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More "Tattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... divorce. They commanded Verschoyle—by suggestion—to marry a Mrs Slesinger, who was plain but almost as rich as himself, and in his distress he very nearly succumbed; but Clara swooped in to save him, and found that her position was made almost impossible by whispered tittle-tattle, cold looks, and downright rudeness. She was distinctly left out of picnic and boating parties, and almost in contempt she was partnered with Sir Henry who, after Lady Bracebridge's arrival, was no longer master in his own house.... When the Cabinet Ministers arrived ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... headquarters. Never mind what anybody else thinks of you. Your business is to please Christ, and the less you trouble yourselves about pleasing men the more you will succeed in doing it. Be deaf to the tittle tattle of your fellow soldiers in the ranks. It is your Commander's smile that will be your ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... great questions of life, and wait serenely and vigilantly for a response, one, two, ten years, a lifetime, wellnigh an eternity, if need be, not falling into despondencies and despairing skepticisms because the universe forbears to babble and tattle its secret ere yet he half or a thousandth part guesses how deep and holy that secret is, but quietly, heroically asking and waiting. And toward this posture of asking the profound and vital words assist us by being heard,—which is their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... poultry-roasting establishment in the Rue Saint-Jacques, at which time he became acquainted with Florent and Quenu. In 1856 he retired from this business, and to amuse himself took a stall in the poultry-market. "Thenceforth he lived amidst ceaseless tittle-tattle, acquainted with every little scandal in the neighbourhood." Gavard was a leading spirit in the revolutionary circle which met in Lebigre's wine-shop, and was the means of bringing Florent to attend the meetings there. He was arrested at the same time as Florent ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... According to the tattle of Aubrey the antiquary, publishing in 1680, an opinion concerning Shakspere's education reached him. It came thus; there had been an actor in Shakspere's company, one Phillips, who, dying in 1605, left to Shakspere the usual thirty-shilling piece of gold; and the same "to my servant, Christopher ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... so, for other people's business Wise men and women oft forsake their own, Which may perhaps account for their remissness, A tittle-tattle's never seen alone; And by the time the idle tale has flown From mouth to mouth, the truth in some disguise, A trifling circumstance we find has grown A crime of most unpardonable size, And thunder-struck believers ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... Troezenian, but one of the exiles from Athens," volunteered Dion, who kept all the tittle-tattle of the little city in stock along ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... knot of associates and scandal-bearers—elderly roues and ladies of the world, whose business it was to know all sorts of noble intrigues and exalted tittle-tattle; what was happening among the devotees of the exiled court at Frobsdorf; what among the citizen princes of the Tuileries; who was the reigning favourite of the Queen Mother at Aranjuez; who was smitten with whom at Vienna or Naples; ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Carcage, a carcass. Carena, care not. Carline, an old woman, a witch. Cast, chance, opportunity, fate. "Cast o' a cart," chance use of a cart. Certie! conscience! Change-house, a small inn or alehouse. Chield, a fellow. Chimley, a chimney. Claes, clothes. Clatter, tattle. "Clinked down," quartered. "Cock laird," a small land holder who cultivates his estate himself. Copleen, to complain. Coup, to barter; also, to turn over. Crap, the produce of the ground. Crowdy, meal and ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... was always intently interested in music; and she had more than once expressed in Brand's hearing her opinion of the conduct of the ladies and gentlemen who make an opera, or a concert, or a play a mere adjunct to their own foolish laughter and tittle-tattle. She recognized the serious aims of a great artist; she listened with deep attention and respect; she could talk idly elsewhere and at other times. And so there was scarcely a word said—except of involuntary admiration—as the opera ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... occasions, she told herself that she had done with Maurice Guest; and this decision was the more easy as, since the beginning of the year, she had moved almost entirely in German circles. But now the distasteful tattle was thrust under her very nose. It seemed to put things in a different light to hear Maurice pitied and discussed in this very room. In listening to her visitor, she had felt once more how strong her right of possession ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... took snuff?" A few more years, When we are dead and famous—eh? Will they record our pipes and beers, And if we smoked cigars or clay? Or will the world cry "Quantum suff" To tattle such as ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... always most graciously kind and charming whenever they met. But that was just her natural self. She was charming and gracious to everyone—even to Charles Pixley, the while he swamped her with inane tittle-tattle, and higher proof of grace than that it would ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... hath the skill and confidence (O heavens! how mean a skill! how mad a confidence!) to lard every sentence with an oath or a curse, making bold at every turn to salute his Maker, or to summon Him in attestation of his tattle; not to say calling and challenging the Almighty to damn and destroy him? Such a conceit, I say, too many have of swearing, because a custom thereof, together with divers other fond and base qualities, hath prevailed among some people, bearing the ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... an order to support Davoust. This order has never been produced, and it finds no place in the latest and fullest collection of French official despatches, which, however, contains some that fully exonerate Bernadotte.[111] Unfortunately for Bernadotte's fame, the tattle of memoir writers is more attractive and gains more currency than ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... glance of contemptuous amusement upon him. "Some chance! And I warn you that if you attempt to tattle anything about it I will turn, the tables against you in a ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... enjoying the consternation of his companions. "It is, as you say, a long while since. But it's singular how that sort of thing is remembered. One would think people had something else to do than talk of one's private affairs for ever. For my part, I despise such tattle. But there are persons in the neighborhood who still say it was an awkward business. Amongst others, I've heard that this very Luke Bradley talks in ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... killing and slaying down four flights of stairs—to do something very terrible in fact—something deadly and horrible and final that would put an end forever to this melancholy haunt of Tuesday stews and ghoulish boarders with the torturing tattle of their everlasting tongues. I shocked the Little Woman daily with words and phrases, used heretofore only under very trying conditions, that had insensibly become the ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... lively blade, thou art a frank fellow of thy tattle," said Desborough. "There is my secretary Tomkins, whom men sillily enough call Fibbet, and the honourable Lieutenant-General Harrison's secretary Bibbet, who are now at supper below stairs, that durst not for their ears speak a phrase above ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... should be more imitators; and secondly because you are one of those gentlemen of the chamber who have not considered themselves offended by the new decree concerning the ranks allotted to courtiers, which is causing so much gossip and tittle-tattle." ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... indifference to me that this advance was carelessly received, since it satisfied my conscience and her who stirred its depths—nor did my cheek flush at the derisive taunt that followed me from the room after this obligation to self was discharged—"Now tattle again, little prophetess," for thus she often alluded to my Hebrew name and its signification, "and produce my squirrel, or look well to your ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... 25th of September, nearly a week after the tattle of Newbury, all the members of Parliament still remaining in London assembled in St. Margaret's Church, and signed the Solemn League and Covenant; but even at this moment of enthusiasm the parties were not true to each other. The Scotch expected that Presbyterianism would be introduced ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... without ever being converted to the church. And there you see them, the fat, duty-doing, self-satisfied "firsts" in this world, who shall be last and least in the world to come. Those least inclined to tattle about their neighbors, I found, were poor, pathetic sinners with damaged reputations, who could not afford to talk about others. They belonged humbly to the church, but never figured loudly in it. And if God is God, as I do firmly believe ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... been very young; Virtuous she was—and had been, I believe; Although the world has such an evil tongue That—but my chaster ear will not receive An echo of a syllable that 's wrong: In fact, there 's nothing makes me so much grieve, As that abominable tittle-tattle, Which is the ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... come. Amidst these equivocations and contradictions thought is blunted, and the sinews of the intellect are unstrung. The public, bewitched by talent and captivated by success, is deluged with writings which have the same effect as the talk of a frivolous man, or the showy tattle of a woman of the world. They give an agreeable exercise to the mind, without ever allowing it to form either a precise idea or ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... with internal unlikeness; not rhyming, but strongly alliterative, and in every case with a change of the interior vowel from a weak into a strong, generally from i into a or o; as 'shilly-shally', 'mingle-mangle', 'tittle-tattle', 'prittle-prattle', 'riff-raff', 'see-saw', 'slip-slop'. No one who is not quite out of love with the homelier yet more vigorous portions of the language, but will acknowledge the life and strength which ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... time when the Quartier Latin was distracted by Liberalism, such conduct was sure to rouse in opposition a host of petty passions, of feelings whose folly is only to be measured by their meanness, the outcome of porters' gossip and malevolent tattle from door to door, all unknown to M. d'Espard and his retainers. His man-servant was stigmatized as a Jesuit, his cook as a sly fox; the nurse was in collusion with Madame Jeanrenaud to rob the madman. The madman was the Marquis. By degrees the other tenants came to regard as proofs of madness ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... declared the man over his shoulder, a contemptuous sneer curling his lips. "I confess my own wrong-doing but I do not tattle the sins of other people. Your father will never be the wiser about you so far as I am concerned. Whatever you want him to know you will have ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... the late Miss Anna Seward, that a friendly intimacy was cultivated between that clever literateur and the recluses of Plas Newydd; and it would seem from her correspondence, that their tastes were very comprehensive and multifarious; poetry and politics, music and mystery, tragedy and tattle, being alike acceptable. In a letter addressed to Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby, under date Lichfield, October 4, 1802, ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... unwearied zeal, promoted her interest. The reader cannot expect that we should swell this volume by a minute relation of all the incidents which happened to her, while she continued a poetical mendicant. She has not, without pride, related all the little tattle which passed between her and persons of distinction, who, through the abundance of their idleness, thought proper to trifle ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... that they had ever harbored unjust thoughts of her, she took their proffered friendship at its face value. It was quite gratifying to know that many of them envied her. She learned from various sources that Bill's fortune loomed big, had grown by some mysterious process of Granville tattle, until it had reached the charmed six ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... his enemies made this an additional subject of annoyance, and there were not wanting those who had the amazing bad taste to repeat to him some of their speeches. There are some who seem to think that a man must rather enjoy hearing all the low tittle-tattle of ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... "please don't say any more. I know all that your life has been, and why. You did quite right. What is a little trouble to me, a little passing inconvenience, the tattle of a few idle tongues, compared with what Jack's life is to you? I see now that I ought to have opposed it strongly instead of letting it take its course. You were right—you always have been right, John. There is a sort of consolation in the thought. I like it. I like to think that you ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... sure that the sooner Helen and he were removed from their present environment the happier they would be. He hoped most fervently that the course of events might be made smooth for their departure. He cared not a jot for the tittle-tattle of the hotel. Let him but see Helen re-established in London, and it would not be his fault if they did not set forth on their honeymoon before the ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... see Aunt Beulah, and I say, not so often as Uncle Jimmie does. Then she says does he go to see Aunt Margaret, and I say that he goes to see Uncle Peter the most. Well, if he doesn't he almost does. You can't tell Mrs. Madam Bolling that you won't tattle, because she would ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... keep her mind on the level of Parisian brilliancy, Madame de la Baudraye allowed no vacuous small talk in her presence, no old-fashioned compliments, no pointless remarks; she would never endure the yelping of tittle-tattle, the backstairs slander which forms the staple of talk in the country. She liked to hear of discoveries in science or art, or the latest pieces at the theatres, the newest poems, and by airing the cant words of the day she made a show of ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... home alongside of 'im talking. He was surprised to find that Bob hadn't 'eard anything of the gold watch 'e was offering, but Bob said he was a busy, 'ard-working man and didn't 'ave no time to go to hear speeches or listen to tittle-tattle. ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... his, Latouche—soon to become an enemy—helped him to liven up the walls of his study with the famous blue calico that had adorned his room over the printing office. Certain busybodies spread the report that he was furnishing his new apartment extravagantly; and Laure, to whose ear the tattle had come, ventured to allude to it in a letter reproaching him with remissness in writing home and to her. The accusation of extravagance, which later he really merited, was at this moment a trifle previous, money being scarce and credit also. "Stamps and omnibus ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... eighteen—the age when a boy really begins his training—their education is completed, they are told; and they are turned into the world to devote their time and talents to trimmings, novels, and idle tittle-tattle. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... disguised in sugar of milk to conceal their taste and appearance; the world of letters, in the same way, triturates the most disgusting things to get them swallowed without raising your gorge. There is an incessant manipulation of neighbours' gossip and play-box tittle-tattle, all wrapped up in perfidious good taste to ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... others, with an Eye of Indulgence. Every one was surpriz'd to find, that notwithstanding he had such a Fund of Wit, he never insulted; nay, never so much as rallied any of his Companions, for that Tittle Tattle, which was so vague and empty, so noisy and confus'd; for those rash Reflections, those illiterate Conclusions, and those insipid Jokes; and, in short, for that Flow of unmeaning Words, which was call'd polite Conversation in Babylon. He had learned from the ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... appeals to their sympathies, renders the good people of the republic peculiarly liable to impositions of this nature; and the mother who encourages those of her children who fetch and carry, will be certain to have her ears filled with complaints and tattle. Nevertheless, it is a fact beyond all dispute, that the commerce of the country was terribly depredated on by nearly all the European belligerents, between the commencement of the war of the French revolution and its close. So enormous ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... right, you may come near though I am rich and eligible"—and that arranging and rearranging of seats, that shameless match-making and that eternal tittle-tattle and pretence; those rules—with whom to shake hands, to whom only to nod, with whom to converse (and all this done deliberately with a conviction of its inevitability), that continual ennui in the blood passing on from generation to generation. Try to understand or believe just this ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... people there, and they all appeared to know about him, and all that concerned or belonged to him. It was the old London world over again, in little! the same tittle-tattle about well-known people, and nothing else—as if nothing else existed; a genial, easy-going, good-natured world, that he had so often found charming for a time, but in which he was never quite happy and had no proper ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... everyday gossip has usually the keenness and eagerness of the tattle of small villages, preserves at times, upon certain serious subjects, a silence which might be believed to be generous. Whether it is from ignorance or from respect, at all events it has little to say. There are vague suspicions of the truth, surmises are made, but nothing is affirmed; ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... contains inscribed on it the whole history of the wood-chopper and of the world. On this scrap of paper, which held his sugar or salt, perchance, or was the wadding of his gun, sitting on a log in the forest, with what interest we read the tattle of cities, of those larger huts, empty and to let, like this, in High Streets and Broadways. The eaves are dripping on the south side of this simple roof, while the titmouse lisps in the pine, and the genial warmth of the sun around the door is ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... how she's too orrystocratic to mind wulgar people's tattle, And looks upon some people as ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... the dastardly spirit which hungers for mischief-making without punishment, in vogue? The fellows who like to borrow money but not pay it back, are surely such as these students here after they are graduated. What did these fellows come to this middle school for, anyway? They enter a school, tattle round lies, play silly jokes behind some one by sneaking and cheating and get wrongly swell-headed when they finish the school thinking they have received an education. A common lot of jackasses ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... reception of evidence was peculiar. Knowing that there was no Court of Criminal Appeal, he set the rules of procedure at defiance. Any tittle-tattle was admitted, and postmen and servants were allowed to swear as to the directions on unproduced documents alleged to have been addressed to me. When, several weeks later, I was tried a third time in the Court ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... in thy foolish hands, and threwest away to go and seek in vain in sepulchers, mummy pits, and old bookshops of Asia Minor, Egypt, and England. It was the deep to-day which all men scorn; the rich poverty, which men hate; the populous, all-loving solitude, which men quit for the tattle of towns. He lurks, he hides,—he who is success, reality, joy, and power. One of the illusions is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... a rainy night, as this is, When rarely and more rare the coaches rattle From street to street, to sip thy fragrant kisses; While from the Strand remote some drunken battle Far-faintly echoes, and the kettle hisses Upon the glowing hob. No tittle-tattle To make a single thought of mine an alien From thee, my coffee-pot, my ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Not in the least, it will give the Old Lady a Complexion, She wants it, besides I was Indebted to her, for a full length She gave of me the other Day, to a Country Gentlewoman at Lady Tattle-Tongues ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... fared sumptuously on a plate of beef, some bread and butter, and a pint mug of coffee. As he was eating a paper-boy came in and laid an Echo on the table at which he was sitting. He took it up mechanically, and ran his eye carelessly over the columns. He was in no humour to be interested by the tattle of an evening paper, but in a paragraph under the heading of Foreign News a once familiar name caught his eye, and he read the paragraph through. It ran ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... that it is true!" she exclaimed. "What right have you to say such a thing, as if you knew Merton so well, and had weighed him in an infallible balance and found him wanting! I have heard nothing but malicious tittle-tattle, a falsehood beneath contempt, set afloat by some enemy of Merton's. If I could have thought it true for one moment I should never cease to despise myself. Have you forgotten how you blazed out against me for speaking my mind about ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... so easy to get rid of him as it had been to drive his colleagues from office. His abilities the most intolerant Tories were forced grudgingly to acknowledge. His integrity might be questioned in nameless libels and in coffeehouse tattle, but was certain to come forth bright and pure from the most severe Parliamentary investigation. Nor was he guilty of those faults of temper and of manner to which, more than to any grave delinquency, the unpopularity of his associates is to be ascribed. He had as little of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... my reader, must be your writer, and let me know if such tittle-tattle as I can collect serves to divert some of those many moments of languor and weariness that creep between pain and ease, and that call more for mental food than for bodily medicine. Your love to your Fannikin, I well know, makes all trash interesting to you that seems to concern ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... by his tattle has made the Marquise my mortal foe, I gained his good offices, and those of the Public Prosecutor, and Comte Octave de Bauvan; for Madame de Serizy told them the danger in which I stood in consequence of their ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... (he now took care to leave for home betimes), or with his sister going about the shops. It would be but a bow in the bye-going, she passing on with equanimity and I with a maddening sense of awkwardness, that was not much bettered by the tattle of the plainstanes, where merchant lads and others made audible comment on the ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... essentials to happiness, felt no weakness, no lack of self-reliance, now that she was in some measure pitted against the many. She resented the conduct of the passengers in making her the subject of their tittle-tattle with a bitterness she had never felt before. In overlooking her actions and assuming a right to influence her in a purely personal matter, these people were guilty of an insolence to which she would not submit. She thought she discovered a certain antagonism amongst those with ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... "The northern delegation is in the market; give me money enough, and I can buy them," they both meant just what they said. When the temperance publications tell us that candidates for office buy men with whiskey; and the oracles of street tattle, that the court, district attorney, and jury, in the late trial of Robinson were bought, we have no floating visions of "chattels personal," man auctions, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... ashamed to read, because I must write something. . . ." Paul Vanderhoffen shrugged, and continued, in tones more animated: "There will be no talk of any grand-duke. Instead, there will be columns of denunciation and tittle-tattle in every newspaper—quite as if you, a baronet's daughter, had run away with a footman. And you will very often think wistfully of Lord Brudenel's fine house when your only title is—well, Princess of Grub Street, and your realm is a garret. And for a while even to-morrow's breakfast will be ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... at the outset of his career on the Noda that he could not get what the Three C's folks were getting—to advertise his impotency by making a twenty-mile tote trip over slushy and rutted roads—was a mighty poor send-off as a boss, he told himself. He knew what sort of tattle ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... his wife both declared that they minded what the bailiff said, and never let a word escape from them about the old man's suspicions; but rumour is a sad spreader of news, and the result of some bit of tittle-tattle turns up in places least expected, ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... raised to drag Bell out by the heels, when I reflected that what I had heard might be unfounded gossip, mere tattle, and that before I turned against an old acquaintance, it were well to set an inquiry afoot. First, however, I put him alongside Herbert Spencer. If it were Bell's desire to play the grandmother to him, he would find ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... heard!-Come to a play, and not know what it is!-Why, I suppose you wouldn't have found it out, if they had fob'd you off with a scraping of fiddlers, or an opera?-Ha, ha, ha!-Why, now, I should have thought you might have taken some notice of one Mr. Tattle, that ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... in all sincerity. George Sand was quite indifferent about all the great events of Parisian life, about social tittle-tattle and Boulevard gossip. She knew the importance, though, of every episode of country life, of a sudden fog or of the overflowing of the river. She knew the place well, too, as she had visited every ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... this internal passion. But as she still kept her love in the recesses of her heart, she died when Lavalliere fell before Metz, as has been elsewhere related by Messire Bourdeilles de Brantome in his tittle-tattle. ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... your own sake, let me advise you to put faith in the true report of those who have daily experience of their mistress's excellent virtue, as they have of the sun's shining, and of the earth's bringing forth fruit, and not in the tattle of a few cowardly back-stair rogues, who wish to curry favor with the Guises. Come, we will say no more. Walk round with us by Appledore, and then ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... her funeral; The fields are near, and you are gallant grooms: This done, see that you take no longer days, But send the midwife presently to me. The midwife and the nurse well made away, Then let the ladies tattle what they please. ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... moment, then crumpling the paper in his hand, cried out in a hoarse, choking voice, "Yes, it's a fact: I done it. It's no use denying on't.. Here it is, in black and white. Everybody knows it: ghosts come spooking around to tattle about it. What's the use of ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... goddlemitys sakes what is the difference? what rite had you to tell him that ennyway and i sed well you did say it dident you? and he sed of coarse i sed it and it is true but if you dont know enny more than to tattle evrything i say at home i will give you a good sound thrashing rite now and i thougt i was going to get it when mother sed wait George to father and then she sed to me what did you wright to decon Aspinwall ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... and in the character of Mrs. Theresa Tattle, the "Parent's Assistant" has pointed out the dangers which may arise in education from a bad ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... they will guess we are going to make a match of it. Then, again," 'Zekiel continued, "Huldy says she's bound to have it out with the one that started the stories. There's no use mincing matters between us, because you know as well as I do who is at the bottom of all this tittle-tattle. Since I refused to join hands with him to try and drive you out of town, he has talked about me almost as bad as he has about you. 'So,' says Huldy to me, 'you know he is the only teacher of music in Eastborough. I want to take music lessons very much, and so I have got to have him for ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... practice of some, that are now alive. God hath promised his glorious teaching, and his warming, strengthening, sanctifying, and comforting presence to such as do so, Matt, xviii. 20. Church members find time enough to visit one another, and meet together to tell some idle stories, to tattle about other men's matters, which do not concern them, and perhaps to backbite some of their brethren, and to prejudice the minds of persons against their teachers and their work, if they do not please them. And will not such meetings have bitterness ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... lower tone about such matters when we are near at hand. Etretat is, moreover, the country of gossip and scandal. From five to seven o'clock you can see people wandering about in quest of nasty stories about others which they retail from group to group. As you remarked to me, my dear aunt, tittle-tattle is the mark of petty individuals and petty minds. It is also the consolation of women who are no longer loved or sought after. It is enough for me to observe the women who are fondest of gossiping to be persuaded ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... could tell a fellow about when he was a little boy there was a little girl in a red dress with blond pigtails who used to scrap with him and tattle things about him to her mother. If he were inclined to be credulous, this was second sight I had. But it is a universal. What average boy didn't, at one time or another, know a little girl with blond pigtails? What blond little ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... other instances, was rather too effeminate in his disposition, had a pretty strong inclination to tittle-tattle. He had no sooner, therefore, received a full liberty of speaking from Jones, than he entered upon a long narrative concerning the lady; which, as it contained many particulars highly to her dishonour, we have too great a tenderness ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... longer. Many said, when she followed, that she ate herself to death; but I mention the rumour in order to deny it, for I am sure it was grief that killed her. It is a pity some dogs will repeat everything they hear, without considering the mischief such tittle-tattle may occasion—although it has been asserted by many that in this case the false intelligence came from the Cats, who had no great affection for poor Lady Bull. Whatever the cause, she died, and with her the employment of poor Nip ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... the coach's platform to get rid of his tremors. "He'll not tell," he said aloud, the uproar of wheels drowning his voice. "He's too good a Rosemonter to tattle. At first I thought he'd got on the same ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... the King, "if there is any more tittle-tattle—in the press, I mean—you might let the facts be known; surely they ought to strike the popular imagination; and I'm sure the police need all the support we ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... of Dublin gossips into a rage because he declared that Dublin was called "the whispering gallery" and "the city of dreadful whispers" because it was populated by the descendants of informers and spies. That, he declared, was why Dublin people were so fond of tittle-tattle and tale-bearing and scandal-mongering. "The English hanged or transported every decent-minded man in the town, an' left only the spies an' informers, an' the whole of you are descended from that breed. That's why you can't keep anything to yourselves, but have to ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... get the thanks you deserved, either, Doctor von Kammacher," he said in his broad dialect, rich in vowel sounds, and recounted a number of cases, of which Frederick had not known, in which good had been repaid by evil tattle. "The people around Plassenberg are not fit for men like you and me. Men like you and me belong in America, ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... to have received particular marks of distinction from the Emperor Alexander; but what may have been the particular tittle tattle which led up to the caricature we shall next describe, we are now unable to fathom. That it grew out of the event which we have attempted to describe will be sufficiently obvious. It is entitled, A Russian Dandy at Home; a scene at Aix-la-Chapelle, and was published by ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... in her preface to her Aristophanes: Je tiens pour une maxime constante, qu'une beaute mediocre plait plus generalement qu'une beaute sans defaut. Mr Congreve hath made such another blunder in his Love for Love, where Tattle tells Miss Prue, "She should admire him as much for the beauty he commends in her as if he himself ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... and rather plumed herself on her conquest. Christophe would have liked more discretion: but he felt that the curiosity of the people was upon him: and as he did not wish to seem to fly from it, he threw in his lot with Ada. The little town buzzed with tattle. Christophe's colleagues in the orchestra paid him sly compliments to which he did not reply, because he would not allow any meddling with his affairs. The respectable people of the town judged ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... it will come,—for no woman with your eyes and your mouth ever yet lived a loveless life!—never forget that it is the biggest thing in the world, the one altogether good and perfect gift. Don't let any twopenny-halfpenny considerations of worldly advantage influence you, nor the tittle-tattle of other folks, and even if it seems that something insurmountable lies between you and the fulfillment of love, go over it, or round it, or through it! If it's a real love, your faith must be big enough to remove the mountains in the way—or to go ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... fancy. The Arabian Nights—futile enough in any case—would be absolutely intolerable if they contained no Oriental manners, no human passions, and no convinced epicureanism behind their miracles and their tattle. Any absolute work of art which serves no further purpose than to stimulate an emotion has about it a certain luxurious and visionary taint. We leave it with a blank mind, and a pang bubbles up from the very fountain of pleasures. Art, so long as it needs ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... tattle-tale to the house-cat about yo' own spliced an' wedded wife? In her own home an' yard—her that you've sworn to love an' cherish agin bed an' ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... old-fashioned newspapers with effort, and were just taking with avidity to a new sort of paper, costing a halfpenny, which they believed to be extraordinarily bright and attractive, and which never really succeeded until it became extremely dull, discarding all serious news and replacing it by vapid tittle-tattle, and substituting for political articles informed by at least some pretence of knowledge of economics, history, and constitutional law, such paltry follies and sentimentalities, snobberies and partisaneries, as ignorance can understand ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... employed in ministering to the wretched love of gossip—retailing paltry anecdotes in dispraise of others, intermingled with outflowings of self-praise—and creeping into the secret chambers of great men's houses to filch out materials for tattle—at seeing great powers wasting and debasing themselves in such an ignoble task—above all, at seeing that the person who thus wasted and debased them was a scholar, and a philosopher whose talents he admired, with ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... described. In this house, or under the shade of some venerable tree, all ranks occasionally assemble in groups, from sun-rising to sun-set, and pass the time in chit-chat, or in conversation on public affairs. Their subjects are inexhaustible, and their tittle-tattle is carried on with surprising volubility, gaiety, and delight; their time thus occupied is so seducing, that they separate with great reluctance, sometimes passing the entire day in this, pratling, smoaking, and diversion: night, however, terminates these amusements: They assemble ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... shall dwell upon a journal that treats of trade, and be lavish in the praise of the author; while persons skilled in those subjects hear the tattle with contempt.—Watts's Improvement of ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... they know that I have not philosophy enough to admit into my house those I do not esteem; this may argue a want of charity; but my guardian-angel has maintained in me to this day a profound aversion for tattle, and also for dishonesty." ...
— Madame Firmiani • Honore de Balzac
... trial of the new power of nature. M. D'Eslon, a physician of great reputation, became a convert; and from that time, Animal Magnetism, or, as some called it, Mesmerism, became the fashion in Paris. The women were quite enthusiastic about it, and their admiring tattle wafted its fame through every grade of society. Mesmer was the rage; and high and low, rich and poor, credulous and unbelieving, all hastened to convince themselves of the power of this mighty magician, who made such magnificent promises. Mesmer, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... so you will satisfy my desires. Look, Countess! I consider myself as one of your most sincere admirers and it wounds me to hear all this tittle-tattle circulating in our set which links your ladyship's name with that ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... said in all sincerity. George Sand was quite indifferent about all the great events of Parisian life, about social tittle-tattle and Boulevard gossip. She knew the importance, though, of every episode of country life, of a sudden fog or of the overflowing of the river. She knew the place well, too, as she had visited every nook and corner ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... my lively blade, thou art a frank fellow of thy tattle," said Desborough. "There is my secretary Tomkins, whom men sillily enough call Fibbet, and the honourable Lieutenant-General Harrison's secretary Bibbet, who are now at supper below stairs, that durst not for their ears speak a phrase above their breath in the ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... most unwearied zeal, promoted her interest. The reader cannot expect that we should swell this volume by a minute relation of all the incidents which happened to her, while she continued a poetical mendicant. She has not, without pride, related all the little tattle which passed between her and persons of distinction, who, through the abundance of their idleness, thought proper to ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... play, and not know what it is!-Why, I suppose you wouldn't have found it out, if they had fob'd you off with a scraping of fiddlers, or an opera?-Ha, ha, ha!-Why, now, I should have thought you might have taken some notice of one Mr. Tattle, that is ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... there always is division, always rivalry. The separate societies have their own interests and honour to maintain, and quarrel, as the orders do in the Church of Rome. No, that's too grand a comparison; rather, Oxford is like an almshouse for clergymen's widows. Self-importance, jealousy, tittle-tattle are the order of the day. It has always been so in my time. Two great ladies, Mrs. Vice-Chancellor and Mrs. Divinity-Professor, can't agree, and have followings respectively: or Vice-Chancellor himself, being a new broom, sweeps all the young Masters clean out of Convocation House, to their great ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... happiness, felt no weakness, no lack of self-reliance, now that she was in some measure pitted against the many. She resented the conduct of the passengers in making her the subject of their tittle-tattle with a bitterness she had never felt before. In overlooking her actions and assuming a right to influence her in a purely personal matter, these people were guilty of an insolence to which she would not submit. She ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... and for this very cause was disliked and hated by all the courtiers. These courtiers were filled with spite and malice, and bursting with envy at the kindness which the King showed to Corvetto; so that all day long, in every corner of the palace, they did nothing but tattle and whisper, murmur and grumble at the poor lad, saying, "What sorcery has this fellow practised on the King that he takes such a fancy to him? How comes he by this luck that not a day passes that he receives ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... strange that a thing so impalpable as gossip should influence so strong a man as John Gourlay to his ruin. But it did. The bodies of Barbie became not only the chorus to Gourlay's tragedy, buzzing it abroad and discussing his downfall; they became also, merely by their maddening tattle, a villain of the piece and an active cause of the catastrophe. Their gossip seemed to materialize into a single entity, a something propelling, that spurred Gourlay on to the schemes that ruined him. He was not to be done, he said; he would show the dogs what ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... turn against him. The Major had just joined us—a creature of Lord Marlborough, put in much to the dislike of the other officers, and to be a spy upon us, as it was said. I know not whether the truth was so, nor who took the tattle of our mess to headquarters, but Webb's regiment, as its Colonel, was known to be in the Commander-in-Chief's black books: "And if he did not dare to break it up at home," our gallant old chief used to say, "he was determined to destroy it before the enemy;" so that poor ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... quarreled—with him upon the Continent. Returning home, he got a seat in Parliament, the entree at court, and various lucrative sinecures through his father's influence. He was an assiduous courtier, a keen and spiteful observer, a busy gossip and retailer of social tattle. His feminine turn of mind made him a capital letter-writer; and his correspondence, particularly with Sir Horace Mann, English ambassador at Florence, is a running history of backstairs diplomacy, court intrigue, subterranean politics, and fashionable scandal during the reigns of the second and ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... help for it, old wives being what they are: authorized by the gentle parson, depending upon the report of a dame of character, the tittle-tattle spread and settled like a mist, defiling Judith to the remotest coves of Twin Islands. And Judith was vanished! I knew then, in the gray noon of that day, why the child had cried in that leafy nook of the Whisper Cove road that ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... of the kind, Tom. I'm not a good man, only an overbearing, nigger-driving old indigo planter, who likes to have his own way in everything. Now then, old lady, out with it. I like to hear what the fools tattle about me; and besides, I want Tom here to know what sort of a character I have ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... "Tittle-tattle: how prettily it begins! My tailleuse!—a fiddlestick! Come, sheer off, Ginevra. I really don't ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... France to bring the bridegroom a caudle in the middle of the night on his wedding-night]— if matters had not gone well with him, to give me such a sign, and leave the rest to me. Now he had had his ears so battered, and his mind so prepossessed with the eternal tattle of this business, that when he came to't, he did really find himself tied with the trouble of his imagination, and, accordingly, at the time appointed, gave me the sign. Whereupon, I whispered him in the ear, that he should rise, under pretence of putting us out of the room, and after ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Certainly some of our dramatic critics are men of culture and courage, able to appreciate new ideas. The difficulty is more with the newspapers than their representatives. For a sad aspect of the present state of affairs lies in the fact that the desire to obtain tittle-tattle and gossip concerning the players often outweighs the desire to obtain sincere, intelligent criticism, and the result is obvious. There is ten times more "copy" published about the persons and personal affairs of the author of a play ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... in his study, eagerly expecting a reply, but Cardan took no notice of the attack. Then one day some tale-bearer, moved either by the spirit of tittle-tattle or the love of mischief, brought to Julius Caesar the news that Jerome Cardan had sunk under his tremendous battery of abuse, and was dead. It is but bare charity to assume that Scaliger was touched by some stings of regret ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... school, Harriet. I dare say Miss Nash would envy you such an opportunity as this of being married. Even this conquest would appear valuable in her eyes. As to any thing superior for you, I suppose she is quite in the dark. The attentions of a certain person can hardly be among the tittle-tattle of Highbury yet. Hitherto I fancy you and I are the only people to whom his looks and manners ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... and thoughts to stifle; he went on reading scrupulously, lingering over matters in which he had no interest, striving to occupy his mind and drive the bitter memories and his fears away from him. Never in his life before had he read the society tattle in the newspapers. However, dragging along the columns, he found a paragraph on which he dwelt for a long time. It stated that Miss Marston of Fifth Avenue had returned by motor from a house-party in the Catskills, ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... scribble such jingles as I am ashamed to read, because I must write something. . . ." Paul Vanderhoffen shrugged, and continued, in tones more animated: "There will be no talk of any grand-duke. Instead, there will be columns of denunciation and tittle-tattle in every newspaper—quite as if you, a baronet's daughter, had run away with a footman. And you will very often think wistfully of Lord Brudenel's fine house when your only title is—well, Princess ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... have been Eliza who did it," replied the boy; "but I am no tattle-tale, uncle. Besides, I would have said nothing on Panoria's account. ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... fingers were still limp over mine, signifying unmistakably that there was no willingness to buy, I hastened to withdraw my hand, and, retying my little package, restored it to its place of security. After I had adjusted my waistband, again we spoke some tittle-tattle of the hour before I arose and, with a ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... sitting. Apparently supper was being prepared by some half-dozen young people, each of whom thought he or she was being imposed upon by the others. "Hand me that knife." "Git it yourself." "I'll tell maw how you air wolfing down the potatoes as fast as I can fry 'em." "Go on, tattle-tale." This was the repartee, mingled with the hiss of frying meat, the grinding of coffee, the thumping sound made by bread being hastily mixed in a wooden bowl standing on a wooden table. The babel grew in volume. ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... looked very sharply at her husband. "Oh! she's to be in town, is she?" said Mr. Furnival, after a moment's consideration. He was angry with Lady Mason at the moment for having put him into this position. Why had she told her son that she was to be up in London, thus producing conversation and tittle-tattle which made deceit on his part absolutely necessary? Lady Mason's business in London was of a nature which would not bear much open talking. She herself, in her earnest letter summoning Mr. Furnival up from Birmingham, had besought him that her visit to his chambers might not be made matter ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... be assured. A praiseworthy indignation is at work within you, complaining now as to destiny, now on the subject of police agents. You keep going here and there to induce people as far as possible to formulate their accusations. This stupid kind of tittle-tattle is hateful to you, and you are anxious to put a stop to it as soon as possible. Am I right? Have I laid finger on the sentiments which actuate you? But you are not satisfied by turning your own brain, you want to do, or rather ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... the tattle of Aubrey the antiquary, publishing in 1680, an opinion concerning Shakspere's education reached him. It came thus; there had been an actor in Shakspere's company, one Phillips, who, dying in 1605, left to Shakspere the usual thirty-shilling piece of gold; and the same "to ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... wife both declared that they minded what the bailiff said, and never let a word escape from them about the old man's suspicions; but rumour is a sad spreader of news, and the result of some bit of tittle-tattle turns up in places least expected, ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... countenance be the same vacant face of folly which I had hailed so often under circumstances of gaiety; which I had never seen without a smile, or recognised but as the usher of mirth; that looked out so formally flat in Foppington, so frothily pert in Tattle, so impotently busy in Backbite; so blankly divested of all meaning, or resolutely expressive of none, in Acres, in Fribble, and a thousand agreeable impertinences? Was this the face—full of thought and carefulness—that ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... we are going to make a match of it. Then, again," 'Zekiel continued, "Huldy says she's bound to have it out with the one that started the stories. There's no use mincing matters between us, because you know as well as I do who is at the bottom of all this tittle-tattle. Since I refused to join hands with him to try and drive you out of town, he has talked about me almost as bad as he has about you. 'So,' says Huldy to me, 'you know he is the only teacher of music in Eastborough. ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... said till the last moment; then the license was procured, a few friends were hastily notified, and the ceremony was performed, all within a few hours, on November 4, 1842. A courtship marked by so many singularities was inevitably prolific of gossip; and by all this tittle-tattle, in which it is absolutely impossible to separate probably a little truth from much fiction, the bride suffered more than the groom. Among other things it was asserted that Lincoln at last came to the altar most ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... interested in it. Yes; once started, it would sweep through drawing-rooms and clubs like fire. With what glee would the world's coarse tongue make its reprisals upon brilliant success! Town-talk the lovely Miss Heth would be, spotted all over with that horrid tattle from which she (and Hugo) had ever so shuddered ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... influences him. You report to headquarters. Never mind what anybody else thinks of you. Your business is to please Christ, and the less you trouble yourselves about pleasing men the more you will succeed in doing it. Be deaf to the tittle tattle of your fellow soldiers in the ranks. It is your Commander's smile that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... of any long duration.] to tease and half put you out of temper. Indulge me once more in hoping it will not do so at present; for I believe I am more prone to this habit than ever. What can I say to my brother? Shall I tattle to him the scandal of the village, were I mistress of it? Shall I describe to him the fashion of a new cap; or the charms of a dress that has lately travelled from Persia to Paris, from Paris to London, and from London to Rose-Bank? Or shall I recount the hopes and fears of ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... comparatively few ladies contribute to the obituary reflections, "for the simple reason," says a simple man, "that he went but little into female society. He who could write so eloquently about women never seemed to know what to say to them. Ordinary tittle-tattle from them disappointed him. I should say that to him there was so much of the divine in women that he was depressed when they hid their wings." This view is supported by Clubman, who notes that Tommy would never join in the somewhat free ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... preposterous to suppose that without force they would obey any big boy who might choose to order them. It was some time before this scheme became known to Ernest Bracebridge and his friends. As he never listened to the tales and tittle-tattle of the school—indeed, he found that the current stories were generally absurd exaggerations of the truth—he might have remained some time longer ignorant, had not Bouldon come to him one afternoon, after school, in a state of great indignation, saying that Blackall had called him up and ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... Arcana that will be very useful for you to know, but which you must, with the utmost care, conceal and never seem to know. Women, then, are only children of a larger growth; they have an entertaining tattle, and sometimes wit; but for solid reasoning, good sense, I never knew in my life one that had it, or who reasoned or acted consequentially for four-and-twenty hours together. Some little passion or humor always breaks upon their best resolutions. Their beauty neglected ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... with clothes—that was nearly all the "plenishing" of this hermitage. It was never likely to be discovered, except by the smoke, when the inmate lit a fire. The local shepherd knew it, of course, but Allen had bought his silence, not that there were many neighbours for the shepherd to tattle with. ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... thereto is not difficult surely. Be not too wise nor too scatter-brained, Not too conceited nor too restrained, Be not too haughty nor yet too meek, Too tattle-tongued or too loth to speak, Neither too hard nor yet too weak. If too wise you appear, folk too much will claim of you, If too foolish, they still will be making fresh game of you, If too conceited, vexatious they'll ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... Sixes.' The story was well known at the time, though, of course, out of respect to the feelings of the two noble families, every attempt was made to hush it up; and a full account of all the circumstances connected with it will be found in the third volume of Lord Tattle's Recollections of the Prince Regent and his Friends. The ghost, then, was naturally very anxious to show that he had not lost his influence over the Stiltons, with whom, indeed, he was distantly connected, his own first cousin having been ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... icy gray eyes, and returned brief answers to his musical commonplaces. Coronado did not see how he could humbug him, and concluded not to try it. The attempt might excite suspicion; the major might say, "How is this your business?" So, after a little unimportant tattle, Coronado made his best bow to the old fellow, and hurried off to oversee ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... was a spy from Saint Omer's, and that his real name was O'Bourke. Lord Rockingham behaved like a man of sense and honour, sent for Burke, and repeated to him what he had heard. Burke warmly denounced the truthlessness of the Duke's tattle. He insisted that the reports which his chief had heard would probably, even unknown to himself, create in his mind such suspicions as would stand in the way of a thorough confidence. No earthly ...
— Burke • John Morley
... surrounded it, and raked it with enfilading wit and satire; and Peters, whose methods of existence were a mystery, a young man of fifty, who had done nothing and who knew every one by his first name, the club postman, who carried the tittle-tattle, the bon mots and the news of the day, who drew up a petition a week and pursued the house ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... daughter!" continued the Wazir, "Unless thou turn from this matter I will do by thee what that trader did to his wife." But she answered him with much decision, "I will never desist, O my father, nor shall this tale change my purpose. Leave such talk and tattle. I will not listen to thy words and, if thou deny me, I will marry myself to him despite the nose of thee. And first I will go up to the King myself and alone and I will say to him:—I prayed my father to wive me with thee, but he refused being resolved ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... you see, was always most graciously kind and charming whenever they met. But that was just her natural self. She was charming and gracious to everyone—even to Charles Pixley, the while he swamped her with inane tittle-tattle, and higher proof of grace than that it would be difficult ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... the cork in; but few ever think of keeping the cork of their own conversation in. See a Frenchman—how light and buoyant he trips into a drawing-room, fresh from the satisfactory scrutiny of the looking-glass, with all the news, and jokes, and tittle-tattle of the day, in full bloom! How sparkling and radiant he is, with something smart and pleasant to say to every one! How thoroughly happy and easy he is; and what a contrast to phlegmatic John Bull, who stands with his great red fists doubled, looking as if he thought whoever spoke to him would be ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... restless night, dreaming of the debtor's jail and a starving family. On Hari Babu's return, next morning, he related the purport of his conversation with Ramanath. His host said: "You should not attach too much importance to such tittle-tattle. Ramanath has had a quarrel with his brother about family matters, and he is not at all averse to doing him a bad turn." Sham Babu was not satisfied with this ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... accustomed to the amusements and stir of Paris, used to sit all day long, day after day, and for the most part of the time alone, though she received tiresome and inane visits which led her to think her loneliness preferable to empty tittle-tattle. If she permitted herself the slightest gleam of intelligence, it gave rise to interminable comment and embittered her condition. She occupied herself a great deal with her children, not so much from taste as for the sake ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... As if anything could be concealed from the idle curiosity of country gossips; from the slanderous and ever-watchful enemies who are incessantly on the lookout for some new bit of tittle-tattle, good or bad, which they improve upon, and eagerly ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... interests of the Conservative party. He was not the most influential of the Polterham clerics, for women in general rather feared than liked him; a sincere ascetic, he moved but awkwardly in the regions of tea and tattle, and had an uncivil habit of speaking what he thought the truth without regard to time, place, or person. Some of his sermons had given offence, with the result that several ladies betook themselves to gentler preachers. But the awe inspired by his religious enthusiasm ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... shall cultivate your acquaintance. Now as to Shekels, whenever you want to know about any private thing that is going on at this post or in White Cloud's camp or Thunder-Bird's, he can tell you; and if you make friends with him he'll be glad to, for he is a born gossip, and picks up all the tittle-tattle. Being the whole Seventh Cavalry's reptile, he doesn't belong to anybody in particular, and hasn't any military duties; so he comes and goes as he pleases, and is popular with all the house cats and other authentic sources of private information. He understands all the languages, and ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... his oath, and the extreme sufferings of this internal passion. But as she still kept her love in the recesses of her heart, she died when Lavalliere fell before Metz, as has been elsewhere related by Messire Bourdeilles de Brantome in his tittle-tattle. ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... like an honest woman, show thyself to thy worshippers, who are worn with regretting thee all these thirteen years. Hush the noise of battle, be a true Lysimacha to us.[361] Put an end to this tittle-tattle, to this idle babble, that set us defying one another. Cause the Greeks once more to taste the pleasant beverage of friendship and temper all hearts with the gentle feeling of forgiveness. Make excellent commodities flow to our markets, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... preface to an edition of 1891, 'he poured out to those he loved his whole self indiscriminately, generosity and fretfulness, ardour and despondency, boyish petulance side by side with manful good sense, the tattle of suburban parlours with the speculations of a spirit unsurpassed for native gift and insight.' Every now and then the level of his easygoing discourse is lit up by a flash of wit, and occasionally by a jet of brilliant fancies among which some of his finest poetry may be traced ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... Story of 'Attaf ibn Isma'il al-Schoqlani of Damascus and the schaikh Abou-'l-Baraka al-Nawwam, 6; Story told by the Christian Merchant (relating to Qamar al-Zaman during the reign of Sultan Mahmoud, and different from the story known under this title); Story of Ahmad al- Saghir (the tattle) and Schams al-Qosour; Story of the Young Man of Baghdad and the Bathman (Baigneur, attendant in a Hammam), 7; 153; 21; Story of Khaledjan ibn Mahani; Story of Nour al-Din 'All and of Dounya (or Dinar) of Damascus, 133, Story of Prince Qamar-Khan and of the schaikh 'Ate, of the Sultan Mahmoud-Khan, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... It would be a grievous thing If, for the fear of idle talk about us, We had to sacrifice our friends. No, no; Even if we could bring ourselves to do it, Think you that everyone would then be silenced? Against backbiting there is no defence So let us try to live in innocence, To silly tattle pay no heed at all, And leave the gossips free ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... the most unpopular girl in North Bend. The girls disliked her as real girls always dislike a sneak and tattle-tale. Amanda was always spying around, minding everybody's business but her own, and making ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... listened in silence to the conversation. What a conversation! At any other time, under any other circumstances, Ferdinand would have been teased and wearied with its commonplace current: all the dull detail of county tattle, in which the squire's lady was a proficient, and with which Miss Temple was too highly bred not to appear to sympathise; and yet the conversation, to Ferdinand, appeared quite charming. Every accent of Henrietta's sounded ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... sublime to the ludicrous, I would advise future travellers not to follow our example in respect of a woman-boatman. The good woman, who acted as guide to the Falls could not hold her tongue for a single moment, and her loud inharmonious tittle-tattle put us in ill-humour for the rest of the day. When you make a long journey to see such a phenomenon as this, you should see it alone, or, at least, in perfect quiet. We had come opportunely for the ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... the great road from Cordova to Madrid he left word for Concepcion Vara to follow, should the spirit of travel be still upon him, knowing that at these places where travellers were ever passing, the tittle-tattle of the road was on the tongue of every ostler and stable help. And truly enough there followed one who made careful inquiries as to the movements of the Englishman, and heard his messages with a grim smile. But ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... in particular, only that it is impossible to show one's nose in this hateful town without knocking against some vulgarity, stupidity, tittle-tattle, or some horrible injustice. One ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... book as the first and second, is scarcely less strange to me. For, in the first place, the identification of the personages in the framework of the Heptameron depends upon the merest and, as it seems to me, the idlest conjecture; and, in the second, the interest of the actual tittle-tattle, whether it could be fathered on A or B or not, is the least part of the interest of the book. Indeed, the stories altogether are, as I think, far less interesting ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... knowledge employed in ministering to the wretched love of gossip—retailing paltry anecdotes in dispraise of others, intermingled with outflowings of self-praise—and creeping into the secret chambers of great men's houses to filch out materials for tattle—at seeing great powers wasting and debasing themselves in such an ignoble task—above all, at seeing that the person who thus wasted and debased them was a scholar, and a philosopher whose talents he admired, ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... evidently her ambition to be considered a woman of the world, and to be acquainted with all the leaders of fashionable society; and, in fact, if one listened to her conversation for an hour one could learn all the gossip of the day. Though she was unable to interest herself in this tittle-tattle, Marguerite was pretending to listen to it with profound attention when the drawing-room door suddenly opened and Evariste appeared with an impudent smile on his face. "Madame Landoire, the milliner, is here, and desires to speak with ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... the universe. A grasshopper remained a week with St. Francis during the absence of the Virgin Mary, and pittered on his head. He grew so companionable with a nightingale, that when a nest of swallows began to babble, he hushed them by desiring them not to tittle-tattle of their sister, the nightingale. Attacked by a wolf, with only the sign-manual of the cross, he held a long dialogue with his rabid assailant, till the wolf, meek as a lap-dog, stretched his paws in the hands of the saint, followed him through towns, and became ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... world of letters, in the same way, triturates the most disgusting things to get them swallowed without raising your gorge. There is an incessant manipulation of neighbours' gossip and play-box tittle-tattle, all wrapped up in perfidious good taste to ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... when all interest had died out of the controversy. If it be true that the work was written at Spa, without books at hand, it is certainly a miraculous effort of memory. It does no credit to Salmasius. He had raked together, after the example of Scioppius against Scaliger, all the tittle-tattle which the English exiles had to retail about Milton and his antecedents. Bramhall, who bore Milton a special grudge, was the channel of some of this scandal, and Bramhall's source was possibly Chappell, ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... gently, "please don't say any more. I know all that your life has been, and why. You did quite right. What is a little trouble to me, a little passing inconvenience, the tattle of a few idle tongues, compared with what Jack's life is to you? I see now that I ought to have opposed it strongly instead of letting it take its course. You were right—you always have been right, John. There is a sort ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... People must some time or other tire of conning over such quantities of flimzy stuff. I wonder at their present patience and perseverance, and can never sufficiently admire the contexture of that brain which can weave with unwearied toil such immense webs of idle tittle-tattle, and gossipping nonsense. Clarissa perhaps ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... Conversation must and ought to grow out of materials on which men can agree, not upon subjects which try the passions. But this good lady wants to see men chatting together upon the Pelagian heresy— to hear, in the afternoon, the theological rumours of the day—and to glean polemical tittle-tattle at a tea-table rout. All the disciples of this school uniformly fall into the same mistake. They are perpetually calling upon their votaries for religious thoughts and religious conversation in every thing; inviting them to ride, walk, row, wrestle, and ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... was a capital scholar and, though strict, was always scrupulously just. Above all, he was not a sneak. If he reported them, he reported them openly, but brought no accusation against them behind their back; while Mr. Purfleet was always carrying tittle tattle to the headmaster. There was, therefore, little gratitude towards him for holding his tongue as to the eel; for the boys guessed the real reason of his silence, and put it down to dread of ridicule, and not ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... troop of girls In their loosen'd curls, See, the concourse whirls Onward wild with glee; List their tuneful tattle, Hear their pretty prattle, How they'll love to battle With the ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... pain and excite us; for sin must continue, and suffering must continue, and we can do no more than we have done. Example—a good example! We have only each to set one, and say nothing. Talk, talk, talk; I will listen no more to such tattle! It is mere pride of intellect, which is put to shame by the first gentle innocent girl who comes, strong in purity and faith, and simply bids us all look up! Did not our heart burn within us? Was not the worst among us and the most worldly moved to repent?" He looked across at Menteith, but suddenly ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... mob—it was nothing less—could hardly be reduced to order. All those people had seen one another the day before, and they were all going to see one another the day to follow, yet talk they would and must and did. Engagements, marriages, acceptances, excuses, compliments, tittle-tattle, personalities—a rolling flood of chatter and gossip. Mrs. Pence took her people for what they were, apparently, and kept up with the best of them herself. Now and then her husband would do a little feeble ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... frequently called attention in my report to the fact that the prolonged war hysteria over here has created an atmosphere of gossip and tittle-tattle, which at other times would have been regarded as impossible. For instance, even quite responsible people believe that I have obtained for cash certain compromising letters of Wilson's in order to be able to get a hold over ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... curiosity," replied Jack, enjoying the consternation of his companions. "It is, as you say, a long while since. But it's singular how that sort of thing is remembered. One would think people had something else to do than talk of one's private affairs for ever. For my part, I despise such tattle. But there are persons in the neighborhood who still say it was an awkward business. Amongst others, I've heard that this very Luke Bradley talks in pretty plain ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the seat of Mr. Wright, was visited as well as Weston Hall; the life of the lonely pair was fast becoming social. The Rev. John Newton was absent in the flesh, but he was present in the spirit, thanks to the tattle of Olney. To show that he was, he addressed to Mrs. Unwin a letter of remonstrance on the serious change which had taken place in the habits of his spiritual children. It was answered by her companion, who in repelling the censure ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... reflected that it will all be printed in the newspapers, for men to snigger at in their cafes, for women to cackle over in their boudoirs? Have you reflected that you will make yourself a nine-days' wonder, a subject for tittle-tattle with all the gossip-mongers of Europe? Are ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... hundred and sixty makes very little difference. You can't live on it,—you can't ruin Eleanor's prospects for ever. In point of fact, you can't resign; the bishop wouldn't accept it; the whole thing is settled. What I now want to do is to prevent any inconvenient tittle-tattle,—any more newspaper articles." ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... spirit which hungers for mischief-making without punishment, in vogue? The fellows who like to borrow money but not pay it back, are surely such as these students here after they are graduated. What did these fellows come to this middle school for, anyway? They enter a school, tattle round lies, play silly jokes behind some one by sneaking and cheating and get wrongly swell-headed when they finish the school thinking they have received an education. A common ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... probity of the honest Doctor enabled him to despise this sort of tittle-tattle, though the secret knowledge of its existence could not be agreeable to him. He went his usual rounds with his usual perseverance, and waited with patience until time should throw light on the subject and history of his lodger. It was now the fourth week after her confinement, and ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... would be important and well-to-do, her triumph would be sealed, open and celebrated.... She would moreover be free. That was the strong hidden growth that had heaved up her flat little plans of a mere victory in tattle—if she married she would be her own mistress, free for ever of Joanna's tyranny. She could do what she liked with Alce—she would be able to go where she liked, know whom she liked, wear what she liked; whereas with Joanna all these things were ruthlessly decreed. Of course ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... making the most commonplace remarks look brilliant, from the ease and liveliness with which they were spoken, and the tact with which they were made pleasant to the listener: while I wondered at myself, for enjoying from her lips the flippant, sparkling tattle, which had hitherto made young women to me objects of unspeakable dread, to be escaped by crossing the street, hiding behind doors, and rushing blindly into ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... likeness with internal unlikeness; not rhyming, but strongly alliterative, and in every case with a change of the interior vowel from a weak into a strong, generally from i into a or o; as 'shilly-shally', 'mingle-mangle', 'tittle-tattle', 'prittle-prattle', 'riff-raff', 'see-saw', 'slip-slop'. No one who is not quite out of love with the homelier yet more vigorous portions of the language, but will acknowledge the life and strength which there is often ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... order has never been produced, and it finds no place in the latest and fullest collection of French official despatches, which, however, contains some that fully exonerate Bernadotte.[111] Unfortunately for Bernadotte's fame, the tattle of memoir writers is more attractive and gains more currency than the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... (these ornaments are made in Venice, in profusion; she had her pocket full of them, and I used to find them on the floor of my apartment), and kept an eye on the maiden in the house. It was not for me of course to make the domestics tattle, and I never said a word ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... prologue is interrupted by the entrance of four gentlewomen, "lady-like attired," representative of Mirth, Tattle, Expectation, and Censure or Curiosity. The last-named is charged with coming to the theatre "to see who wears the new suit to-day; whose clothes are best formed, whatever the part be; which actor has the best leg and foot; what king plays without cuffs, and his queen without ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... "Adams, I promise you, that if you will bring me proof that Mr. Hunt has ever been guilty of a dishonest or dishonourable act, I will give him up instantly, and will have no more to do with him: but, till you do this, I beg you will refrain from all your little tittle-tattle about his wife, of whom you appear ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... even then it was rather in the shape of wondering conjectures whether he would dare to make love to her, than in any pretended knowledge of their relations to each other, that the public tongue exercised its village-prerogative of tattle. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... A few more years, When we are dead and famous—eh? Will they record our pipes and beers, And if we smoked cigars or clay? Or will the world cry "Quantum suff" To tattle such as "Keats ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... man moved about, doing all that should be done, the bushmen only helping where they dared; then shouldering a pick and shovel, he went to the tattle rise beyond the slip rails, and set doggedly to work at a little distance from two lonely graves already there. Doggedly he worked on; but, as he worked, gradually his burden lost its overwhelming weight, for the greater part of it had somehow skipped on to the ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... give suspicion, and create Jealousies 'mongst the rest of your Admirers; then it must be whisper'd to the Countess of Intelligence, to carry about Town, or the Tea-Tables will drop for want of Tittle-tattle; and afterwards your Ladyship's absolutely denying it, confirms ev'ry body in the truth of it: As for Cloaths, Equipage and Furniture, they are soon got ready, and if your Ladiship dislikes living i'the City, we'll take ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... stories about your late squire, and about his dear son, your present squire, and some of these stories probably to the discredit of one or both. Now I have given you the true account of all, so that you can safely put down all slanderers' gossip and tittle-tattle on the subject. And further, I have gone thus particularly into my story, because it will show you what rare jewels there were in your late squire's character, and how brightly those shone out when the black crust of evil habits had fallen away from them. ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... words." But in his daily intercourse with this heterogeneous population, he was not always aware that clerical intimacy should never descend to familiarity. He overheard rude speeches and gossipping tattle; and was made acquainted with some domestic bickerings and feuds; and kindly, though not always discretely, endeavored to check them; but his mediation was repelled as uncalled-for interference.[1] To use the words of his ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... a chaos of all contradiction; Religious—deistic—now loyal and warm; Then a dagger-drawn democrat hot for reform: This moment a fop, that, sententious as Titus; Democritus now, and anon Heraclitus; Now laughing and pleased, like a child with a rattle; Then vex'd to the soul with impertinent tattle; Now moody and sad, now unthinking and gay, To all points of the compass I ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... Wordsworth,' he goes on to say, 'did much towards calming the confusing whirl necessarily incident to sudden mutations. I wept over them tears of happiness and gratitude.' He accordingly left the army, with its rough barrack-life and coarse mess-room tittle- tattle, and returned to Linden House, full of this new-born enthusiasm for culture. A severe illness, in which, to use his own words, he was 'broken like a vessel of clay,' prostrated him for a time. His delicately strung ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... bothering me," said Squire Murphy. "It's out I'm going now. I have enough on my own shoulders without attending to the tittle-tattle of women." ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... have received particular marks of distinction from the Emperor Alexander; but what may have been the particular tittle tattle which led up to the caricature we shall next describe, we are now unable to fathom. That it grew out of the event which we have attempted to describe will be sufficiently obvious. It is entitled, A Russian ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... it. Before all this occurred I should have said of myself that nothing of the kind could put me out. I don't think there is a man in the world cares less what people say of him than I do. I am as indifferent to ordinary tittle-tattle as a rhinoceros. But, by George,—when it comes to stealing ten thousand pounds' worth of diamonds, and the delicate attentions of all the metropolitan police, one begins to feel that one is vulnerable. When I get up in the morning, I half feel that I shall be locked up before night, and I can ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... Mickey Daly are no doubt great," says Dysart, mildly, "yet I think Bridget must by this time be aware that she wasn't sent out by your mother to tattle to him, but to take you and your sister to play with Bertie. Here, Tommy," decisively, "get off your aunt's lap ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... usually the keenness and eagerness of the tattle of small villages, preserves at times, upon certain serious subjects, a silence which might be believed to be generous. Whether it is from ignorance or from respect, at all events it has little to say. There are vague ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... very curious fellow. He picked up some scraps of learning while he served young Lord Trifte at the university. But what he most excels in is pimping. No one knows his talents better than I, for I was valet-de-chambre to Squire Tattle an intimate companion of Shuffle's lord. He got him self into a scrape by pawning some of his lordship's clothes on which account he was turned away; but, as he was acquainted with some particular circumstances of my lord's conduct, he did not care to exasperate ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street I hear the drummers makin' riot, An' I set thinkin' o' the feet Thet follered once an' now are quiet,— White feet ez snowdrops innercent, Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, Whose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... equivocations and contradictions thought is blunted, and the sinews of the intellect are unstrung. The public, bewitched by talent and captivated by success, is deluged with writings which have the same effect as the talk of a frivolous man, or the showy tattle of a woman of the world. They give an agreeable exercise to the mind, without ever allowing it to form either a precise idea or ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... Mister Pinch,' retorted Jonas, thrusting his face so close to Tom's that Tom was obliged to retreat a step. 'I advise you to keep your own counsel, and to avoid title-tattle, and not to cut in where you're not wanted. I've heard something of you, my friend, and your meek ways; and I recommend you to forget 'em till I am married to one of Pecksniff's gals, and not to curry favour among my relations, but to leave the course clear. You know, when curs won't leave the course ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... to me; she is a nice little girl, only she does love to tattle things, and that makes trouble sometimes. She's very gentle, and just as pretty as a picture, with her long light curls and pretty, big blue eyes; but my! isn't she obstinate! She doesn't fly into rages, like Betty, but she keeps persisting and persisting ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... making it a club of the lowest species. Here, in advance, we contemplate the ways of the future revolutionary inquisition. They welcome burlesque denunciations; enter into petty police investigations; weigh the tittle-tattle of porters and the gossip of servant-girls; devote an all-night session to the secrets of a drunkard.[2218] They enter on their official report and without any disapproval, the petition of M. Hure, "living ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... four flights of stairs—to do something very terrible in fact—something deadly and horrible and final that would put an end forever to this melancholy haunt of Tuesday stews and ghoulish boarders with the torturing tattle of their everlasting tongues. I shocked the Little Woman daily with words and phrases, used heretofore only under very trying conditions, that had insensibly become the decorations of ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... you she is infamous? Your innocency should be ignorant of such trumpery tittle-tattle. And one can be civil without consorting, as ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... wanted, and he kept her going by his evident interest. After she tired of providing more realistic details of the night's uproar, Caleb deliberately tapped another vintage of tittle-tattle in hope of further ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Tattle got up and looked at his friend with an expression of mingled apology and triumph on his big, red face. "I 'm sorry I had to do it. Nick. You-all know that. But I had to, and you know that, too. We can't do another thing now till to-morrow, and you 're sober again. I don't see," he went on grumblingly, ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... their hearts and wills, and the love that they had to their sins: yet then they shall be convinced, that God was far from infusing anything into their souls, that should in the least hinder, weaken, obstruct, or let them in seeking the welfare of their souls. Now men will tattle and prattle at a mad rate, about election and reprobation, and conclude, that because all are not elected, therefore God is to blame that any are damned: but then they will see, that they are not damned because they ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... nearly a week after the tattle of Newbury, all the members of Parliament still remaining in London assembled in St. Margaret's Church, and signed the Solemn League and Covenant; but even at this moment of enthusiasm the parties were not true to each other. The Scotch expected that Presbyterianism ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... for a short time longer. Many said, when she followed, that she ate herself to death; but I mention the rumour in order to deny it, for I am sure it was grief that killed her. It is a pity some dogs will repeat everything they hear, without considering the mischief such tittle-tattle may occasion—although it has been asserted by many that in this case the false intelligence came from the Cats, who had no great affection for poor Lady Bull. Whatever the cause, she died, and with her the employment of poor Nip and ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... to be easy to thee; they relate much more wondrous miracles of thine." Then turning to the courtiers Herod said, "He does not stir. Ah, I see well that what has made him so notorious was only idle tittle-tattle. He knows nothing ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... the future to be thick-skinned, and when Gashmu's tongue is whispering, and whenever some busybody like Sanballat repeats Gashmu's words to us, let us act as Nehemiah did. Let us take no notice of the repeated tittle-tattle. ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... all comers who chose to make trial of the new power of nature. M. D'Eslon, a physician of great reputation, became a convert; and from that time, Animal Magnetism, or, as some called it, Mesmerism, became the fashion in Paris. The women were quite enthusiastic about it, and their admiring tattle wafted its fame through every grade of society. Mesmer was the rage; and high and low, rich and poor, credulous and unbelieving, all hastened to convince themselves of the power of this mighty magician, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... what he was going to tattle was that I thought the old gent might feel hurt, 'cause none of them was named after him, so I told him Polly's middle name ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... government would only cease with the termination of his public career was so general, that the moment he was installed in office, the whigs smiled on him; political conciliation became the slang of the day, and the fusion of parties the babble of clubs and the tattle ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Feng heard these words, her whole face beamed with smiles, and she unconsciously halted her steps, while she proceeded to ask: "How is it that, both your mother and yourself, tattle about me behind my back, without ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... lies and tattle In dispatches and on wire, But 'twas Mac who saved the battle When the word came to retire. "I'll no do it"—he cried, ready For what peril lay in store, With his ranks like steel and steady— "And I'll see them hanged before! O, we maun jist fight!" And bolder Slewed his front the Dervish ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... easy stroke; because of the heavy dew the clear sparkle of the stars seemed to fall on me cold and wetting. There was a sense of lurking gruesome horror somewhere in my mind, and it was mingled with clear and grotesque images. Schomberg's gastronomic tittle-tattle was responsible for these; and I half hoped I should never see Falk again. But the first thing my anchor-watchman told me was that the captain of the tug was on board. He had sent his boat away and was now waiting for me ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... of some, that are now alive. God hath promised his glorious teaching, and his warming, strengthening, sanctifying, and comforting presence to such as do so, Matt, xviii. 20. Church members find time enough to visit one another, and meet together to tell some idle stories, to tattle about other men's matters, which do not concern them, and perhaps to backbite some of their brethren, and to prejudice the minds of persons against their teachers and their work, if they do not please them. And will not such meetings have ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... for three years he lay hidden in the house of a lady in Paris, a friend of the Princesse de Tallemant. A sportsman and a lover of the open air is not likely to have loitered so long with Armida in a secret chamber. There is tattle about him in D'Argenson's "Memoirs;" a disguised shabby prince appears now and then, none knows whence, and vanishes. In the papers of Charles Stuart, Comte d'Albanie, one finds a trace of a visit paid by the prince to Ireland. There is evidence, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... downfall of the protege of the palace, of a ministeralist, an incorrigible royalist who on the 13th Vendemiaire had insulted the cause of liberty by fighting against the glorious French Revolution,—such a downfall excited the applause and tittle-tattle of the Bourse. Pillerault wished to learn and study the state of public opinion. He found in one of the most animated groups du Tillet, Gobenheim-Keller, Nucingen, old Guillaume, and his son-in-law Joseph Lebas, Claparon, Gigonnet, Mongenod, Camusot, Gobseck, Adolphe Keller, Palma, Chiffreville, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... is, moreover, the country of gossip and scandal. From five to seven o'clock you can see people wandering about in quest of nasty stories about others which they retail from group to group. As you remarked to me, my dear aunt, tittle-tattle is the mark of petty individuals and petty minds. It is also the consolation of women who are no longer loved or sought after. It is enough for me to observe the women who are fondest of gossiping to be persuaded that you are ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... Harrington's seat, where was assembled a party in honour of Madame Guiccioli and her second husband, the Marquis de Boissy, and tells me that he attached himself to ladies, not to gentlemen, nor ever joined in general tattle. Like many other famous men, he passed through a period of shyness, which yielded to women's tactfulness only. From the first they appreciated him; "if you were as gentle as your friend Kinglake," writes Mrs. Norton reproachfully to Hayward ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... "Mebbe I seem sort of vinegary to you, child, but I'm not a bad sort. My brother Ed has got somethin' to say in this community an' I'm likely to control a few votes this fall myself. I figger if you came home with me to-day we c'ud manage to git you placed with us. There's been tattle about you ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... reckoned otherwise: he prepared a little account book with the Lord, in which he set down on one side, as it were, "Debit:" he must let me pass, and on the other "Credit:" then I will never tell any more lies, never tittle-tattle any more, always go to church, let the girls alone, and break myself ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... though the courtiers were of opinion he would have liked to absent himself from her evening parties more frequently than was particularly agreeable to the Princess Anna and her imperial parents. This was partly explained by the private tattle of the court, which averred, that the Princess Anna Comnena had been more beautiful when she was less learned; and that, though still a fine woman, she had somewhat lost the charms of her person as she became enriched ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... she had come from a lonely part of Scotland, and wasn't used to living in a great city, and that crowds rather frightened her,' observed a girl who looked rather ashamed of having listened to this tittle-tattle. ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... "I am going to leave you, and if you will allow me, madame, I will occasionally come here and tell you all the outside tittle-tattle." ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... full of Truth, Repent for the manifold Sins of their Youth: The rest with their Tattle my Harmony spoil; And Bur—ton, An—sey, K—gston, and B—le [8] Their Minds entertain With thoughts so profane 'Tis a mercy to find that at Church they contain; Ev'n Hen—ham's [9] Shapes their weak Fancies intice, And rather than me they will ogle ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... It is too bad of me to be telling you all this tittle-tattle," said Lisbeth, with an ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... Convent. No place is less fit for you. You have a high spirit, and high religious sentiments: both would be mortified and shocked in a nunnery. Think you that convent-walls can shut out temptation? I know them better than you: they are strongholds of vanity, folly, tittle-tattle, and all the meanest vices of your sex. Nay, I forbid you to think of it: show me now ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... she's too orrystocratic to mind wulgar people's tattle, And looks upon some people ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... grew up in great loneliness. He worshipped his mother, and she was fond of him. But she was dignified and reticent, and pathos, like tattle, was disgusting to her. She was afraid of intimacy, in case it led to confidences and tears, and so all her life she held her son at a little distance. Her kindness and unselfishness knew no limits, ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... Rules of Reason himself, and knew how to look on the Foibles of others, with an Eye of Indulgence. Every one was surpriz'd to find, that notwithstanding he had such a Fund of Wit, he never insulted; nay, never so much as rallied any of his Companions, for that Tittle Tattle, which was so vague and empty, so noisy and confus'd; for those rash Reflections, those illiterate Conclusions, and those insipid Jokes; and, in short, for that Flow of unmeaning Words, which was call'd polite Conversation in Babylon. ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... dining at a large dinner of clergymen, and a story, as true as the sausage story above given, was told regarding me, by one of those reverend divines, in whose frock sits some anile chatter-boxes, as any man who knows this world knows. They take the privilege of their gown. They cabal, and tattle, and hiss, and cackle comminations under their breath. I say the old women of the other sex are not more talkative or more mischievous than some of these. "Such a man ought not to be spoken to," says Gobemouche, narrating the story—and such a story! "And I ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... splinters, we may know which way it fell. This one chip contains inscribed on it the whole history of the wood-chopper and of the world. On this scrap of paper, which held his sugar or salt, perchance, or was the wadding of his gun, sitting on a log in the forest, with what interest we read the tattle of cities, of those larger huts, empty and to let, like this, in High Streets and Broadways. The eaves are dripping on the south side of this simple roof, while the titmouse lisps in the pine, and the genial warmth of the sun ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... Brentford's[20] will, where she bequeathed a score of farts amongst her friends. Forsooth, because the plague reigns in most places in this latter end of summer,[21] Summer must come in sick; he must call his officers to account, yield his throne to Autumn, make Winter his executor, with tittle-tattle Tom-boy. God give you good night in Watling Street; I care not what you say now, for I play no more than you hear; and some of that you heard too (by your leave) was extempore. He were as good have let me had the best part, for I'll be revenged on him to the uttermost, in this person of Will ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... correspondence with former admirers; cultivate no suspicions; in a moment of bad temper do not rush out and tell the neighbors; do not let any of those gad-abouts of society unload in your house their baggage of gab and tittle-tattle; do not stand on your rights; learn how to apologize; do not be so proud, or so stubborn, or so devilish that you will not make up. Remember that the worst domestic misfortunes and most scandalous divorce cases started from little infelicities. The whole piled-up train of ten rail cars telescoped ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... what philologists say about philology: it is all mere tittle-tattle—for example, Jahn's[6] "The Meaning and Place of the Study of Antiquity in Germany." There is no feeling for what should be protected and defended: thus speak people who have not even thought of the possibility that any ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... To begin with, the mere fact that she was a foreigner, and that neither she nor any of her immediate followers could speak English, told heavily against the lady in the estimation of the countryside. Then, hardly anyone ever saw her (which in itself was an offence, and the cause of still further tattle). She was very little, folk said who professed to be well informed, and her face and hands showed strangely brown against the white robes that she habitually wore; her eyes were like stars; her temper ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... the guests". Johnson explains this word 'to entertain with compliments and amorous tattle,' and quotes the following illustration from Swift, 'You are 'coquetting' a maid of honour, my lord looking on to see how the gamesters play, and I railing ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... that French woman don't so much matter, 'cause most folks wouldn't understand even if she tried to tattle, and I guess she don't. But not to Mis' Hemphill—she's a most su'prisin' gossip, ye know—nor to the Murfrees, nor Flahertys, nor nobody. These is fam'ly affairs, Lucy, and they ain't for public ears. I'm going down to Lon's ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... acquaintance of the Princess Dashkoff, and she, as certainly, in 1769-1771, when on a visit to England, gave out that d'Eon was received by Elizabeth in a manner more appropriate to a woman than a man. It is not easy to ascertain precisely what the tattle of the Princess really amounted to, but d'Eon represents it so as to corroborate his tale about his residence at Elizabeth's Court, as lectrice, in 1755. The evidence is of no value, being a biassed third-hand report ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... night. We conjectured, notwithstanding what we had heard, that we should find Raymond in St. Stephen's: thither we sped. The chamber was full—but there was no Protector; and there was an austere discontent manifest on the countenances of the leaders, and a whispering and busy tattle among the underlings, not less ominous. We hastened to the palace of the Protectorate. We found Raymond in his dining room with six others: the bottle was being pushed about merrily, and had made considerable inroads on the understanding ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... great loyalty, the sublime resignation to his oath, and the extreme sufferings of this internal passion. But as she still kept her love in the recesses of her heart, she died when Lavalliere fell before Metz, as has been elsewhere related by Messire Bourdeilles de Brantome in his tittle-tattle. ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... mere fact that she was a foreigner, and that neither she nor any of her immediate followers could speak English, told heavily against the lady in the estimation of the countryside. Then, hardly anyone ever saw her (which in itself was an offence, and the cause of still further tattle). She was very little, folk said who professed to be well informed, and her face and hands showed strangely brown against the white robes that she habitually wore; her eyes were like stars; her temper quick to blaze up without due cause. Backstairs gossip, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... acrid zeal to the interests of the Conservative party. He was not the most influential of the Polterham clerics, for women in general rather feared than liked him; a sincere ascetic, he moved but awkwardly in the regions of tea and tattle, and had an uncivil habit of speaking what he thought the truth without regard to time, place, or person. Some of his sermons had given offence, with the result that several ladies betook themselves to ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... identification of the personages in the framework of the Heptameron depends upon the merest and, as it seems to me, the idlest conjecture; and, in the second, the interest of the actual tittle-tattle, whether it could be fathered on A or B or not, is the least part of the interest of the book. Indeed, the stories altogether are, as I think, far less interesting than ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... she complain to her royal consort of the insulting calumnies of Madame de Verneuil; he either affected to disbelieve that she had been guilty of such absurd assumption, or reproached Marie with a want of self-respect in listening to the idle tattle of eavesdroppers and sycophants; alleging that her foreign followers, spoiled by her indulgence, and encouraged by her credulity, were the scourge of his Court; and that she would do well to dismiss them before they accomplished her own unhappiness. A hint to this effect ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... no part of the plan of this work to repeat the gossip and tattle of private society, but occurrences happened to Lord Byron which engaged both, and some of them cannot well be passed over unnoticed. One of these took place during the spring of this year, and having been ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... repeated prayers prevail. His milk-white pinions to the god he plied; The busy daw flew with him, side by side, And by a thousand teasing questions drew The important secret from him as they flew. 20 The daw gave honest counsel, though despised, And, tedious in her tattle, thus advised: 'Stay, silly bird, the ill-natured task refuse, Nor be the bearer of unwelcome news. Be warned by my example: you discern What now I am, and what I was shall learn. My foolish honesty was all my crime; Then ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... without any connexion or consequence! Shall I tell you one more idle story, and will you just recollect that you once concerned yourself enough about the heroine of it, to excuse my repeating such a piece of tittle-tattle? This heroine is Lady Harrington, the hero is— not entirely of royal blood; at least I have never heard that Lodomie, the toothdrawer, was in any manner descended from the house of Bourbon. Don't be alarmed: this plebeian operator is not ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... the Shepherd calls black, Lockhart dark brown; her features not regular, but her complexion, figure, and so forth 'unusually attractive.' Not very much is said about her in any of the authentic accounts, and traditional tittle-tattle may be neglected. She does not seem to have been extremely wise, and was entirely unliterary; but neither of these defects is a causa redhibitionis in marriage; and she was certainly a faithful and affectionate wife. At any rate, Scott made no complaints, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... they sometimes gathered about them. Why shouldn't she walk and talk with him? As if she couldn't protect herself! As if she didn't know a great deal more of the world than her stupid sisters did, who never read a book or thought of anything beyond the tittle-tattle of ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hear his frenzied tattle? It was sorrow for his son Who is slain in brutish battle, ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... that his marriage "was not, perhaps, in consequence of the attachment of romance, but I have no cause to repent it. If I have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with the multiform curse of boarding-school affectation; and I have got the handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and the kindest heart in the country." ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... written at Fort Snelling on February 11, 1842, pictures the usual winter life. "We of the garrison are as usual at this season rather dull, stale & unprofitable—small parties for Tea are a good deal the fashion, & tattle is used as formerly. Indian Ball plays are coming in season. One comes off today in which stacks of property are to be invested. The Sioux have been hunting about Rum River this winter and have killed great numbers of Dear—Our winter has been mild, ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... perhaps, shall be above scandal. She shall despise the idle whisper, and the common tattle of her sex; her soul shall be raised above the ignorant and the frivolous; she shall have a relish for higher conversation, and a taste for higher society; but where is she to find, or how is she ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... materials on which men can agree, not upon subjects which try the passions. But this good lady wants to see men chatting together upon the Pelagian heresy— to hear, in the afternoon, the theological rumours of the day—and to glean polemical tittle-tattle at a tea-table rout. All the disciples of this school uniformly fall into the same mistake. They are perpetually calling upon their votaries for religious thoughts and religious conversation in every thing; inviting them to ride, walk, row, wrestle, and dine out religiously;—forgetting that ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... catechism are added as accomplishments; and then at eighteen—the age when a boy really begins his training—their education is completed, they are told; and they are turned into the world to devote their time and talents to trimmings, novels, and idle tittle-tattle. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... of a scold, Mistress may'ress complained that the pottage was cold; 'And all 'long of your fiddle-faddle,' quoth she. 'Why, what then, Goody Two-Shoes, what if it be? Hold you, if you can, your tittle-tattle,' quoth he. I was glad she was snapped thus, and guessed by th' discourse, The may'r, not the gray mare, was the better horse, And yet for all that, there is reason to fear, She submitted but out of respect to his year: However 'twas well she had now so much grace, Though not ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... People began to go to their house, the newly-bought palace in Via San Sebastiano. People came to the opera-box where Charles Edward lay stretched, dozing or snoring, his bottle of Cyprus wine by his side, on his sofa. It is easy to read through the lines of Sir Horace Mann's pages of social tittle-tattle, that Florence, frivolous and unintellectual and corrupt though it was, and, perhaps, almost in proportion to its frivolity, emptiness, and corruption, felt a strange sort of interest, experienced a vague, ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... you deserved, either, Doctor von Kammacher," he said in his broad dialect, rich in vowel sounds, and recounted a number of cases, of which Frederick had not known, in which good had been repaid by evil tattle. "The people around Plassenberg are not fit for men like you and me. Men like you and me belong in America, the ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... country fashion, but to press lips with city gentlefolks. Never hope to kiss my lovely mouth, nay, not even in a dream. How thou dost look, what chatter is thine, how countrified thy tricks are, how delicate thy talk, how easy thy tattle! And then thy beard—so soft! thy elegant hair! Why, thy lips are like some sick man's, thy hands are black, and thou art of evil savour. Away with thee, lest thy presence soil me!' These taunts she mouthed, and thrice spat in the breast of her gown, and stared at me all over from head to ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... had very little to do!" Flora returned petulantly, the colour deepening on her face and brow, "to tattle about what she ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... various towns on the great road from Cordova to Madrid he left word for Concepcion Vara to follow, should the spirit of travel be still upon him, knowing that at these places where travellers were ever passing, the tittle-tattle of the road was on the tongue of every ostler and stable help. And truly enough there followed one who made careful inquiries as to the movements of the Englishman, and heard his messages with a grim smile. But ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... though strict, was always scrupulously just. Above all, he was not a sneak. If he reported them, he reported them openly, but brought no accusation against them behind their back; while Mr. Purfleet was always carrying tittle tattle to the headmaster. There was, therefore, little gratitude towards him for holding his tongue as to the eel; for the boys guessed the real reason of his silence, and put it down to dread of ridicule, and not to any kindliness ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... the same time more farcical. By 'more human' it is not meant that the characters are truer to life than those in The Way of the World, but that they are truer to average life, and therefore more easily recognisable by the average spectator. Tattle, for instance, is so gross a fool, that any fool in the pit could see his folly; Witwoud might deceive all but the elect. No familiarity—direct or indirect—with a particular mode of life and speech is necessary to the appreciation of Love for Love. ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... woman was right; through my stupidity she would now feel curious; the tittle-tattle of the neighbourhood would of course take up the affair and discuss it; and all through my thoughtlessness! It was an unpardonable blunder. One ought never to be more careful than in addressing questions to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... black man, had attended witch sacraments, where they renounced their Christian vows, and had ridden through the air on broomsticks. Such were the confessions of poor women who had never in their lives done any evil except possibly to tattle. ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... old, and a time came when he sat more and more by the fire in winter, sipping his glass of grog and reading the country papers, or listening to his wife's acrid tattle. Mrs. Rooney hated with an extreme hatred all the good, easy-going neighbours who were so soft with their children, and encouraged dancing, and race-going and card-playing—the amusements of the Irish middle classes. She had a bitter ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... blunted, and the sinews of the intellect are unstrung. The public, bewitched by talent and captivated by success, is deluged with writings which have the same effect as the talk of a frivolous man, or the showy tattle of a woman of the world. They give an agreeable exercise to the mind, without ever allowing it to form either a precise ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... stubbornly bent on going down to the garden as soon as ever she heard Madame Deberle's voice there. All Rosalie's tittle-tattle regarding the next-door house she drank in greedily, ever restless and inquisitive concerning its inmates and their doings; and she would even slip out of the bedroom to keep watch from the kitchen window. In the garden, ensconced in a small arm-chair ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... said to the saucer. 'I fear I've been here all the afternoon.' 'Spare excuses,' said the saucer; 'you have sat on me before, sir.' 'Oh, I'll stir him up directly,' said the spoon. 'Stop your clatter! Stop your clatter!' cried the bread-and-butter platter 'Tittle-tattle!' sneered the tea-pot, with a shrug; 'Now, the most important question is my chronic indigestion.' 'Ah, you've taken too much tannin,' jeered the jug. 'Hey, hey, hey!' sang the silver-plated tray, 'It's time you had your faces washed. I've ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... attention from the contemplation of holy things only to pain and excite us; for sin must continue, and suffering must continue, and we can do no more than we have done. Example—a good example! We have only each to set one, and say nothing. Talk, talk, talk; I will listen no more to such tattle! It is mere pride of intellect, which is put to shame by the first gentle innocent girl who comes, strong in purity and faith, and simply bids us all look up! Did not our heart burn within us? Was not the worst among us and the most worldly moved to repent?" He looked across ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... opportunity as this of being married. Even this conquest would appear valuable in her eyes. As to any thing superior for you, I suppose she is quite in the dark. The attentions of a certain person can hardly be among the tittle-tattle of Highbury yet. Hitherto I fancy you and I are the only people to whom his looks and manners have ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... knowing which of us she ought to make the most of, or which deserved most pity. Not that she had forgiven yet the rivals to her love—Tom Faggus, I mean, and Lorna—but that she was beginning to think a tattle better of them now, and a vast deal ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... all she could do now in order to be admired. And there is nothing like audacity for making people laugh nowadays. Lady Kirkbank was a close student of all those delightful books of French memoirs which bring the tittle-tattle of the Regency and the scandals of Louis the Fifteenth's reign so vividly before us: and she had unconsciously founded her manners and her ways of thinking and talking upon that easy-going but elegant age. She did not want to seem better than women who ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... questions of life, and wait serenely and vigilantly for a response, one, two, ten years, a lifetime, wellnigh an eternity, if need be, not falling into despondencies and despairing skepticisms because the universe forbears to babble and tattle its secret ere yet he half or a thousandth part guesses how deep and holy that secret is, but quietly, heroically asking and waiting. And toward this posture of asking the profound and vital words assist us by being heard,—which is their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Jonas, thrusting his face so close to Tom's that Tom was obliged to retreat a step. 'I advise you to keep your own counsel, and to avoid title-tattle, and not to cut in where you're not wanted. I've heard something of you, my friend, and your meek ways; and I recommend you to forget 'em till I am married to one of Pecksniff's gals, and not to curry ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... outspokenness, my disregard for their social laws, my impatience of all constraint. Among my books and my drugs in my lonely den at Mansie I could let the great drove of the human race pass onwards with their politics and inventions and tittle-tattle, and I remained behind stagnant and happy. Not stagnant either, for I was working in my own little groove, and making progress. I have reason to believe that Dalton's atomic theory is founded upon error, and I know that ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Mr. Mickey Daly are no doubt great," says Dysart, mildly, "yet I think Bridget must by this time be aware that she wasn't sent out by your mother to tattle to him, but to take you and your sister to play with Bertie. Here, Tommy," decisively, "get off your ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... talked of fashions and of plays, But more of players and their private lives; Related tittle-tattle of their words and ways, Their lightning change of husbands and of wives. And there was chat of garments and their price, Of operas and balls and all ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... names, Captain—confess, confess," continued the priest, raising his hand in a bantering gesture; "you come to me with some gossip of the bed-chamber, your ears have been open in the market-place, and this tittle-tattle ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... The major had just joined us—a creature of Lord Marlborough, put in much to the dislike of the other officers, and to be a spy upon us, as it was said. I know not whether the truth was so, nor who took the tattle of our mess to head quarters, but Webb's regiment, as its colonel, was known to be in the commander-in-chief's black books: "And if he did not dare to break it up at home," our gallant old chief used to say, "he was determined to destroy it before the enemy;" so that poor Major Proudfoot ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... bar, or stage; If half-bred surgeons, whom men doctors call, And lawyers, who were never bred at all, Those mighty letter'd monsters of the earth, Our pity move, or exercise our mirth; Or if in tittle-tattle, toothpick way, Our rambling thoughts with easy freedom stray,— 110 A gainer still thy friend himself must find, His grief suspended, and improved his mind. Whilst peaceful slumbers bless the homely bed Where virtue, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... comes it that us Steynholme folk know everythink about other folk's business? Sometimes we know more'n they knows themselves. You've not walked a yard wi' Doris that the women's tittle-tattle hasn't made it ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... respect for his wife's erudition, though the courtiers were of opinion he would have liked to absent himself from her evening parties more frequently than was particularly agreeable to the Princess Anna and her imperial parents. This was partly explained by the private tattle of the court, which averred, that the Princess Anna Comnena had been more beautiful when she was less learned; and that, though still a fine woman, she had somewhat lost the charms of her person as she became enriched ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... said. "He's . . . you know the kind of boy who is forever tagging along—when you want to go anywhere, I mean? Who is forever disagreeing with you, and wanting things done in a different way? Who winds up by tattling? A tattle-tale I think perhaps ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... and comfortably. And he did live there very comfortably and contentedly, though not quite to the satisfaction of his neighbours, who resented the intrusion amongst them of a man who minded his own business, who would not listen to any tittle-tattle, who was absolutely indifferent as to what opinion, good or ill, they might have of him, and who took long and solitary walks among the hills on ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... hated to disobey," added Paula, with tears in her eyes, "and at the same time, I don't like to be a 'tattle-tale.' Won't you please ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... was being prepared by some half-dozen young people, each of whom thought he or she was being imposed upon by the others. "Hand me that knife." "Git it yourself." "I'll tell maw how you air wolfing down the potatoes as fast as I can fry 'em." "Go on, tattle-tale." This was the repartee, mingled with the hiss of frying meat, the grinding of coffee, the thumping sound made by bread being hastily mixed in a wooden bowl standing on a wooden table. The babel grew in volume. Dogs added to ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... and slaying down four flights of stairs—to do something very terrible in fact—something deadly and horrible and final that would put an end forever to this melancholy haunt of Tuesday stews and ghoulish boarders with the torturing tattle of their everlasting tongues. I shocked the Little Woman daily with words and phrases, used heretofore only under very trying conditions, that had insensibly become the decorations of ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... box with clothes—that was nearly all the "plenishing" of this hermitage. It was never likely to be discovered, except by the smoke, when the inmate lit a fire. The local shepherd knew it, of course, but Allen had bought his silence, not that there were many neighbours for the shepherd to tattle with. ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... no worries," declared the man over his shoulder, a contemptuous sneer curling his lips. "I confess my own wrong-doing but I do not tattle the sins of other people. Your father will never be the wiser about you so far as I am concerned. Whatever you want him to know you will have to tell ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... of his companions. "It is, as you say, a long while since. But it's singular how that sort of thing is remembered. One would think people had something else to do than talk of one's private affairs for ever. For my part, I despise such tattle. But there are persons in the neighborhood who still say it was an awkward business. Amongst others, I've heard that this very Luke Bradley talks in pretty plain ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... worst colors. Switzerland was at that time overrun by the English, whom the recently-signed Peace had attracted to the Continent. The laureate took the lead of those who tried to make the good but bigoted people of Geneva believe in all the tittle-tattle against Byron which was passed about in London, and actually attempted to make a scandal of his very presence in their town. When he passed in the streets they stopped to stare at him insolently, putting up their glasses to their eyes. They followed him in his rides; they reported that he was seducing ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... platform to get rid of his tremors. "He'll not tell," he said aloud, the uproar of wheels drowning his voice. "He's too good a Rosemonter to tattle. At first I thought he'd got on ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... consequence (Batchelor thinks) of some petty intrigue in some quarter. This O'Reilly, who has gradually insinuated himself into the King's confidence, and by constantly attending him at Windsor, and bringing him all the gossip and tittle-tattle of the neighbourhood (being on the alert to pick up and retail all he can for the King's amusement), has made himself necessary, and is not now to be shaken off, to the great annoyance of Knighton, who cannot bear ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... report of her receptions got noised abroad; and envious tongues were soon exaggerating the extravagance and luxury in which she lived, descending to such childish tittle-tattle as that she lit her fires with bank-notes, that the number of her guests was so great and so distinguished that, for lack of seats, the marshals of France had to sit upon the floor; gossip and babble that were ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... great minds, where the air is quick with thought, knowledge stands still, taste is corrupted like stagnant water, and passion dwindles, frittered away upon the infinitely small objects which it strives to exalt. Herein lies the secret of the avarice and tittle-tattle that poison provincial life. The contagion of narrow-mindedness and meanness affects the noblest natures; and in such ways as these, men born to be great, and women who would have been charming if they had fallen under the forming influence of greater minds, are balked ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... as a clergyman, he was solemn and fervent; and his preaching evinced "how forcible are right words." But in his daily intercourse with this heterogeneous population, he was not always aware that clerical intimacy should never descend to familiarity. He overheard rude speeches and gossipping tattle; and was made acquainted with some domestic bickerings and feuds; and kindly, though not always discretely, endeavored to check them; but his mediation was repelled as uncalled-for interference.[1] To use the ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... mind not being quite ripe for such proceedings as took place twelve years afterwards. She still continued to brave public sentiment, lived on in the same free and easy style, paying no regard to the scowls of the sanctimonious or the foolish tittle-tattle of the superstitious. She kept her house of entertainment, shovel-board, and other appurtenances. Sometimes, however, she resented the calumnies circulated about her being a witch, in a manner that made it to be felt that ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... have the best of reasons for believing that I complain of him justly. He's been long enough here to visit a certain family, fond of tittle-tattle, that ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... schaikh Abou-'l-Baraka al-Nawwam, 6; Story told by the Christian Merchant (relating to Qamar al-Zaman during the reign of Sultan Mahmoud, and different from the story known under this title); Story of Ahmad al- Saghir (the tattle) and Schams al-Qosour; Story of the Young Man of Baghdad and the Bathman (Baigneur, attendant in a Hammam), 7; 153; 21; Story of Khaledjan ibn Mahani; Story of Nour al-Din 'All and of Dounya (or Dinar) of Damascus, 133, Story of Prince Qamar-Khan and of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... circulate all sorts of foolish stories about your late squire, and about his dear son, your present squire, and some of these stories probably to the discredit of one or both. Now I have given you the true account of all, so that you can safely put down all slanderers' gossip and tittle-tattle on the subject. And further, I have gone thus particularly into my story, because it will show you what rare jewels there were in your late squire's character, and how brightly those shone out when the black crust of evil habits had fallen away from them. And, lastly, I have wished to ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... accept. At the same time, the accounts given by these writers occur, one in the frank intimacy of family correspondence, the other in the official reports of a diplomatic representative to his chief. They are both unquestionably disinterested, and are very much more valuable than the later tittle-tattle of Peter Martyr and Ramusio, which has plainly filtered through what Mr Beazley would ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... still limp over mine, signifying unmistakably that there was no willingness to buy, I hastened to withdraw my hand, and, retying my little package, restored it to its place of security. After I had adjusted my waistband, again we spoke some tittle-tattle of the hour before I arose and, with a courteous ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... on an ottoman, by the side of his hostess, and listened in silence to the conversation. What a conversation! At any other time, under any other circumstances, Ferdinand would have been teased and wearied with its commonplace current: all the dull detail of county tattle, in which the squire's lady was a proficient, and with which Miss Temple was too highly bred not to appear to sympathise; and yet the conversation, to Ferdinand, appeared quite charming. Every accent of Henrietta's sounded like wit; and when ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... go off the run in irons; he left it honourably for another run which he took up, and stocked with cattle bearing no brand but his own. Evil tongues might tattle, but no man could prove that Burridge ever broke ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... sturdy ways. I can but wish them well, even at the price of terrible disenchantment. Instead of rustic hostelries at St. Enimie, gigantic hotels after the manner of Swiss tourist barracks; the solitude of the Causses broken by enthusiastic tittle-tattle; tourist-laden flotillas bearing the ensign of Cook or Gaze skimming the glassy waters of the majestically ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Austen must have been wise, too, for had she been like most other good women she would have wanted her protege admired, and have rebelled in tears at the thought of placing him in a position where society would serve him up for tittle-tattle. Small men can be laughed down, but great ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... La Cibot's tittle-tattle. Schmucke, Mme. Cibot, and Dr. Poulain meant all humanity to him now, when his sickroom became the universe. If invalid's thoughts, as a rule, never travel beyond in the little space over which his eyes ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... feminine atmosphere which pervades the drinking of the beverage everywhere, a leaf which can combine so much deserves, at least, a little human hearing for its long list of virtues; for its peaceful walks, talks, tales, tattle, frills, and fancies which go to make up this tribute to "the cup ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... as true as the sausage story above given, was told regarding me, by one of those reverend divines, in whose frock sits some anile chatter-boxes, as any man who knows this world knows. They take the privilege of their gown. They cabal, and tattle, and hiss, and cackle comminations under their breath. I say the old women of the other sex are not more talkative or more mischievous than some of these. "Such a man ought not to be spoken to," says Gobemouche, narrating the story—and such a story! "And I ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... believed the affection and the goodwill of those about her to be the first essentials to happiness, felt no weakness, no lack of self-reliance, now that she was in some measure pitted against the many. She resented the conduct of the passengers in making her the subject of their tittle-tattle with a bitterness she had never felt before. In overlooking her actions and assuming a right to influence her in a purely personal matter, these people were guilty of an insolence to which she would not submit. She thought she discovered a certain antagonism ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... was a downright sort of person. After her fashion she was kind to Ermie, but it never entered into her head to flatter her. She was a gossiping sort of body, and she wanted the child to recount to her all the tittle-tattle she knew about Glendower. Ermengarde had neither the power nor the inclination to describe the goings on at Glendower graphically. The stout lady soon got tired of her short answers, and began to survey her from head to foot in a critical and ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... enemy. It was strange that a thing so impalpable as gossip should influence so strong a man as John Gourlay to his ruin. But it did. The bodies of Barbie became not only the chorus to Gourlay's tragedy, buzzing it abroad and discussing his downfall; they became also, merely by their maddening tattle, a villain of the piece and an active cause of the catastrophe. Their gossip seemed to materialize into a single entity, a something propelling, that spurred Gourlay on to the schemes that ruined him. He was not to be done, he said; he would show the dogs what he thought of ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... purity, dignity, and reserve which characterize the narratives of the first and third Evangelists. "The distinction between history and legend," says Dr. Fairbairn, "could not be better marked than by the reserve of the Canonical and the vulgar tattle of ...
— The Virgin-Birth of Our Lord - A paper read (in substance) before the confraternity of the Holy - Trinity at Cambridge • B. W. Randolph
... on your part, Friar Ange," replied the philosopher, "and as you're afraid of the devil, don't offend him too much and do not excite him against you by inconsiderate tittle-tattle. You know that this old Adversary, this powerful Contradictor, has kept, in the spiritual world, such a power, that God Almighty Himself reckons with him. I'll say more, God, who was in fear of him, made him ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... had brought a very good man to unhappiness, how much harder was it for Sir Duncan Yordas, who had committed no offense at all! No Yordas had ever cared a tittle for tattle—to use their own expression—but deeper mischief than tattle must ensue, unless great luck prevented it. The brother knew well that his sister inherited much of the reckless self-will which had made the name almost a ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... believed that Cecil would abide tittle-tattle,' he thought; 'but that woman Agnes ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... wouldn't listen to me. "Don't come to me with your troubles, you nasty little whiffet," she cried. "You started the whole thing when you sneaked in and ruined Jack's pigeon eggs. Now that you've got the worst of it you come here with your tattle-tales. You ought to be ashamed to show your face—" She had become so threatening that I turned and ran. My whole case had gone to pieces on her sharp tongue like a toy balloon pricked with a pin. I had been blowing it ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... persevered for a stricken hour in such a torrent of unnecessary tattle, as determined Peveril, at all events, to endeavour to procure a separate lodging. Having repeated his evening prayers in Latin, as formerly (for the old gentleman was a Catholic, which was the sole cause of his falling under suspicion), he set off on a new score, as they were undressing, and ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... that, however this gentleman secretly despised his commanding officer, he was too honourable to encourage the tattle of his inferiors. In this no doubt he showed his breeding; for it was his boast that he was sprung from one of the most ancient families in Wales, where the gentry, he was wont to say, are of older lineage than those of any ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... he went on reading scrupulously, lingering over matters in which he had no interest, striving to occupy his mind and drive the bitter memories and his fears away from him. Never in his life before had he read the society tattle in the newspapers. However, dragging along the columns, he found a paragraph on which he dwelt for a long time. It stated that Miss Marston of Fifth Avenue had returned by motor from a house-party in the Catskills, accompanied by Miss Lana Vanadistine, who ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... who had been kind to them and had protected them, but it was preposterous to suppose that without force they would obey any big boy who might choose to order them. It was some time before this scheme became known to Ernest Bracebridge and his friends. As he never listened to the tales and tittle-tattle of the school—indeed, he found that the current stories were generally absurd exaggerations of the truth—he might have remained some time longer ignorant, had not Bouldon come to him one afternoon, after school, in a state of great indignation, saying that ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... undeserved punishment she was worthy—more than worthy; and for the Colonials, among whom alone that scandal would count against her, he had a habit of contempt. He could, and would in his humour, force Boston to court her salons and hold its tongue from all but secret tattle. The thought, too, of Lady Caroline at this moment crossing the high seas to be met with the news ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... looked down and drew a figure on the ice with the tip of her skate. Her confusion could not escape him, and he caught himself up instantly. "I mean, you've always been so sensible, you know. You haven't cared for tattle or nonsense. That's what's made us like you so. A fellow hasn't had to be on the continual jump for fear your hat wasn't on straight or your hair was coming down. You're as plucky as a boy, and it's like having another jolly, good fellow about when you're around. You're not going ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... new power of nature. M. D'Eslon, a physician of great reputation, became a convert; and from that time, animal magnetism, or, as some called it, mesmerism, became the fashion in Paris. The women were quite enthusiastic about it, and their admiring tattle wafted its fame through every grade of society. Mesmer was the rage; and high and low, rich and poor, credulous and unbelieving, all hastened to convince themselves of the power of this mighty magician, who made such magnificent promises. Mesmer, who knew as well as any man living the influence ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... rule a contented and amiable society. The regular hours, the wholesome fatigue which the rule entailed, must have tended to keep the inmates in health and good-humour. But probably there was much tittle-tattle; and a disagreeable, jealous, or scheming inmate must have been able to stir up a good deal of strife in a society living at such close quarters. One thinks loosely that it must have resembled the life of a college at the University, but that is an entire ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... there's nae doubt o' that, though there are mony idle clashes [* Tittle-tattle], about the way and manner, for it's an auld story now, and everybody tells it, as we were doing, their ain way by the ingleside. But lost the bairn was in his fifth year, as your honour says, Colonel; and the news being rashly tell'd to the leddy, then great with child, cost her her life that ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... I do. Of course, I wasn't going to tattle about what my father and mother said, but when I heard you talk as you did, and seem so cut up and unjust, ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... I, "written in Spanish, or to be more accurate, Catalan; and," I added rather maliciously, "I'm afraid you won't get much of a fortune out of Quaritch for it, as there seems to be nothing here except the merest tittle-tattle." ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... passed; but a busybody carried this, with other tattle, to Mr Swift, who questioned me also. I looked to see him mighty angry; and first his brows frowned, and then he laughed, as if a ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... woman don't so much matter, 'cause most folks wouldn't understand even if she tried to tattle, and I guess she don't. But not to Mis' Hemphill—she's a most su'prisin' gossip, ye know—nor to the Murfrees, nor Flahertys, nor nobody. These is fam'ly affairs, Lucy, and they ain't for public ears. I'm going ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... contradictions thought is blunted, and the sinews of the intellect are unstrung. The public, bewitched by talent and captivated by success, is deluged with writings which have the same effect as the talk of a frivolous man, or the showy tattle of a woman of the world. They give an agreeable exercise to the mind, without ever allowing it to form either a precise idea or a ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... the Convent. No place is less fit for you. You have a high spirit, and high religious sentiments: both would be mortified and shocked in a nunnery. Think you that convent-walls can shut out temptation? I know them better than you: they are strongholds of vanity, folly, tittle-tattle, and all the meanest vices of your sex. Nay, I forbid you to think of it: show me now your faith ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... saucer. 'I fear I've been here all the afternoon.' 'Spare excuses,' said the saucer; 'you have sat on me before, sir.' 'Oh, I'll stir him up directly,' said the spoon. 'Stop your clatter! Stop your clatter!' cried the bread-and-butter platter 'Tittle-tattle!' sneered the tea-pot, with a shrug; 'Now, the most important question is my chronic indigestion.' 'Ah, you've taken too much tannin,' jeered the jug. 'Hey, hey, hey!' sang the silver-plated tray, 'It's time you had your faces washed. I've come to ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... IT IN THE PAPERS,' replied the dear little fashionable rogue of seven years old. She knew already her importance, and how all the world of England, how all the would-be-genteel people, how all the silver-fork worshippers, how all the tattle-mongers, how all the grocers' ladies, the tailors' ladies, the attorneys' and merchants' ladies, and the people living at Clapham and Brunswick Square,—who have no more chance of consorting with a Snobky than my beloved reader has of dining with the Emperor of China—yet watched the movements ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... been, I believe; Although the world has such an evil tongue That—but my chaster ear will not receive An echo of a syllable that 's wrong: In fact, there 's nothing makes me so much grieve, As that abominable tittle-tattle, Which is the ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... foolish Idle prate, or to leave thee for twenty such as she is. No, never think I have so little Wit, I gave her such a Reprimand as soon as she had spoke, that cool'd her Courage in an instant: for I let her know her Tittle-Tattle would be all in vain; and that I was resolv'd I would be absolute. Shall I be ty'd by such a one as she? No, Love, I scorn it. And for her Tongue, let me alone to tame it: Winter is coming on and then I'll make her keep her breath to warm her hands; for she shall have from me no other ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... against him. The Major had just joined us—a creature of Lord Marlborough, put in much to the dislike of the other officers, and to be a spy upon us, as it was said. I know not whether the truth was so, nor who took the tattle of our mess to headquarters, but Webb's regiment, as its Colonel, was known to be in the Commander-in-Chief's black books: "And if he did not dare to break it up at home," our gallant old chief used to say, "he was determined to destroy ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... that there was no willingness to buy, I hastened to withdraw my hand, and, retying my little package, restored it to its place of security. After I had adjusted my waistband, again we spoke some tittle-tattle of the hour before I arose and, with a courteous salaam, took ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... overcome at his own injustice, he would go to the other extreme; and, roundly blaming himself, would slap some sullen artificer on the back and tell him that it was all a joke. His men, amongst themselves, called him a wild cracked devil, and it was the tattle of the ship that he drank hard in secret. They knew something was wrong with him, and fastened on the likeliest cause. Others said out boldly that the chief engineer was ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... to become an enemy—helped him to liven up the walls of his study with the famous blue calico that had adorned his room over the printing office. Certain busybodies spread the report that he was furnishing his new apartment extravagantly; and Laure, to whose ear the tattle had come, ventured to allude to it in a letter reproaching him with remissness in writing home and to her. The accusation of extravagance, which later he really merited, was at this moment a trifle ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... Baronet not been afflicted he would have disapproved of this constant companionship, for he would, no doubt, have overheard in society certain tittle-tattle which, though utterly unfounded, would not have been exactly pleasant. But as he was blind and never went into society, he remained in blissful ignorance, wrapped up in his mysterious "business" ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... ministering to the wretched love of gossip—retailing paltry anecdotes in dispraise of others, intermingled with outflowings of self-praise—and creeping into the secret chambers of great men's houses to filch out materials for tattle—at seeing great powers wasting and debasing themselves in such an ignoble task—above all, at seeing that the person who thus wasted and debased them was a scholar, and a philosopher whose talents he admired, with whom he had ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... could have believed that Cecil would abide tittle-tattle,' he thought; 'but that woman Agnes ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... make me tired, standing up for a tattle-tale! Anyhow, you go on home. I'm goin' to hang round a while and see if Miss Lee ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... never lets a lover go, or a friend either," replied De Pean. "I have proof to convince Le Gardeur that Angelique has not jilted him. Emeric reports women's tattle, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... 'Zekiel continued, "Huldy says she's bound to have it out with the one that started the stories. There's no use mincing matters between us, because you know as well as I do who is at the bottom of all this tittle-tattle. Since I refused to join hands with him to try and drive you out of town, he has talked about me almost as bad as he has about you. 'So,' says Huldy to me, 'you know he is the only teacher of music in Eastborough. I want to take music lessons very much, ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... upon the world's broad threshold; wide The din of tattle and of slaughter rose; He saw God stand upon the weaker side, That sank in seeming loss before its foes: Many there were who made great haste and sold Unto the cunning enemy their swords, He scorned ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... de Serizy by his tattle has made the Marquise my mortal foe, I gained his good offices, and those of the Public Prosecutor, and Comte Octave de Bauvan; for Madame de Serizy told them the danger in which I stood in consequence of their allowing the source of their information to be guessed at. The Marquis ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... way it fell. This one chip contains inscribed on it the whole history of the wood-chopper and of the world. On this scrap of paper, which held his sugar or salt perchance, or was the wadding of his gun, sitting on a log in the forest, with what interest we read the tattle of cities, of those larger huts, empty and to let, like this, ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... it is not to be denied that, if their neighbours left them nothing to guess at, three-fourths of civilized humankind, male or female, would have nothing to talk about; so we cannot too gratefully encourage that needful curiosity termed by the inconsiderate tittle-tattle or scandal, which saves the vast majority of our species from being reduced to the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wretch; thou—a neatherd? I never learned to kiss in country fashion, but to press lips with city gentlefolks. Never hope to kiss my lovely mouth, nay, not even in a dream. How thou dost look, what chatter is thine, how countrified thy tricks are, how delicate thy talk, how easy thy tattle! And then thy beard—so soft! thy elegant hair! Why, thy lips are like some sick man's, thy hands are black, and thou art of evil savour. Away with thee, lest thy presence soil me!' These taunts she mouthed, and thrice spat ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... convenience, the art of a stringer of beads (these ornaments are made in Venice, in profusion; she had her pocket full of them, and I used to find them on the floor of my apartment), and kept an eye on the maiden in the house. It was not for me of course to make the domestics tattle, and I never said a word ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... Pinch,' retorted Jonas, thrusting his face so close to Tom's that Tom was obliged to retreat a step. 'I advise you to keep your own counsel, and to avoid title-tattle, and not to cut in where you're not wanted. I've heard something of you, my friend, and your meek ways; and I recommend you to forget 'em till I am married to one of Pecksniff's gals, and not to curry favour among my relations, but to leave ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... talked of treating. You must know this is a very curious fellow. He picked up some scraps of learning while he served young Lord Trifte at the university. But what he most excels in is pimping. No one knows his talents better than I, for I was valet-de-chambre to Squire Tattle an intimate companion of Shuffle's lord. He got him self into a scrape by pawning some of his lordship's clothes on which account he was turned away; but, as he was acquainted with some particular circumstances ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... people of the republic peculiarly liable to impositions of this nature; and the mother who encourages those of her children who fetch and carry, will be certain to have her ears filled with complaints and tattle. Nevertheless, it is a fact beyond all dispute, that the commerce of the country was terribly depredated on by nearly all the European belligerents, between the commencement of the war of the French revolution and its close. ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... bring the bridegroom a candle in the middle of the night, on his wedding night) if matters had not gone well with him, to give such a sign, and leave the rest to me. Now, he had his ears so battered and his mind so prepossessed with the eternal tattle of this business, that when he came to it, he did really find himself tired with the trouble of his imagination, and accordingly, at the time appointed, gave me the sign. Whereupon I whispered him in the ear, that he should rise under pretence ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... of the world, and to be acquainted with all the leaders of fashionable society; and, in fact, if one listened to her conversation for an hour one could learn all the gossip of the day. Though she was unable to interest herself in this tittle-tattle, Marguerite was pretending to listen to it with profound attention when the drawing-room door suddenly opened and Evariste appeared with an impudent smile on his face. "Madame Landoire, the milliner, is here, and desires to speak with ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... 'd have an answer If they asked of me these questions. I know how to treat such tattle: ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... was circumscribed; though very free in her manners, she was very deficient in other respects; and hence it was she so much avoided all society of females who were better informed than herself, courting in preference the lively tittle-tattle of the other sex, who were, in turn, better pleased with the gaieties of youth and beauty than the more substantial logical witticisms of antiquated Court-dowagers. To this may be ascribed her ungovernable passion for great societies, balls, masquerades, and all kinds of public ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... sensibility is no less true of mere fancy. The Arabian Nights—futile enough in any case—would be absolutely intolerable if they contained no Oriental manners, no human passions, and no convinced epicureanism behind their miracles and their tattle. Any absolute work of art which serves no further purpose than to stimulate an emotion has about it a certain luxurious and visionary taint. We leave it with a blank mind, and a pang bubbles up from the very fountain of pleasures. Art, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Commons, recalls meeting him at Palmerston, Lord Harrington's seat, where was assembled a party in honour of Madame Guiccioli and her second husband, the Marquis de Boissy, and tells me that he attached himself to ladies, not to gentlemen, nor ever joined in general tattle. Like many other famous men, he passed through a period of shyness, which yielded to women's tactfulness only. From the first they appreciated him; "if you were as gentle as your friend Kinglake," writes Mrs. Norton reproachfully to Hayward in the sulks. ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... to happiness, felt no weakness, no lack of self-reliance, now that she was in some measure pitted against the many. She resented the conduct of the passengers in making her the subject of their tittle-tattle with a bitterness she had never felt before. In overlooking her actions and assuming a right to influence her in a purely personal matter, these people were guilty of an insolence to which she would not submit. She thought she discovered a certain antagonism amongst those with whom ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... was set aside for the business of the mart. Owners and prospective buyers met, chewed betel-nut, smoked their hookas, sipped coffee and tea, and exchanged the tattle of the hour. It was as much an amusement as a business; indeed, it was the oriental idea of a club, and much the same things were discussed. Thus, Appaji bought a beautiful girl at the last barter and Roya found a male who was a good juggler, ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... wherry (he now took care to leave for home betimes), or with his sister going about the shops. It would be but a bow in the bye-going, she passing on with equanimity and I with a maddening sense of awkwardness, that was not much bettered by the tattle of the plainstanes, where merchant lads and others made audible comment on the ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... not difficult surely. Be not too wise nor too scatter-brained, Not too conceited nor too restrained, Be not too haughty nor yet too meek, Too tattle-tongued or too loth to speak, Neither too hard nor yet too weak. If too wise you appear, folk too much will claim of you, If too foolish, they still will be making fresh game of you, If too conceited, vexatious they'll dub ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... between these "silly tales" and the restraint, purity, dignity, and reserve which characterize the narratives of the first and third Evangelists. "The distinction between history and legend," says Dr. Fairbairn, "could not be better marked than by the reserve of the Canonical and the vulgar tattle of ...
— The Virgin-Birth of Our Lord - A paper read (in substance) before the confraternity of the Holy - Trinity at Cambridge • B. W. Randolph
... an admiring circle, he betakes himself with infinite zest to the discussion of aesthetic tittle-tattle over a cup of tea and a toasted bun. "Dear fellow," his friends will say of him at such a moment, "he is so etherial; and his eyes, did you observe that far-away, rapt look in them?" They will then take pleasure in persuading one another without much difficulty, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... of the honest Doctor enabled him to despise this sort of tittle-tattle, though the secret knowledge of its existence could not be agreeable to him. He went his usual rounds with his usual perseverance, and waited with patience until time should throw light on the subject and history of his lodger. It was now the fourth week after her confinement, and the recovery of ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... side of his hostess, and listened in silence to the conversation. What a conversation! At any other time, under any other circumstances, Ferdinand would have been teased and wearied with its commonplace current: all the dull detail of county tattle, in which the squire's lady was a proficient, and with which Miss Temple was too highly bred not to appear to sympathise; and yet the conversation, to Ferdinand, appeared quite charming. Every accent of Henrietta's sounded like wit; and when she bent her head in assent to her companion's ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... a rumour against any one, his business, according to the "Book of Discipline," was not to go and preach against that person, even by way of insinuation. {216c} Mary's offence, if any existed, was not "public," and was based on mere suspicion, or on tattle. Dr. M'Crie, indeed, says that on hearing of the affair of Vassy, the Queen "immediately after gave a splendid ball to her foreign servants." Ten weeks after the Vassy affair is not "immediately"; and Knox mentions neither foreign ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... malheligo. Tarnish malheligi. Tarry malfrui. Tarry (to stay in a place) resti. Tart (pastry) torto. Tart acida. Task tasko. Taskwork tasklaboro. Tassel drappendajxo. Taste gustumi. Taste gusto. Tasty (palatable) bongusta. Tatter cxifonajxo. Tattle babilajxo, babilado. Tattoo tatui. Taunt sarkasmo. Taut strecxa. Tautology ripetado, tauxtologio. Tavern drinkejo. Taw felpreparadi. Tawdry falsluksa. Tawny dubeflava. Tax taksi. Tax takso, imposto. Tea teo. Tea canister teujo. Tea caddy teujo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... clothing. Claes, claise, clothes. Claith, cloth. Claithing, clothing. Clankie, a severe knock. Clap, the clapper of a mill. Clark, a clerk. Clark, clerkly, scholarly. Clarkit, clerked, wrote. Clarty, dirty. Clash, an idle tale; gossip. Clash, to tattle. Clatter, noise, tattle, talk, disputation, babble. Clatter, to make a noise by striking; to babble; to prattle. Claught, clutched, seized. Claughtin, clutching, grasping. Claut, a clutch, a handful. Claut, to scrape. Claver, clover. Clavers, gossip, nonsense. Claw, a scratch, a blow. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... scholar and, though strict, was always scrupulously just. Above all, he was not a sneak. If he reported them, he reported them openly, but brought no accusation against them behind their back; while Mr. Purfleet was always carrying tittle tattle to the headmaster. There was, therefore, little gratitude towards him for holding his tongue as to the eel; for the boys guessed the real reason of his silence, and put it down to dread of ridicule, and not to ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... colloquy, converse, confabulation, talk, discourse, verbal intercourse; oral communication, commerce; dialogue, duologue, trialogue. causerie, chat, chitchat; small talk, table talk, teatable talk^, town talk, village talk, idle talk; tattle, gossip, tittle-tattle; babble, babblement^; tripotage^, cackle, prittle-prattle^, cancan, on dit [Fr.]; talk of the town, talk of the village. conference, parley, interview, audience, pourparler; tete-a-tete; reception, conversazione [It]; congress &c (council) 696; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... brother Ed has got somethin' to say in this community an' I'm likely to control a few votes this fall myself. I figger if you came home with me to-day we c'ud manage to git you placed with us. There's been tattle about you ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... Princess Dashkoff, and she, as certainly, in 1769-1771, when on a visit to England, gave out that d'Eon was received by Elizabeth in a manner more appropriate to a woman than a man. It is not easy to ascertain precisely what the tattle of the Princess really amounted to, but d'Eon represents it so as to corroborate his tale about his residence at Elizabeth's Court, as lectrice, in 1755. The evidence is of no value, being a biassed third-hand report of the Russian lady's gossip. There is a mezzotint, published ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... a downright sort of person. After her fashion she was kind to Ermie, but it never entered into her head to flatter her. She was a gossiping sort of body, and she wanted the child to recount to her all the tittle-tattle she knew about Glendower. Ermengarde had neither the power nor the inclination to describe the goings on at Glendower graphically. The stout lady soon got tired of her short answers, and began to survey her from head to foot in a critical and not ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... than he was surrounded by fops, coxcombs, "thiggars [97] and sornars," liars and flatterers, who became his favourites and friends. I began to have them constantly in my company. They amused me with the gossip of every place, and every idle, lying tittle tattle; they continued urging me thus. "In this season of youth, you ought to drink [98] of the choicest wines, and send for beautiful mistresses to participate in the pleasures thereof, and ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... Price, "Lizzie Gordon's fetched a dog into Sunday school." Katie Price always told things, and Rosie stopped giggling and whispered, "Aw, tattle-tale!" ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... gave me credit; it is sad to disappoint them now that I am on the verge of thirty. But what am I to do? Words of wisdom will not come! I am utterly incompetent to provide things that may profit the multitude. Beyond a snatch of song, some tittle-tattle, a little merry fooling, I have been unable to advance. And as the result, those who held high hopes will turn their wrath on me; but did any one ever beg them ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... said gently, "please don't say any more. I know all that your life has been, and why. You did quite right. What is a little trouble to me, a little passing inconvenience, the tattle of a few idle tongues, compared with what Jack's life is to you? I see now that I ought to have opposed it strongly instead of letting it take its course. You were right—you always have been right, John. There is a sort of consolation in the thought. I like ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... all the energy, but not the rashness of youth; age with vigour instead of decrepitude, delighting in the words of sound wisdom rather than the usual tattle of second childhood; and, withal, an old man who is prone to moralise as old men are; a man able and willing to do his duty in the present though his heart is left in the past; such is the most prominent figure in these ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... there was more tittle-tattle, I think, than in any place on God's earth; and she knew that well enough; and understood that she had said something which unless she prevented it, would go straight to Charles' ears. It is true that she ruled him absolutely; but he kicked ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... that she might be married out of the way: but above all, it is a worthy part that this good lady hath acted. My sister Michell [The wife of Balthazar St. Michel, Mrs. Pepys's brother.] come from Lee to see us; but do tattle so much of the late business of the Dutch coming thither that I am weary of it. Yet it is worth remembering what she says: that she hath heard both seamen and soldiers swear they would rather serve the Dutch than the King, for they should be better used. She saw "The Royal ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... now raised to drag Bell out by the heels, when I reflected that what I had heard might be unfounded gossip, mere tattle, and that before I turned against an old acquaintance, it were well to set an inquiry afoot. First, however, I put him alongside Herbert Spencer. If it were Bell's desire to play the grandmother to him, he would find ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... literature over again, and reviews, but new circumstance worth telling, apropos to every subject that is touched upon: frank observations on character, without either ill-nature or the fear of committing themselves: no blue-stocking tittle-tattle, or habits of worshipping, or being worshipped: domestic, affectionate, good to live with, and, without fussing continually, doing what is most obliging, and whatever makes us feel most at home. Breakfast is very pleasant in this house, and the two good sisters look so ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... not in consequence of the attachment of romance, perhaps; but I had a long and much-loved fellow-creature's happiness or misery in my determination, and I durst not trifle with so important a deposit. Nor have I any cause to repent it. If I have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with the multiform curse of boarding-school affectation: and I have got the handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and the kindest heart in the county. Mrs. Burns believes, as firmly as her creed, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... cousin, saturated with all the prejudices and beliefs of his class, draw the insight or inspiration necessary to break up this life? It was a question of imagination, of projecting himself into the future beyond the unpleasant gossip, sneers, and tattle that followed on such separations, beyond the passing pangs that the lack of the sight of her would cause, beyond the grave disapproval of the worthy. But few men, and especially few men of Soames' class, had imagination ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Lord Southampton, declared to him that he was convinced that Anne Hyde was married to one of the brothers. The half-suppressed respect with which her mother treated her, and carved to her of every dish, had revealed the state of affairs to him. Pepys and Burnet repeat to us the tittle-tattle of the circles in which they moved, and the various estimates which were made as to the effect of the impending disclosure upon the Chancellor's power. The ambition which made her mother accept for Anne the post of Maid of Honour to the Princess of Orange, now made her an abettor in the scheme, ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... entertaining tattle, and sometimes wit, but for solid reasoning and good sense I never knew one in my life that had it, and who reasoned and acted consequentially for four and twenty hours together."—Lord Chesterfield, ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... grave ways, Emma almost every day had other visitors. These were Madame Langlois, Madame Caron, Madame Dubreuil, Madame Tuvache, and regularly from two to five o'clock the excellent Madame Homais, who, for her part, had never believed any of the tittle-tattle about her neighbour. The little Homais also came to see her; Justin accompanied them. He went up with them to her bedroom, and remained standing near the door, motionless and mute. Often even Madame Bovary; taking no heed of him, began her toilette. She began by taking ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... cabbage, a roast fowl, some salted cucumber, and the sweet tart which stands perpetually ready for use in such establishments; whilst, I say, these things were either being warmed up or brought in cold, the gentleman induced the waiter to retail certain fragments of tittle-tattle concerning the late landlord of the hostelry, the amount of income which the hostelry produced, and the character of its present proprietor. To the last-mentioned inquiry the waiter returned the answer invariably given in such cases—namely, "My master is a terribly hard man, sir." ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... tell a fellow about when he was a little boy there was a little girl in a red dress with blond pigtails who used to scrap with him and tattle things about him to her mother. If he were inclined to be credulous, this was second sight I had. But it is a universal. What average boy didn't, at one time or another, know a little girl with blond ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... father, fixing his eyes, dangerous as those of a wild-cat, on the boy. "Now remember this; if you tell the least little thing that happens here to Gaucher, or to the Grouage and Bellache people, or even to Marianne who loves us, you will kill your father. Never tattle again, and I will forgive what you said yesterday." The child began to cry. "Don't cry; but when any one questions you, say, as the peasants do, 'I don't know.' There are persons roaming about whom I distrust. Run ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... a woman, with her healthy, orderly mind, the chaotic environment with its petty cares and dirty tittle-tattle, in which we lived, was very painful. I could see that, and I, too, could not sleep at night. My brain whirled and I could hardly choke back my tears. I tossed about, not knowing what ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... people belonged to it. The downfall of the protege of the palace, of a ministeralist, an incorrigible royalist who on the 13th Vendemiaire had insulted the cause of liberty by fighting against the glorious French Revolution,—such a downfall excited the applause and tittle-tattle of the Bourse. Pillerault wished to learn and study the state of public opinion. He found in one of the most animated groups du Tillet, Gobenheim-Keller, Nucingen, old Guillaume, and his son-in-law Joseph ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... extreme sufferings of this internal passion. But as she still kept her love in the recesses of her heart, she died when Lavalliere fell before Metz, as has been elsewhere related by Messire Bourdeilles de Brantome in his tittle-tattle. ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... excellent match—better than any young Vines or Southlands or Furneses; as his wife she would be important and well-to-do, her triumph would be sealed, open and celebrated.... She would moreover be free. That was the strong hidden growth that had heaved up her flat little plans of a mere victory in tattle—if she married she would be her own mistress, free for ever of Joanna's tyranny. She could do what she liked with Alce—she would be able to go where she liked, know whom she liked, wear what she liked; whereas with Joanna ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... our memoirs. "We know from personal experience that a slight tale, a string of gossip, will often alter our entire conception of a personality,"—from a contemporary book review. This, the high office of tittle-tattle, is what we have in our ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... of the plan of this work to repeat the gossip and tattle of private society, but occurrences happened to Lord Byron which engaged both, and some of them cannot well be passed over unnoticed. One of these took place during the spring of this year, and having been a subject of newspaper remark, it may with less impropriety be mentioned ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... the paper in his hand, cried out in a hoarse, choking voice, "Yes, it's a fact: I done it. It's no use denying on't.. Here it is, in black and white. Everybody knows it: ghosts come spooking around to tattle about it. What's the use of ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... or ten people there, and they all appeared to know about him, and all that concerned or belonged to him. It was the old London world over again, in little! the same tittle-tattle about well-known people, and nothing else—as if nothing else existed; a genial, easy-going, good-natured world, that he had so often found charming for a time, but in which he was never quite happy and had no proper place of his own, all through that fatal ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... a stricken hour in such a torrent of unnecessary tattle, as determined Peveril, at all events, to endeavour to procure a separate lodging. Having repeated his evening prayers in Latin, as formerly (for the old gentleman was a Catholic, which was the sole cause of his falling under suspicion), he set off on a new score, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... "it's like old times to hear all this tittle-tattle, and does me good. It's been seven years and more since I heard any. How do they talk about me ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... get hold of me now," Tennyson said when he knew that his last hour was at hand. He had a horror of personal tattle, as even his early poems ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... because the plague reigns in most places in this latter end of summer,[21] Summer must come in sick; he must call his officers to account, yield his throne to Autumn, make Winter his executor, with tittle-tattle Tom-boy. God give you good night in Watling Street; I care not what you say now, for I play no more than you hear; and some of that you heard too (by your leave) was extempore. He were as good have let me had the best part, for I'll be revenged on him to the uttermost, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... sort of understandings. How many readers and admirers has Madame de Sevigne, who only gives us, in a lively manner and fashionable phrases, mean sentiments, vulgar prejudices, and endless repetitions? Sometimes the tittle-tattle of a fine lady, sometimes that of an old nurse, always tittle-tattle; yet so well gilt over by airy expressions, and a flowing style, she will always please the same people to whom Lord Bolingbroke will shine as a first-rate author. ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... begin with, the mere fact that she was a foreigner, and that neither she nor any of her immediate followers could speak English, told heavily against the lady in the estimation of the countryside. Then, hardly anyone ever saw her (which in itself was an offence, and the cause of still further tattle). She was very little, folk said who professed to be well informed, and her face and hands showed strangely brown against the white robes that she habitually wore; her eyes were like stars; her temper quick to blaze up without due cause. Backstairs ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... according to custom; and the curiosities, upon which he set so extravagant a price, savour more of Wardour Street than of the genuine mediaeval artists. Nay, there are scoffers, though I am not of them, who think that the tittle-tattle which Miss Austen gathered at the country-houses of our grandfathers is worth more than the showy but rather flimsy eloquence of the 'Ariosto of the North.' Scott endeavoured at least, if with indifferent success, to invest ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... you know, brother, are not of any long duration.] to tease and half put you out of temper. Indulge me once more in hoping it will not do so at present; for I believe I am more prone to this habit than ever. What can I say to my brother? Shall I tattle to him the scandal of the village, were I mistress of it? Shall I describe to him the fashion of a new cap; or the charms of a dress that has lately travelled from Persia to Paris, from Paris to London, and from London to Rose-Bank? Or shall I recount the hopes and fears of a sister; who ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... retainer, who showed me, on a proper day, over the gloomy, faded glories of the musty palace. She was always heretic at heart, the old gossip mumbled, with furtive glances from my gold piece to the pictured lords above her, as if afraid they would revenge themselves for this tittle-tattle, heretic and light. A servant or a duke, a flower-seller or His Eminence, all was one to her crazy English notions. And the truth—how the mad creature told it! Blurted it out to everyone, so that they had to keep her shut up, finally. And would have her dogs about her—eating like Christians! ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... advance was carelessly received, since it satisfied my conscience and her who stirred its depths—nor did my cheek flush at the derisive taunt that followed me from the room after this obligation to self was discharged—"Now tattle again, little prophetess," for thus she often alluded to my Hebrew name and its signification, "and produce my squirrel, or look ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... of the change. 'The writings of Wordsworth,' he goes on to say, 'did much towards calming the confusing whirl necessarily incident to sudden mutations. I wept over them tears of happiness and gratitude.' He accordingly left the army, with its rough barrack-life and coarse mess-room tittle- tattle, and returned to Linden House, full of this new-born enthusiasm for culture. A severe illness, in which, to use his own words, he was 'broken like a vessel of clay,' prostrated him for a time. His delicately strung organisation, however indifferent it might have been ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... the jolly rattle Of an orde-al by battle, There's an end of tittle-tattle When your enemy is dead. It's an arrant molly-coddle Fears a crack upon his noddle And he's only fit to swaddle In ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... and ever will be one of the greatest names in English literature, and it is very amusing to observe how the gossip-makers, who judge of genius by tittle-tattle and petty personal defects, have condemned him in toto because he was not an angel to a dame who was certainly a bit of a diablesse. Thus I find in a late very popular collection the ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... upon this subject, let you into certain Arcana that will be very useful for you to know, but which you must, with the utmost care, conceal and never seem to know. Women, then, are only children of a larger growth; they have an entertaining tattle, and sometimes wit; but for solid reasoning, good sense, I never knew in my life one that had it, or who reasoned or acted consequentially for four-and-twenty hours together. Some little passion or humor always breaks upon their best resolutions. Their beauty neglected or ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... of contemptuous amusement upon him. "Some chance! And I warn you that if you attempt to tattle anything about it I will turn, the tables against you in a way you ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... very pleasant life out here, my dear," she said, "if one does but take it in the right way. There is a great deal of tittle tattle in the Indian stations, and some quarreling; but, you know, it takes two to make a quarrel, and I make it a point never to quarrel with anyone. It is too hot for it. Then, you see, I have the advantage of being Irish, and, for some reason or other ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... proffered friendship at its face value. It was quite gratifying to know that many of them envied her. She learned from various sources that Bill's fortune loomed big, had grown by some mysterious process of Granville tattle, until it had reached the charmed six figures ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... been much surprised. But the little clique of his enemies made this an additional subject of annoyance, and there were not wanting those who had the amazing bad taste to repeat to him some of their speeches. There are some who seem to think that a man must rather enjoy hearing all the low tittle-tattle of ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... of this hermitage. It was never likely to be discovered, except by the smoke, when the inmate lit a fire. The local shepherd knew it, of course, but Allen had bought his silence, not that there were many neighbours for the shepherd to tattle with. ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... Saint-Jacques, at which time he became acquainted with Florent and Quenu. In 1856 he retired from this business, and to amuse himself took a stall in the poultry-market. "Thenceforth he lived amidst ceaseless tittle-tattle, acquainted with every little scandal in the neighbourhood." Gavard was a leading spirit in the revolutionary circle which met in Lebigre's wine-shop, and was the means of bringing Florent to attend the meetings there. He was arrested at the same time as Florent and ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... course, out of respect to the feelings of the two noble families, every attempt was made to hush it up; and a full account of all the circumstances connected with it will be found in the third volume of Lord Tattle's Recollections of the Prince Regent and his Friends. The ghost, then, was naturally very anxious to show that he had not lost his influence over the Stiltons, with whom, indeed, he was distantly connected, his own first cousin having been married en secondes noces to the Sieur de Bulkeley, ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... describing complicated legal and commercial undertakings came in too. Nor did he spare, in this wide-ranging book, to bring in other favorite matters of his, the hobereau—or squireen—aristocracy, the tittle-tattle of the country town ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... monarch presently—his essential character must be judged from his conduct, and conduct extending over a good many years. One might say, conduct and reputation, but that reputation is so often the result of a confused mixture of superficial observation, gossip, tittle-tattle, envy, hatred and uncharitableness, and, in the case of an Emperor, of merely ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... She looked down and drew a figure on the ice with the tip of her skate. Her confusion could not escape him, and he caught himself up instantly. "I mean, you've always been so sensible, you know. You haven't cared for tattle or nonsense. That's what's made us like you so. A fellow hasn't had to be on the continual jump for fear your hat wasn't on straight or your hair was coming down. You're as plucky as a boy, and it's like having another jolly, good fellow about when you're around. You're not going back on all ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... opera of Fidelio many a time before; but she was always intently interested in music; and she had more than once expressed in Brand's hearing her opinion of the conduct of the ladies and gentlemen who make an opera, or a concert, or a play a mere adjunct to their own foolish laughter and tittle-tattle. She recognized the serious aims of a great artist; she listened with deep attention and respect; she could talk idly elsewhere and at other times. And so there was scarcely a word said—except of involuntary admiration—as the ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... in their efforts to do the honors of their country to Hortense, and to show her every possible attention. But Hortense declined their proffered invitations. She avoided all publicity; she feared, on her own and her son's account, that the tattle of the world and the newspapers might once more draw down upon her the distrust and ill-will of the French government. She feared that this might prevent her returning with her son, through France, to her quiet retreat ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... promoted her interest. The reader cannot expect that we should swell this volume by a minute relation of all the incidents which happened to her, while she continued a poetical mendicant. She has not, without pride, related all the little tattle which passed between her and persons of distinction, who, through the abundance of their idleness, thought proper to ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... that without force they would obey any big boy who might choose to order them. It was some time before this scheme became known to Ernest Bracebridge and his friends. As he never listened to the tales and tittle-tattle of the school—indeed, he found that the current stories were generally absurd exaggerations of the truth—he might have remained some time longer ignorant, had not Bouldon come to him one afternoon, after school, in a state of great indignation, saying that Blackall had called ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... "The tittle-tattle in these twopenny-halfpenny villages is almost past believing!" he exclaimed angrily. "Here's an absolute new-comer arrives in the district, and they've begun taking away the ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... But could not with repeated prayers prevail. His milk-white pinions to the god he plied; The busy daw flew with him, side by side, And by a thousand teasing questions drew The important secret from him as they flew. 20 The daw gave honest counsel, though despised, And, tedious in her tattle, thus advised: 'Stay, silly bird, the ill-natured task refuse, Nor be the bearer of unwelcome news. Be warned by my example: you discern What now I am, and what I was shall learn. My foolish honesty was all my crime; Then hear my story. Once ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... well, indeed, in the daytime,' was the reply; 'plenty of the best to eat and drink except liquors. In bed, however, it was impossible to sleep. I rose the first night, struck a light, and on examination found myself covered with myriads of tattle bugs, so small as to be almost imperceptible. By using my microscope I discovered them to be infantile bedbugs. After the first night I was obliged to sleep in the coach-house in order ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... forcible are right words." But in his daily intercourse with this heterogeneous population, he was not always aware that clerical intimacy should never descend to familiarity. He overheard rude speeches and gossipping tattle; and was made acquainted with some domestic bickerings and feuds; and kindly, though not always discretely, endeavored to check them; but his mediation was repelled as uncalled-for interference.[1] To use the words of his biographer, ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... was stubbornly bent on going down to the garden as soon as ever she heard Madame Deberle's voice there. All Rosalie's tittle-tattle regarding the next-door house she drank in greedily, ever restless and inquisitive concerning its inmates and their doings; and she would even slip out of the bedroom to keep watch from the kitchen window. In the garden, ensconced in a small arm-chair which was brought ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... set the house afire, and run amuck killing and slaying down four flights of stairs—to do something very terrible in fact—something deadly and horrible and final that would put an end forever to this melancholy haunt of Tuesday stews and ghoulish boarders with the torturing tattle of their everlasting tongues. I shocked the Little Woman daily with words and phrases, used heretofore only under very trying conditions, that had insensibly become the ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... chil' an' de overseer's little gal got it in for me. He was a big, hard fisted Dutchman bent on gittin' riches. He trained his pasty-faced gal to tattle on us Niggers. She got a heap o' folks whipped. I knowed it, but I was hasty: One day she hit me wid a stick an' I th'owed it back at her. 'Bout dat time up walked her pa. He seen what I done, but he didn' see what she done to me. But it ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... When I visit people whom I like, such as Madame de Sallus and yourself, I do not expect to meet the Paris that flutters from house to house in the evening, gossiping and scandalizing. I have had my experience of gossip and tittle-tattle. It needs only one of these talkative dames or men to take away all the pleasure there is for me in visiting the lady on whom I happen to have called. Sometimes when I am anchored perforce upon my seat, I feel lost; I do not know how to get away. I have to take part in the whirlpool ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... as this is, When rarely and more rare the coaches rattle From street to street, to sip thy fragrant kisses; While from the Strand remote some drunken battle Far-faintly echoes, and the kettle hisses Upon the glowing hob. No tittle-tattle To make a single thought of mine an alien From thee, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... must write something. . . ." Paul Vanderhoffen shrugged, and continued, in tones more animated: "There will be no talk of any grand-duke. Instead, there will be columns of denunciation and tittle-tattle in every newspaper—quite as if you, a baronet's daughter, had run away with a footman. And you will very often think wistfully of Lord Brudenel's fine house when your only title is—well, Princess of Grub Street, and your realm is a garret. ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... for the future to be thick-skinned, and when Gashmu's tongue is whispering, and whenever some busybody like Sanballat repeats Gashmu's words to us, let us act as Nehemiah did. Let us take no notice of the repeated tittle-tattle. ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... consider him worthy to be counted among my friends. All my friends, monsieur, respect each other; they know that I have not philosophy enough to admit into my house those I do not esteem; this may argue a want of charity; but my guardian-angel has maintained in me to this day a profound aversion for tattle, and also ...
— Madame Firmiani • Honore de Balzac
... now high time to talk of this to my husband, which, however, was not the greatest difficulty before me; for after this and other chat had taken up some time, the young fool began her tattle again; and two or three times she brought it in, that I was so like a lady that she had the honour to know at the other end of the town, that she could not put that lady out of her mind when I was by, and once or twice I fancied the girl was ready to cry; by and by she was at ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... of September, nearly a week after the tattle of Newbury, all the members of Parliament still remaining in London assembled in St. Margaret's Church, and signed the Solemn League and Covenant; but even at this moment of enthusiasm the parties were not true to each other. The Scotch ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... drawing, worsted-work, and catechism are added as accomplishments; and then at eighteen—the age when a boy really begins his training—their education is completed, they are told; and they are turned into the world to devote their time and talents to trimmings, novels, and idle tittle-tattle. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... Rev. Scatchard Vialls devoted himself with acrid zeal to the interests of the Conservative party. He was not the most influential of the Polterham clerics, for women in general rather feared than liked him; a sincere ascetic, he moved but awkwardly in the regions of tea and tattle, and had an uncivil habit of speaking what he thought the truth without regard to time, place, or person. Some of his sermons had given offence, with the result that several ladies betook themselves to gentler preachers. But the awe inspired ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... night of the 13th-14th sent him an order to support Davoust. This order has never been produced, and it finds no place in the latest and fullest collection of French official despatches, which, however, contains some that fully exonerate Bernadotte.[111] Unfortunately for Bernadotte's fame, the tattle of memoir writers is more attractive and gains more currency than the prosaic facts ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... a gossip, no one knew better than himself, and he has incurred the censure of Sir George Trevelyan for repeating tittle-tattle, as he calls it, about Fox and his gambling. But posterity desires to see the real Fox, not an ideal statesman—to see a man as he lived, not only a political figure. Looking back for more than a century we may very well appreciate to the full Fox's ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... nice of him to speak to his sister that way, and it wasn't right for him to go where his father had told him not to go. Of course Rose didn't want to be a tattle-tale, but still it was better to be that than to let her brother do what he intended. So, while Russ and Laddie got ready for their race, Rose skated, as quickly as she could, to the other end of the pond, where her father was giving Violet, Mun Bun and Margy some of ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... a universal favourite, too, is the Devil, our old friend from the Miracles! 'My husband, Timothy Tattle, God rest his poor soul!' says good Gossip Tattle, 'was wont to say, there was no play without a fool and a devil in 't; he was for the devil still, God bless him! The devil for his money, would he say, I would fain see the devil.' And Gossip Mirth adds a description of the Devil as she knew ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... what Caleb wanted, and he kept her going by his evident interest. After she tired of providing more realistic details of the night's uproar, Caleb deliberately tapped another vintage of tittle-tattle in hope of further information ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... reeds of music. With those critics perhaps most of us agree, when we read books that gossip about Shelley, or Coleridge, or Byron. "Give us their poetry," we say, "and leave their characters alone: we do not want tattle about Claire and chatter about Harriet; we want to be happy with 'The Skylark' or 'The Cloud.'" Possibly this instinct is correct, where such a poet as Shelley is concerned, whose life, like his poetry, was as "the life of winds and tides," whose genius, unlike the skylark's, ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... preface to her Aristophanes: Je tiens pour une maxime constante, qu'une beaute mediocre plait plus generalement qu'une beaute sans defaut. Mr Congreve hath made such another blunder in his Love for Love, where Tattle tells Miss Prue, "She should admire him as much for the beauty he commends in her as if he himself was possessed ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... lie the bigger also the truth. That is another bit of science. If Mrs. Tattle tells Mrs. Tittle a lie about Mrs. Jenkins, she knows very well Mrs. Tittle will not believe her unless her lie has some spice of fact to go on, unless it has vraisemblance, truth-likeness, an appearance of foundation at least. Mean little lies, like those she sets going, do ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... candied fruits, etc., Luc or Seghin will be found quite A1. Whilst for five o'clock tea, Madame Bouzoum has deservedly gained a reputation as great as that of Rumpelmayer on the Riviera. But again a word of warning! Be discreet as to repeating any local tittle-tattle you may possibly ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... for Fred Starratt to move anywhere without hearing fragments of all this gossip. During the noon hour particularly it filtered through the midday tattle of business, pleasure, and obscenity—at the Market, at Collins & Wheeland's, at Hjul's coffee house, at Grover's Lunchroom—everywhere that clerks forgathered to appease their hunger and indulge in idle ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... erudition, though the courtiers were of opinion he would have liked to absent himself from her evening parties more frequently than was particularly agreeable to the Princess Anna and her imperial parents. This was partly explained by the private tattle of the court, which averred, that the Princess Anna Comnena had been more beautiful when she was less learned; and that, though still a fine woman, she had somewhat lost the charms of her person as she became enriched in ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... makin' Tim's b'ys weak-spirited by lettin' 'em tittle-tattle of what can't be helped," ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... Disdainful of all artificial adjuncts of mystery, to all appearance a woman like other women, packing her little sick-baskets, balancing the coal-club accounts, teaching in her Sunday-school, the centre of religion, of charity, and of tittle-tattle, woman in orders fronts calmly the inquirer, a being fearfully and wonderfully ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... way, to escape meeting them face to face. On these occasions, she told herself that she had done with Maurice Guest; and this decision was the more easy as, since the beginning of the year, she had moved almost entirely in German circles. But now the distasteful tattle was thrust under her very nose. It seemed to put things in a different light to hear Maurice pitied and discussed in this very room. In listening to her visitor, she had felt once more how strong her right of possession ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... foolish hands, and threwest away to go and seek in vain in sepulchers, mummy pits, and old bookshops of Asia Minor, Egypt, and England. It was the deep to-day which all men scorn; the rich poverty, which men hate; the populous, all-loving solitude, which men quit for the tattle of towns. He lurks, he hides,—he who is success, reality, joy, and power. One of the illusions is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... chair he harped them on Till the very last of the host had gone, Then he yawned and solemnly shook his head And, leaving his seat, returned to bed, To sleep, as a good man will Who, braving malice and tittle-tattle, Has checked his natural lust for battle, And sent the rest to the gorse-clad summit, the ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... notwithstanding what we had heard, that we should find Raymond in St. Stephen's: thither we sped. The chamber was full—but there was no Protector; and there was an austere discontent manifest on the countenances of the leaders, and a whispering and busy tattle among the underlings, not less ominous. We hastened to the palace of the Protectorate. We found Raymond in his dining room with six others: the bottle was being pushed about merrily, and had made considerable inroads on the understanding of one or two. He who sat near Raymond was telling ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... back; even her most gorgeous costumes always looked tumbled and creased; and if nothing else went wrong, there would be invariably a pair of trodden-down shoes with which she could indulge in her old propensity. Curiosity and tattle were the ingredients of her conversation, in which she generally introduced such extraordinary expressions that when she began to scatter them in a mixed party, the guests (that is, those who were seated) almost fell off their chairs with laughter. Then, too, she had ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... Ah! Abidan, trusty, stanch Abidan! You see, Abidan, I was thinking, my good Abidan, all this may be the frenzy of a revel. Tomorrow's dawn may summon cooler counsels. The tattle of the table, it is sacred. Let us forget it; let us pass it over. The Lord may turn his heart. Who ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... table to use, and so home to dinner, and after dinner comes my uncle and aunt Wight, the latter I have not seen since the plague; a silly, froward, ugly woman she is. We made mighty much of them, and she talks mightily of her fear of the sicknesse, and so a deale of tittle tattle and I left them and to my office where late, and so home to supper and to bed. This day I hear my Uncle Talbot Pepys died the last week, and was buried. All the news now is, that Sir Jeremy Smith is at Cales—[Cadiz]—with ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... heard some tattle about Maude, and spoke to me this afternoon. Of course I could only deny it, my face feeling on fire with its sense of dishonour, for I don't think I ever told a deliberate lie in my life; and—and, in short, I should ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
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