"Tattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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. ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... her and the Grand Duke were current all over Florence, and evil gossips at Court affirmed that the liaison had been of long continuance, wherein, too, the Duchess Isabella was herself implicated. Cosimo seems to have been conversant with the tittle-tattle, and, fearing the evil effect it might have for all concerned, determined to take the bull by the horns, so to speak, and to keep the scandal ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... course, it wasn't 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 ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... women at their looms, they all gossiped about Leah, saying, "She is not within what her seeming is without. She appears to be pious, but if she were, she would not have deceived her sister."[169] To put an end to all this tattle, God granted her the distinction of bearing a son at the end of seven months after her marriage. He was one of a pair of twins, the other child being a daughter. So it was with eleven of the sons of Jacob, all of them except Joseph were born twins with a girl, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... 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 ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... of your tattle now, really. This is a serious matter, a matter of life and death. (To Osip.) Yes, friend, I like you very much. It's rather chilly now and when a man's travelling an extra glass of tea or so is rather welcome. So here's a couple of rubles for ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... 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, ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... determined to hold it in defiance of them. It was not 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. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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 ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... and had 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
... ["Women have an 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 ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... 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 ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... simulated; but, from a certain easiness which had no connection with humanity, he submitted, half-laughing at himself, to be made the tool of any woman whose person attracted him, or of any man whose tattle diverted him. He thought little and cared less about religion. He seems to have passed his life in dawdling suspense between Hobbism and Popery. He was crowned in his youth with the Covenant in his hand; he died ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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 ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... social police to arraign every accuser before the accused. We should thus, it is to be feared, only make things worse, and involuntarily play the gossip's own game. The best we can do is as far as possible to banish the tattle from our minds, and, at all events, to keep our own ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... 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 ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... takes the opposite view, and declares that the book is 'a tawdry tissue of tedious trumpery; a tessellated texture of threadbare thievery; a trifling transcript of trite twaddle and trapessing tittle-tattle.... Like everything that falls from her pen, it is pert, shallow, and conceited, a farrago of ignorance, indecency, and blasphemy, a tag-rag and bob-tail style of writing—like ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... finds she has never looked into 'Paradise Lost.' He plunges into the Reform Bill; but she knows nothing of politics, and has never read a leading article in her life. Then she tries him, in her turn, and floods him with the dead chat of the town and an ocean of family tattle. He finds himself shut up for weeks with a creature who takes an interest in nothing but Uncle Crosspatch's temper and the scandal about Lady X. Little by little the absolute pettiness, the dense dulness, of woman's life, breaks on the disenchanted devotee. His deity is without occupation, ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... Weber Had cultivated himself, of his breadth, of his outlook on history and mankind. It is evident that Adolph, seeing the irresistible bent of the Wagners towards the theatre, and fearing that Richard might in time learn to be content with a life of ignorant theatre tittle-tattle, did his best to save him, not so much by warning him against the theatre—which he certainly knew to be useless—as by showing how many great and interesting things the world holds. The preaching did not fall on deaf ears; and Richard always declared that in this regard he ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... she sided with Jack and 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. ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... 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 ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... 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
... to detail to me the most absurd things that can well be imagined about it. You know that those great newsmongers are the curse of provincial towns, and that they have no greater anxiety than to spread, everywhere abroad all the tittle-tattle they pick up. This one showed me, to begin with, two large sheets of paper full to the very brim with the greatest imaginable amount of rubbish, which, he says, comes from the safest quarters. Then, as if it were a wonderful thing, he read full length and with great mystery all the stupid jokes ...
— The Countess of Escarbagnas • Moliere
... 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 something to quiet the tempest, and then the poor girl, half ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... 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 of putting us out of the room, ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... 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 Major Proudfoot was ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... the strictest 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 ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... own 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 was in him; she was his oldest friend in Leipzig. Now she was ready ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... red and blue, the images that are on the pillars are stags and other animals, they are painted in colours with the pink on their faces; but the other images seated on the elephants, as well as those on the panels, are all dancing women having tattle drums (tom-toms). ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... simple. 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 ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... turned a 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 ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... anything again but "Double 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 married ...
— The Canterville Ghost • Oscar Wilde
... 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, ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... 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 in the breast of her gown, and stared at me all over from head to feet; ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... 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 year ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... 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 ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... their meaning as well as in their form, that a title of honour formerly implying a spiritual relationship in God, is now applied only to those whose conversation resembles the contemptible tittle-tattle of a Christening. ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... scale? Clio, though she take airs on herself, and pretend to be "philosophy teaching by example," is, after all, but a gossip who has borrowed Fame's speaking-trumpet, and should be figured with a teacup instead of a scroll in her hand. How much has she not owed of late to the tittle-tattle of her gillflirt sister Thalia? In what gutters has not Macaulay raked for the brilliant bits with which he has put together his admirable mosaic picture of England under the last two Stuarts? Even Mommsen himself, who dislikes Plutarch's method as much as Montaigne ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... it was proper to tell Gus (who, between ourselves, is rather curious, and inclined to tittle-tattle) all the particulars of the family quarrel of which I had been the cause and witness, and so just said that the old lady—("They were the Drum arms," says Gus; "for I went and looked them out that minute in the 'Peerage'")—that ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... time, I, who had private thoughts of my own, was much concerned, to know why the boar was brought in with a cap upon his head; and therefore having run out my tittle-tattle, I told my interpreter what troubled me: To which he answered, "Your boy can even tell ye what it means, for there's no riddle in it, but all as clear as day. This boar stood the last of yester-nights supper, and dismiss'd by the guests, returns now as a free-man ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... 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 ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... 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, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... "and when I get there I'm goin' to choke that dummed tattle-tale of an Isaiah Chase! I'll talk to YOU after ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... nothing left him, I cannot tell), for which I am much troubled, and so staid not long to talk with him. Thence to my mother's, where I found my wife and my aunt Bell and Mrs. Ramsey, and great store of tattle there was between the old women and my mother, who thinks that there is, God knows what fallen to her, which makes me mad, but it was not a proper time to speak to her of it, and so I went away with Mr. Moore, and he and I to the Theatre, and saw "The Jovial Crew," ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... he writes 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 ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... 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 quick to blaze up without due cause. Backstairs ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... self-appointed servant. At the offices of the diligencias in 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 this was not ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... 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 envious backbiters. ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... upon Helen's part, Nelly entered the cab. She would "not go back!" And she would "go with dear Paul!" Her heart was breaking. Nelly Bolivar was "a good-for-nothing, common tattle-tale and the whole school probably knew all about ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... conversation. And as 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 degraded ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... devil in the form of a small 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
... 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
... 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 cousinly ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... WILL READ 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
... that Court 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 ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... by before Adelaide had a son. The Faubourg was annoyed; it could not admit that it was wrong, and determined to penetrate the supposed mystery; accordingly all the gossips kept a watch upon the Rougons. They soon found ample matter for tittle-tattle. Rougon died almost suddenly, fifteen months after his marriage, from a sunstroke received one afternoon while he was weeding ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... 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
... 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 in all weathers ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... the boy, now thoroughly frightened, "I hain't nuver consorted with 'em none. I don't know nothin' erbout 'em—no more'n what idle tattle I heers goin' round in ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... 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 at Pont-sur-Yonne, who, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... and with a labored affectation to please, which never pleases? All this be far from them! But we do wish to see the conversation of well-bred women rescued from vapid commonplaces, from uninteresting tattle, from trite communications, from frivolous earnestness, from false sensibility, from a warm interest about things of no moment, and an indifference to topics the most important; from a cold vanity, from the overflows of self-love, exhibiting itself under the smiling ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... 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
... 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 their gifts of fame, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... without being drawn into its vortex. By GOSSIP I don't mean scandal or malignant misrepresentations, or reports of petty strifes, intrigues, and jealousies, such as are common in all cliques and communities, but nuhou, mere tattle, the perpetual talking about people, and the picking to tatters of every item of personal detail, whether gathered from fact ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... manners; the children teheed and tittered whenever he passed through the town-square; and all were of one mind that Khalid was a worthless fellow, who had brought nothing with him from the Paradise of the New World but his cough and his fleece. Such tattle and curiosity, however, no matter what degree of savage vulgarity they reach, are quite harmless. But I felt somewhat uneasy about him, when I heard the people asking each other, "Why does he not come to Church like honest folks?" And soon I discovered that my apprehensions were well ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... 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 servants ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... retaining 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 ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... only himself to know where Julie had gone. He wanted no tattle and gossip about the castle and where there were so many servants and followers it could not be prevented unless they were kept in ignorance. It would be best to use a stranger, one who was known but little at Zillenstein, and he recalled ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... 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 ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... 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 ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... 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, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... were 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
... a 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
... Her beauty caresses the eye. The story is a good one, though it ends unhappily—another cause for complaint on the part of the sentimentalists who prefer molasses to meat. But this is a tale which is also literature. Conrad will never be coerced into offering his readers sugar-coated tittle-tattle. And at a period when the distaff of fiction is too often in the hands of men the voice of the romantic realist and poetic ironist, Joseph Conrad, sounds a dynamic masculine bass amid the shriller choir. ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... engagements and one 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.... ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... no 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 she ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... 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 by-word, and which had been master of ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... 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 ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... dwarfed by the sore struggle with the world to maintain his family and to keep up a respectable appearance upon his limited resources; perhaps with his mind made petty and his temper spoiled by the little worries, the petty malignant tattle and gossip and occasional insolence of a little backbiting village? and don't you remember how for days you felt haunted by a sort of nightmare that there was what you would be, if you lived so long? Yes; you know how ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... 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 his scenes ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... labour The midnight oil he burns, But unto some near neighbour His fair young face he turns, To share the harmless tattle Which bejants love to prattle, As wise as infant's rattle Or talk of ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... respecting it which may find their way into print. I am not ashamed of the Methodists of Cadiz; their conduct in many respects does them honour, nor do I accuse any one of fanaticism amongst our dear and worthy friends; but I cannot answer for the tittle-tattle of Madrid. Far be it from me to reflect upon any one: I am but too well aware of my own multitudinous imperfections and follies. I am going instantly to write to Mr. Rule, and I would also to our other friend did I but know his address. Should you have an opportunity of communicating with him, ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... 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 ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... 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 ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... 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
... men should be more troubled by the silly tattle of the hoodoo than even the Portygees had been was a problem Tunis could not solve. And seamen were so scarce just then in Boston that he had been obliged to risk another voyage without engaging strangers to man the Seamew. Besides, ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... white linen, and when they had spread it to the sun on the grass, they chattered thus in lively repartee, laughing." Then begin the action and the dialogue. The scenario may be set forth in this wise: boisterous salutations, hilarious talk and accounts of flirtations; tittle tattle about neighbors and lively scandals; exchange of commiserations on the insupportable humor of masters and the fatigue of service; cessation of laughing, kissing and shouting, the day being ended; quick change of scene ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... 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 ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... 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 to inflicting ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... 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
... 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
... 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 ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... 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 some new favours, whilst we are for ever going backward ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... 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 ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... spoken by the actors did not much resemble those in Shakespeare; they were, in most cases, mere tattle, scarcely verses; rhyme and alliteration were sometimes used both together, and both anyhow. And yet the emotion was deep; in the state of mind with which the spectators came, nothing would have prevented their being touched by the affecting scenes, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... her right arm round our Annie's waist, and scarcely 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 better of her ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... worn, the 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 Dandy's shoulders—those ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... 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
... 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 ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... can do as she likes. I believe she told me 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
... had a most unsatisfactory sound, and seemed more like a trick than a real effort of nature. His talk was civil, prosy, and fidgetty: much addicted to small scandal, and that kind of news which passes under the denomination of tittle-tattle, he was sure to tell one half of the town where the other drank tea, and recollected the blancmanges and jellies on a supper-table, or described a new gown, with as much science and unction as if he ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... to him a vista of such licence as had been unknown to any since the barbatuli of the Roman Empire. To spend the early morning with his valet, gradually assuming the rich apparel that was not then tabooed by a hard sumptuary standard; to saunter round to Whites for ale and tittle-tattle and the making of wagers; to attend a 'drunken dejeuner' in honour of 'la tres belle Rosaline or the Strappini; to drive some fellow-fool far out into the country in his pretty curricle, 'followed by two well-dressed ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... fixing themselves upon the veriest trivialities, conjuring up again before his mental vision acts and words which had never recurred to him since the day on which they had been done or said, mischievous practical jokes played off upon some unlucky school-fellow, mess-room jests and tattle, and a thousand other absurdities, at which he laughed aloud. Then disconnected words and phrases rushed helter-skelter through his seething brain, having no meaning, yet causing him the keenest annoyance, because he believed he had heard them before, ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... in this busy land, is like searching for a needle in a hay-stack. Already, in the clear morning air, one can hear the stutter and skip and cough of the tractors along the opalescent sky-line, accosting the morning sun with their rattle and tattle of harvests to be. And I intend to be in on ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... they had to their sins, yet that God was far from infusing any thing 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 ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... says does Uncle David go much to 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 ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... 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
... retired from the world of our triumphs and adventures) we compose 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 eye. We ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... says, "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 ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... this War didn't surprise me. The wonder to me is, the Almighty's wrath hasn't descended on this nation long before. He must be more patient than you or me, Charity Oliver; or else more blind, which isn't to be supposed. Take Polpier, now. The tittle-tattle that goes about, as you've just been admitting; and the drinking habits amongst the men— I saw Zeb Mennear come out his doorway, not fifteen minutes since, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve; and him just ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... bed, I tell you! Isn't it sufficient that by your tittle-tattle you caused me to ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... 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 ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... drive you out of your mind, 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 do, ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... journals, and absorb the gossip, tittle-tattle, and personalities—absorb it because they have no means of comparison or of checking the impression it produces of the general loose tone of society. They know all about it, much more than you do. No turn of the latest ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... sir. Ask me to tattle of them for rewards, after thirty years!" And she put her apron up ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... on; 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 ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... 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 always ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... say I'm the last man in Pianura to listen to women's tattle; but my wife had it straight from Cino the barber, whose sister is portress of the Benedictines, that, two days since, one of the nuns foretold the whole business, precisely as it happened—and what's more, many that were in the Church this ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... from the parson's wife. 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
... 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
... human than any other of his plays, and at 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. Sir Sampson Legend ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... Hardin steadily moves forward. He asks no favors. He seeks no friends. All unmindful is he of the tattle that a veiled lady of elegant appearance sometimes walks under the leafy ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... and described Byron under the 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 ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... 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 ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... 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 all these things were ruthlessly decreed. Of course she was fond ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... 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, who made such ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... she 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, nothing more." ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... with a pair of 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 his ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... people, her connections, and, in things material, wanted for nothing.** Yet Amy cannot but have been miserable by 1560. The extraordinary favour in which Elizabeth held her lord caused the lewdest stories to spread among all classes, from the circle of the Court to the tattle of country ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... 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 cud eschew'd ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... 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 him too much, and so made interest ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... snuffs were used in preference to the plain. Frequent mention is made in the plays of this time of its use and varieties. In Congreve's "Love for Love," one of the characters presents a young lady with a box of snuff, on receipt of which she says, "Look you here what Mr. Tattle has given me! Look you here, cousin, here's a snuff-box; nay, there's snuff in't: here, will you have any? Oh, good! ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... discoverable. There doubtless was a time when, society being greatly divided, and little communication subsisting among the nobles, secrets were invariably kept; but since the establishment of casinos, which the ladies rule, where chit-chat and tittle-tattle are for ever going forwards, who can preserve a rigorous taciturnity upon any subject in the universe? It was one o'clock before all the company were assembled, and I left them at three, still dreaming over their ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... 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 dine ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Don Juan, Sganarelle and M. Dimanche, which is here, with change of names, taken almost word for word. His men are gallants neither from love or passion, but from the custom of the age, of which it is said, "it would break Mr. Tattle's heart to think anybody else should be beforehand with him;" and Mr. Tattle was the type of a thousand fine gentlemen in the best English society of ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... 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 ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... of the imagination," answered Rameyev. "We see him often, we can always go to him, and we haven't seen or heard anything in his house or in his colony to confirm the town tattle about him." ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... 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, ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... hear 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 can wander; if their selfishness, in its narrow sphere, subordinates all creatures and all ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... "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
... nonsense. Eighty pounds or a 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
... 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, ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... 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, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... in the world, no chance for us young people to enjoy ourselves, without some penalty to pay, some drawback to worry us like these confounded 'all-rounders.' Even here, where all seems free and easy, there's no end of gossips and spies who tattle and watch till you feel as if you lived in a lantern. 'Every one for himself, and the Devil take the hindmost': that's the principle they go on, and you have to keep your wits about you in the most exhausting manner, or you are done for before you know it. I've seen a good ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... being blackmailed. That's the long and the short of it. Now you know the plain, ungarbled facts. Better that they should come from me than reach you with the decorations of gossip and servants' tittle-tattle." ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... the best jokes I ever 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 is in ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... cup 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 come ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... nothing from 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 ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... sermon to all the birds in 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 ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... see how I am forced to tack paragraphs together, 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 in the catalogue of your successors. How the lady ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... he was anxious to get away again, for by a quick retreat the two girls might be saved the knowledge of the Clark episode, and he, a very probable second insult. But the evangelist, having no wish to tattle about Lancaster, yet hoping that the elder girl would learn what her father had done and administer a deserved ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... hunt, but he did not want a tattletale. So he took a fine, young pup, and tried to bring him up to be a good hunter and to keep his tongue. He took good care of him. He often told him how foolish it was to tell everything he knew. The pup would promise not to tattle, but he was only a dog, and blood will ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... perfectly that the invitation was not meant to give her pleasure. You would doubtless have her postpone her wedding-journey on your account, but my lady is under no obligation to think of you."—He had heard of her tattle against Sir Gilbert, and thus rudely ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... 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 than others ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... 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 reluctantly. ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... Miranda Bailey. "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 stoppin' ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn |
