind had formed had little in common with the reality—it was too overshadowed by his own character. As a blind man may be able, through hearsay, to describe his surroundings detail by detail and yet at the bottom be possessed by an entirely false conception, so Nehal Singh, to all appearances well instructed, was in reality as ignorant as a child. The heroes whose figures peopled his imagination were too heroic, the villains too ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... lie about it: Cornelia had a natural if not a moral disinclination to falsehood, and was, moreover, acute enough to see how strong, in this case, would be the chances of detection. It was not likely that Sophie would accept upon hearsay any imputations or accusations against her lover: she would speak to Bressant at once; the lie would be revealed, and the result would be not only a failure to alienate Sophie from him, but a certainty of alienating ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... to ask me how I knew that these beautiful creatures were of supreme social value, I should be obliged to own that it was largely an assumption based upon hearsay. For all I can avouch personally in the matter they might have been women come to see the women who had not come. Still, if the effects of high breeding are visible, then they were the sort they looked. Not only the women, but the men, old and young, had the aristocratic air which ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... they forgive. One should not judge anybody. Margaret knew that, but she was a human being. She thought her mother a worldly woman. The fact that she was false as Judas was not apparent to this girl whose knowledge of Iscariotism was as hearsay ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... hearsay about the pressure in the bake-houses and the accidents to the van-men, who worked on a speeding-up system that Sir Isaac had adopted from an American business specialist, Susan's mental discharge poured out into the particulars of the waitresses' strike ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... all the hues of the past, and, in addition, contains some up-to-date threads of severely utilitarian composition. The number of those who claim direct experience of spiritual verity as against mere hearsay is greater than ever. The discovery of the soul is attracting students of every description. The powers of suggestion, and the creative possibilities of the subconscious mind, have opened up new fields of religious experiment and adventure. The art of controlling the ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... 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 ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... try to give some account of the circumstances which attended upon his disappearance. Should any one ever chance to read the words which I put down, I trust they will remember that I do not write from conjecture or from hearsay, but that I, a sane and educated man, am describing accurately what actually occurred before my very eyes. My inferences are my own, but I shall be answerable for ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... highly recommended by such an authority is about to be introduced to a public which has hitherto only known it by hearsay, it will be interesting to inquire into the reason of its appreciation by such men as Darwin and Hooker—and Lyell, Huxley, and Wallace, with other leaders of the scientific world of that day, might be quoted to ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... came in sight with a clattering escort of twelve knightly horsemen. He himself was sitting bareheaded in the open carriage, and something like emotion was visible on his handsome noble face. Loud cries of "Eljen! eljen!" announced his approach. Every one knew of him by hearsay as the noblest of men, and every one rejoiced that the best of patriots and the most excellent of citizens should have attained the highest dignity in the county. Madame Karpathy looked at him tremblingly, better for her if she had ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... can only speak from hearsay. The Press Correspondents were unable to follow His Royal Highness through the city. We were told that a car was to be placed at our disposal, as one had been elsewhere, and we were asked to wait our turn. Wait we certainly did, until ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... to the small boy. The horrible and nasty castor oil, ipecac and calomel, and the salts and senna, sulphur and molasses taken three mornings in succession and then missed three mornings, were worse than any sickness. Of the last I speak only from hearsay, not from personal knowledge. Then the cupping and bleeding were fearful things to go through or look upon. We had none of the sweet patent medicines that the children now cry for, and none of the smooth capsules or the pleasant comfits that turn ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... truth, I am of opinion that my censorial power will not be useless to you, nor a sinecure to me. The sooner you make it both, the better for us both. I can now exercise this employment only upon hearsay, or, at most, written evidence; and therefore shall exercise it with great lenity and some diffidence; but when we meet, and that I can form my judgment upon ocular and auricular evidence, I shall no more let the ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... 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 ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... the same person, dated the 27th of January 1707, M. de Cerisy says, "My dear cousin, I spoke to you in my last letter of the famous alchymist of Provence, M. Delisle. A good deal of that was only hearsay, but now I am enabled to speak from my own experience. I have in my possession a nail, half iron and half silver, which I made myself. That great and admirable workman also bestowed a still greater privilege upon me — he allowed me to turn ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... naturally into his surroundings as to demand no second look even from the most observant; yet one seeming to possess a magnetic attraction for the eyes of the hall-boy of the apartment hotel (who, acquainted by sight and hearsay with the stout gentleman's identity and calling, bent upon him a steadfast and adoring regard), as well as for the policeman who lorded it on the St. Nicholas Avenue corner, in front of the real-estate office, and who from time ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... upon our own experience, is more firm than that which we grant to the hearsay evidence of moralists; but t happy those who, according to the ancient proverb, can profit by the experience of ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... find a way," declared the old sailor, with a hopefulness he was far from feeling, for he knew well, by hearsay, of the terrible swamp quagmires that swiftly suck their victims down to a horrible ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... from hearsay the remarkable conduct of an Indian, who sprang into the midst of the English and killed two of them with his hatchet; then mounted on a log and defied them all. One of the regulars tried to knock him down with the butt of his musket; but though the ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... had last seen her. She felt a need for a reaction of gaiety, after her sadness of the days just past. The Graces fixed their round eyes upon her, upon that Lily who was so thoroughly up in all sorts of things which they knew only by hearsay: men, love. A life fit to kill a horse; and a very nice girl, for all that: a kind of forbidden fruit, pink and fair-haired, soft to the touch; and no jealousy between them, friendship rather, a rare ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... will never look on sword or javelin without a shudder.' And he himself, who won the lordship of such wide lands, and died king of so fair a kingdom which he had not inherited from his fathers, knew nothing even by hearsay of this book-learning. Therefore, lady, you must say 'good-bye' to these pedagogues, and give Athalaric companions of his own age, who may grow up with him to manhood and make of him a valiant king after the pattern of ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... criticise, to doubt, to argue, their very existence, as a people, would have ceased. They must go on believing, or all reality vanishes from their minds, accustomed for so many ages to take in that solid knowledge founded, it is true, on hearsay; but how else can truth reach us save by hearsay? Hence, their simple and artless acquiescence in any thing they hear from trustworthy lips - acquiescence ever refused to a known enemy, never to a well-tried friend, even when ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... Whymper, fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, stated on hearsay that the Chilcat Indians were believed occasionally to make a short portage across the Coast Range from salt water to the head-reaches of the Yukon. But it remained for a gold hunter, questing north, ever north, to be first ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... wrote to my Father, and you probably have heard that a fair wind carried us in a vile vessel from this place to Malaga in one night, from whence, staying as Short a time as possible, I set out on mules to Granada, distant a journey of three days. Till this time I had never, excepting from hearsay, formed a true idea of the perfection to which travelling in Spain could be carried, and yet, bad as it was, my return to land from Gibraltar has shown that things might be a degree worse. Of the roads I can only say that most probably the Spaniards are indebted to the Moors for first marking ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... except in a few cases in which I make special mention of the fact, have I trusted to mere hearsay evidence. I have confined myself to that which I know to be the truth, either from my personal observation or from documents of unimpeachable authority. My opinions may be of very little value, but my facts are, I ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... Leesboro till the battle of South Mountain. What is said of them, therefore, is not from observation. The incident between Reno and Hayes occurred in the camp of the latter, and could not possibly be known to the author of the regimental history but by hearsay. Yet he affirms as a fact that the Kanawha division "plundered the country unmercifully," for which Reno "took Lieutenant-Colonel Hayes severely though justly to task." He also asserts that the division set a "very bad example" in straggling. As to ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... exclusion, appeared to him to be an injury. He saw the minister, and explained that though he did not acknowledge the 'Persian Letters,' he would not disown a work for which he had no reason to blush; and that he ought to be judged upon its contents, and not upon mere hearsay. At last the minister read the book, loved the author, and learned wisdom as to his advisers. The French Academy obtained one of its greatest ornaments, and France had the happiness to keep a subject whom superstition or calumny had nearly deprived her of; for M. de Montesquieu ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... know," he said, "if the court please, what this boy is trying to tell nor what wild idea has found lodgement in his brain; but I certainly object to the introduction of such hearsay evidence as counsel seems trying to bring out. Let us at least know whether the responsible plaintiff in this case was present or was a party to this ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... conversation, with the assistance of certain particular civilities, insensibly made an impression on the mind of the commodore, and the more effectual as his former prepossessions were built upon very slender foundations. His antipathy to old maids, which he had conceived upon hearsay, began gradually to diminish when he found they were not quite such infernal animals as they had been presented; and it was not long before he was heard to observe, at the club, that Pickle's sister had not so much of the core of b— ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... more than the ordinary sense, to do all I can to get you out of the ice again. You know as well as I do that this is impossible at the present time, and that we are compelled to spend a winter here. Some of you know what that means, but the most of you know it only by hearsay, and that's much the same as knowing nothing about it at all. Before the winter is done your energies and endurance will probably be taxed to the uttermost. I think it right to be candid with you. The life before you will not be child's play, but I ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... hearsay, though we had never met before; and I knew that he was of a nature to be pleased with his own prominence as coroner, especially in the case of so important a ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... shadowy and half-mythical beings of hearsay to her, because just before her birth her father had been murdered from ambush. The mother had survived him only long enough to bring her baby into the world and then die broken-hearted because the child was not a boy whom she might suckle from the hatred in her own ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... innocuous enough, so I engaged in conversation with a man whom the Gay Cat had introduced as the proprietor. Much of the slang I already knew by hearsay, such as "bulls" for policemen, a "mouthpiece" for a lawyer to defend one when he is "ditched" or arrested; in fact, as I busily scribbled away I must have collected a lexicon of a hundred words ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... away for the first time to come to London, his outward life was as regular and uneventful as that of a steady Somerset House clerk. There is next to nothing to record, and I will spare the patient reader the usual stock of fabulous anecdotes, the product of hearsay and loose imaginations. Let us turn for a moment to what he had learnt and actually achieved during the first thirty years ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman
... disposition. And this, if I mistake not, is the quality of greatest import in every operation which needs the instrumentality of man; but most of all, perhaps, in agriculture. Not that I would maintain that it is a thing to be lightly learnt by a glance of the eye, or hearsay fashion, as a tale that is told. Far from it, I assert that he who is to have this power has need of education; he must have at bottom a good natural disposition; and, what is greatest of all, he must be himself a god-like being. [15] For if I rightly understand this blessed gift, this ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... ventured to write this from hearsay, nor could I conceive it possible, until I was obliged to put this remedy in practice upon my own wife, who was seized with the same disorder, and then I was compelled to have a still nearer view of this ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... fought death for him and won. Just a professional service for a professional fee; yet his debt was measureless. These are the things, he feebly understood, that women do for men; and what had been mere hearsay to his strong manhood had ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... me that Burton's researches in this direction were rather of an ethnological and historical character than a medical or scientific one. His researches had this peculiarity, that whereas most of the writers on this subject speak from hearsay, Burton's information was obtained at first hand, by dint of personal inquiries. Thus it came about that he was misunderstood. For a man, especially a young soldier whose work is not generally supposed to lie in the ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... with her clothes on, but they spoke never a word; and as they sat there, the young man's busy brain arrayed before him many and many a scene of death, and sickness, and suffering, and sorrow, and madness, and despair, which, he knew well from hearsay (and he now believed it), had been the terrible result of ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... corrected; his knowledge of GOD was deepened and increased; he had learned to know Him better than he could have done in any other way. He exclaimed that he had heard of Him previously, by the hearing of the ear, and knew GOD by hearsay only; but that now his eye saw Him, and that his acquaintance with GOD had become that which was the result of personal knowledge, and not of mere report. All his self-righteousness was gone: he abhorred himself ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor
... to be a mistaken idea, I do not for a moment imply that managers are angels; for such a suggestion would beyond a doubt secure me a quiet summer at some strictly private sanitarium; but I do mean to say that, like the gentleman whom we all know by hearsay, but not by sight, they are not so black ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... had of India and Persia was mostly indirect, and, as might be expected, deficient both in correctness and extent, resting, as it did, on the statements of classical and patristic writers, on hearsay and on oral communication. In the accounts of the classic writers, especially in those of Pliny, Strabo, Ptolemy, truth and fiction were already strangely blended. Still more was this the case with such compilers and encyclopaedists ...
— The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany • Arthur F. J. Remy
... friend of literary men wrote seldom herself, and at her death even caused to be destroyed the greater part of the few notes she had made toward an autobiography. In the present Memoirs Madame Lenormant chiefly relies upon her own personal knowledge of Madame Recamier's life, and upon contemporary hearsay. It is a very interesting book, as we have it, though at times provokingly unsatisfactory, and at times inflated and silly in style. It is not only a history of Madame Recamier, but a sketch of French society, politics, and literature during very ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... taught as a science ought to be taught, as a matter of autopsy, and observation, and strict discipline; in a very large number of cases, physiology has been taught as if it were a mere matter of books and of hearsay. I declare to you, gentlemen, that I have often expected to be told, when I have been asked a question about the circulation of the blood, that Professor Breitkopf is of opinion that it circulates, but that the whole thing is ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... I can tell 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 ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... deliverance thus described links the present with the past. 'As we have heard so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God.' Yes, brethren! God's merciful manifestation for ourselves, as for those Israelitish people of old, has this blessed effect, that it changes hearsay and tradition into living experience;—this blessed effect, that it teaches us, or ought to teach us, the inexhaustibleness of the divine power, the constant repetition in every age of the same works of love. Taught by it, we learn that all these ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... tense and straining air. The feeling that he was going mad left him, as the simple solution of his mystery came to him. This girl must have heard of him in New York—perhaps she knew people whom he knew and it was on hearsay, not on personal acquaintance, that she based that dislike of him which she had expressed with such freedom and conviction so short a while before at the Regent Grill. She did not know ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... between the two, in which politics and society act and react on each other, and it is from this field that the great subjects for epic and dramatic poetry have always been reaped. Hawthorne only knew of this by hearsay. Of the strenuous conflict that continually goes on in political centres like London and New York, a struggle for wealth, for honor, and precedence; of plots and counterplots, of foiled ambition and ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... me,—it is you who have to learn from me. In our young days I was accustomed to tell you stories in winter nights like these,—stories of love like our own, of sorrows which, at that time, we only knew by hearsay. I have one now for your ear, truer and sadder than they were. Two children, for they were then little more—children in ignorance of the world, children in freshness of heart, children almost in ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book X • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... entrance on October 17, in a new opera, Mercadante's "Elisa e Claudio," which made the hit of the season, largely because of the infatuation of the public for the new singer. Mr. White gives us a description of her (from hearsay and the records) in his article published in The Century Magazine, ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... says[253], "It is needless to comment upon such hearsay statements, received from an African traveller." This assertion being calculated to impress on the public mind, that I founded my hypothesis respecting the junction of the Niles of Africa on the simple and ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... 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 ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... nature. If Chopin imagined that he was fully understood as an artist by society, he was sadly mistaken. Liszt and Heller certainly held that he was not fully understood, and they did not merely surmise or speak from hearsay, for neither of them was a stranger in that quarter, although the latter avoided it as much as possible. What society could and did appreciate in Chopin was his virtuosity, his elegance, and his delicacy. It is not my intention to attempt an enumeration of Chopin's aristocratic friends and ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... by no means ask Miss Kavanagh to write to me. Why should she trouble herself to do it? What claim have I on her? She does not know me—she cannot care for me except vaguely and on hearsay. I have got used to your friendly sympathy, and it comforts me. I have tried and trust the fidelity of one or two other friends, and I lean upon it. The natural affection of my father and the attachment and solicitude of our two servants are precious and consolatory ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... province. What was Baltimore's opinion? "We understand" he wrote in 1651, "that in the late Rebellion there One thousand Six hundred Forty and four most of the Records of that province being then lost or embezzled."[76] This hearsay statement of Lord Baltimore may have been based upon the testimony in 1649, of Thomas Hatton, Secretary of the province, of the receipt of books from Mr. Bretton, who "delivered to me this Book, and another lesser Book with a Parchment Cover, divers of the Leaves ...
— Captain Richard Ingle - The Maryland • Edward Ingle
... 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 ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... shall give no anecdotes of others, but I shall simply recall scenes in which I myself have shared, preferring even a character for egotism rather than relate the statements of hearsay, for the truth of which I could not vouch. This must be accepted as an excuse for the unpleasant use of the ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... of icy peaks, cut diamonds in the sun, seen for a moment, then swallowed up by stealthily creeping white clouds, or caressed by them with a benediction in passing. Thin streaks of cascades on precipitous rocks made silver veinings in ebony. Side valleys opened unexpectedly, and one knew from hearsay that gold mines were hidden there. Treading the road built by Napoleon, I was enveloped in the gloom of the wondrous Gondo Schlucht, to come out into a broad valley,—a green amphitheatre, above which a company of white, mountain gods sat ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... in the Lit. and Phil. Soc. of Manchester Memoirs, 2-9-146, says that, about 1827—like a great deal in Lyell's Principles and Darwin's Origin, this account is from hearsay—something fell from the sky, near Allport, England. It fell luminously, with a loud report, and scattered in a field. A fragment that was seen by Dr. Smith, is described by him as having "the appearance of a piece of common wood charcoal." Nevertheless, the reassured feeling ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... be interested. She 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 ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... it is, my Lord, that my Lady Elizabeth is put from the degree she was afore, and what degree she is at now[A] 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. But I beseech you to be good, my Lord, to her and to all hers, and to let her have some ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... say, "criticise anyone or anything on hearsay. See for yourself and then make up your own mind; but don't hurry to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... from hearsay; what then I have heard I have no scruple in telling. And perhaps it is most becoming for one who is about to travel there, to inquire and speculate about the journey thither, what kind we think it is. What else can one do in the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... well of thee and not a wight of them hath aught to say against thee; so I now would know of thee the certainty of these things and hear from thine own lips how thou didst gain this abundant wealth. I have summoned thee before me that I might be assured of all such matters by actual hearsay: so fear not to tell me all thy tale; I desire naught of thee save knowledge of this thy case. Enjoy thou to thy heart's content the opulence that Almighty Allah deigned bestow upon thee, and let thy soul have pleasure therein. Thus spake the Caliph and the gracious words reassured ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... spite of widespread inquiries, I have been able to get ... [but little] concerning Louise Amelia Knapp Smith. There are no people now living here who knew her even by hearsay. The records of Amherst Academy show that she attended that institution in 1839 and 1840.... Miss Smith's name adds another to the long list of writers who have lived here at one time or another, and Amherst Academy has added many names to that list. Two of them—Emily ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... assume imperial power and to subdue almost the whole world, who conquered all kingdoms and even seized islands lying beyond our world, reposing in the bosom of Ocean. He made tributary to the Romans those that knew not the Roman name even by hearsay, and yet was unable to prevail against the Goths, despite his frequent attempts. Soon Gaius Tiberius reigned as third emperor of the Romans, and yet the Goths continued in their kingdom unharmed. Their safety, their advantage, their one hope 69 lay ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... "I s'pose it wouldn't be comfortable if those were your feelin's, but I reckon you don't know much about it unless from hearsay. But I tell you one thing, whiskey's a friend to be trusted"—adding, slowly, with a glance at George's face—"to get you into trouble if you let it get the upper hand of you. It's like a woman in that! It begins with the same letter too, and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... astonishment, as he opened the door of one of the rooms to close the shutters, he saw by the light of his candle another phantom as distinct as the first. He congratulated himself upon no longer having to depend upon mere hearsay in regard to this psycho-pathologic phenomenon. At the table four men were sitting playing cards. One of them was looking on. The men had rather coarse red faces, were smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. They seemed ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... were troubled with the Divinity Squirt, and were forc'd to print, or to be tormented with the Cholick, or foul themselves; and so they exposed their Nakedness to the World, with all their Rhapsodies of dreaming Thoughts, borrowed Sense, and hearsay Learning. I was none of those High Dutch Inkshiters as somebody calls them; and instead of sending my Religion to the Press to make other Men frantick, I kept mine at home to keep my self Sober. As to the rest of your Objection, Sir, I must confess I did not talk much of ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... speaking confessedly from hearsay, that in 1530, the Emperor Charles V. being at Bologna, Titian was summoned thither by Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, using Aretino as an intermediary, and that he on that occasion executed a most admirable ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... 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 ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... confound the Bedouin always by sneering at their ignorance, saying that where you come from men know what is proper. And Jimgrim, having truly made the pilgrimage to Mecca, will confound them likewise, having knowledge, whereas most of these rascals only know by hearsay." ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... other men, which unless we should believe, we should do nothing at all in this life; lastly, with how unshaken an assurance I believed of what parents I was born, which I could not know, had I not believed upon hearsay -considering all this, Thou didst persuade me, that not they who believed Thy Books (which Thou hast established in so great authority among almost all nations), but they who believed them not, were to ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... am not sure; I am merely speaking from hearsay. And now I come to think of it, the information was rather vague. But I gathered that he had vanished, at any rate, and remembering certain earlier episodes in his career, I was led to suppose that ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... on June 29, 1613, when a play called Henry VIII or All is True was being performed. So far as stylistic tests can decide, this was not long after the composition of the play. Sir Henry Wotton, the antiquarian, writing from hearsay knowledge, says that the play being acted at the time of the fire was "a new play called All is True." Shakespeare's scenes in this drama may thus have been his last dramatic work. A praise of King James ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... proving a 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
... believes that one can recall experiences of their very early years which they have actually learned from hearsay, from countless repetition ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... found in other systems. This, then, would seem to be a fair interpretation of the evidence. A human mind cannot readily create simple forms that are absolutely new; what it fashions will naturally resemble what other minds have fashioned, or what it has known through hearsay or through sight. A circle is one of the world's common stock of figures, and that it should mean twenty in Phoenicia and in India is hardly more surprising than that it signified ten at one time in Babylon.[124] It is therefore quite ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith
... affairs until daylight. At eight o'clock in the morning the two brave friends,—one an old soldier, the other a young recruit, who had never known, except by hearsay, the terrible anguish of those who commonly went up the staircase of Bidault called Gigonnet,—wended their way, without a word to each other, towards the Rue Grenetat. Both were suffering; from time to time Pillerault passed his hand across ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... James, with a look of slight displeasure. "Do you venture to question our judgments on hearsay—for ye can know naething o' ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... 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, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... from my place, could arrive in a totally different world, in many worlds, all with a proper space, all with the same evidence of real existence, all full of life, full of sensations, fall of beauties and transports - this became for me a matter of simple experience. And no one only knowing it from hearsay can realize how different and how much more profound is the effect ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... present. One influential member of the Society, however, who met me the next day in the street, stated very decidedly his disapprobation of the tenor of certain parts of my address; but I found that he condemned me on hearsay evidence, not having attended the meeting himself. On the 29th, I was favored with a call from Lieutenant Governor Cunningham, of St. Kitts, on his way to England, who gave a very favorable account of the continued good conduct ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... suppose, and the girl. Well—I guess Billy Graham isn't in the market for sympathy. He tells me that he is fairly familiar with the Thibault tanneries from hearsay and he is confident that he is taking them some tips that will make him solid ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... There's no evidence but hearsay and surmise against him. If you had died, your body would never have been found. A hundred good men would testify to his character, and I'd have been one. He stands a worse chance now than if you were anchored to the bottom of the lake. I haven't saved your life for his sake nor for yours: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... veil of time and nature, in a posthumous and metaphysical sphere. A mythical economy abounding in points of attachment to human experience and in genial interpretations of life, yet lifted beyond visible nature and filling a reported world, a world believed in on hearsay or, as it is called, on faith—that ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... until 153 witnesses had been examined, embracing persons from the States of North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Missouri, Kansas, and Indiana. Much of this testimony is of such a character as would not be received in a court of justice, being hearsay, the opinions of witnesses, &c., but we received it with a view to ascertaining, if possible, the real state of facts in regard to the condition of the Southern colored people, their opinions and feelings, and the feelings and opinions of their white neighbors. We think it clearly established ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... how soon Aldebaran began to taste the sweets of great achievement. His name was on the tongue of every troubador, his deeds in every minstrel's song. And though he travelled far to alien lands, scarce known by hearsay even to the folk at home, his fame was carried back, far over seas again, and in his father's court his name was spoken daily in proud tones, as they recounted all ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Dollier de Casson, Marie de l'Incarnation, and the Abbe Belmont, which record the same events as Radisson. In no case has reliance been placed on second-hand chronicles. Oldmixon and Charlevoix must both have written from hearsay; therefore, though quoted in the footnotes, they are not given as conclusive proof. The only means of identifying Radisson's routes are (1) by his descriptions of the countries, (2) his notes of the Indian tribes; so that ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... the same root as the [Greek: bombaulios] of Aristophanes (Acharnians, 866) ([Greek: bombos] and [Greek: aulos]), a comic compound for a bag-pipe with a play on [Greek: bombulios], an insect that hums or buzzes (see BAG-PIPE). The original described in the letter, also from hearsay, was probably an ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... to the Indians of America; and, as several of these letters an from individuals who joined the Peninsular Array from this country, in which they had passed many years, the statement may be relied on as coming from men who have had men than hearsay knowledge of ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... his arms and kissing the woman who admitted him. I could not hear what passed, for at the time the wind blew high, drowning their voices. But I had seen enough, and cried to the bearers to take up the chair and proceed. That, my son, is what I have seen, not learned by mere hearsay. Would that I could have spared thee the telling, but 'tis for thy ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... mistaken. There were incendiary fires within the lines. It was discovered that messengers had been sent to regiments at other stations, with incitements to insubordination. The officer in command at Barrackpore, General Hearsay, addressed the troops on parade, explained to them that the cartridges were not prepared with the obnoxious materials supposed, and set forth the groundlessness of their suspicions. The address was well received at first, but had no permanent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... to spare for loftier studies, became perforce a practical man. He adopted (how should he have done otherwise?) the language, errors, and opinions of the Parisian tradesman who admires Moliere, Voltaire, and Rousseau on hearsay, and buys their works, but never opens them; who will have it that the proper way to pronounce "armoire" is "ormoire"; "or" means gold, and "moire" means silk, and women's dresses used almost always to be made of silk, and in their cupboards they ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... it was they had to settle—the Greenland affair that had hung in the air so long. I knew it from hearsay, from Fox, vaguely enough. Mr. Gurnard was said to recommend it for financial reasons, the Duc to be eager, Churchill to hang back unaccountably. I never had much head for details of this sort, but people used to explain them to me—to explain the reasons for de Mersch's ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... several 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 ...
— Old Jabe's Marital Experiments - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... write, not on hearsay, but on accurate knowledge, and to all friends of their country will recommend immediate attention to them while there is yet time, lest in a few weeks the maddest and most criminal thing that a British government could do, should be done and all Europe kindle ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... which was witnessed in Southampton County (Virginia) on Monday the 22nd of August last. New York, 1831. (This gives a table of victims and has the advantage of nearness to the event. This very nearness, however, has given credence to much hearsay and accounted for ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... aforesaid adventurer. How the fickle dame flirts with all the neighboring young men, and at last, at the end of the second act, has her attention led by Captain Location to the hero of the piece as a suitable mate for her wayward daughter, Miss Prosperity,—all this is usually written up from hearsay. For the third act, wherein the twin brothers Steamboat Navigation and Railroad Communication help the hero to press his suit, the imagination often suffices. The grand finale, however, brings back some of the old set of critics, together with a host of new ones, who describe in glowing language ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... opinions, and that it is only his own coxcombical fancy which has bred such a thought in him: but my imagination is at a loss in presence of those vague charges, which have commonly been brought against me, charges, which are made up of impressions, and understandings, and inferences, and hearsay, and surmises. Accordingly, I shall not make the attempt, for, in doing so, I should be dealing blows in the air; what I shall attempt is to state what I know of myself and what I recollect, and leave to ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... looking uncommonly wise. "You'll see more things here in five minutes, by means of your own eyes, than ye could learn from books in a year. There's nothin' like seein'. Seein' is believin', you know. I wouldn't give an ounce of experience for a ton of hearsay." ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... that "many years before a Mr. James McKee, the brother of Mr. William Johnson's deputy, had told him that he had seen the speech in the handwriting of one of the Johnsons ... before it was seen by Logan." This is a hearsay statement delivered just seventy-three years after the event, and it is on its face so wildly improbable as not to need further comment, at least until there is some explanation as to why the Johnsons should have written the speech, how they could ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... rough is the earth below. But if thou wilt I shall swear the great oath by my father's head, that neither I myself am to blame, nor have I seen any other thief of thy kine: be kine what they may, for I know but by hearsay." ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... The glory is departed! 100 Travels Waring East away? Who, of knowledge, by hearsay, Reports a man upstarted Somewhere as a god, Hordes grown European-hearted, Millions of the wild made tame On a sudden at his fame? In Vishnu-land what Avatar? Or who in Moscow, toward the Czar, With the demurest ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning |
