"Rumour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the melancholy vibrations, but the clapper now hung motionless. Through the brooding rumour of metallic sound came a voice out ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... forget, Senor, that, thanks to the slow pace of my old horse, I have been two months on the route? When I left Valladolid, nobody had any more thought of an insurrection than of a new deluge. All I know of it is what I have heard from public rumour—that is, so much as could be divulged without fear of the Holy Inquisition. If, moreover, we are to believe the mandate of the Lord Bishop of Oajaca, the insurrection will not find many supporters in ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... distant provinces; but heard nothing either of the Duke's offended and angry feelings over the Robbers, a production horrible to him; nor of the Son's secret journeys to Mannheim, and the next consequences of these' (his brief arrest, namely), 'nor of the rumour circulating in spiteful quarters, that this young Doctor was neglecting his own province of medicine, and meaning to become a play-actor. How could the old man, in these circumstances, have a thought that the Robbers would be the loss ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... owned by the Standard Oil Company and with that denial, for convenience's sake, we coupled a denial that we were connected with any other concern or that we intended to sell cars by mail. Last year the best-liked rumour was that we were down in Wall Street hunting for money. I did not bother to deny that. It takes too much time to deny everything. Instead, we demonstrated that we did not need any money. Since then I have heard nothing more about ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... Harbour Authorities who were questioned as to whether they had knowledge of the movements of this particular waterplane replied with a regretful negative. They neither knew where it came from nor whither it went and there is a strong rumour that one or two quite important persons got into severe trouble for their want ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... people in the street sat down before his mind like a besieging army. It was impossible, he thought, but that some rumour of the struggle must have reached their ears and set on edge their curiosity; and now, in all the neighbouring houses, he divined them sitting motionless and with uplifted ear—solitary people, condemned to spend Christmas ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... Merdle, continued his shining course. It began to be widely understood that one who had done society the admirable service of making so much money out of it, could not be suffered to remain a commoner. A baronetcy was spoken of with confidence; a peerage was frequently mentioned. Rumour had it that Mr Merdle had set his golden face against a baronetcy; that he had plainly intimated to Lord Decimus that a baronetcy was not enough for him; that he had said, 'No—a Peerage, or plain Merdle.' This was reported to have plunged Lord Decimus ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... the pipal was surrounded by thousands of Mahratta sepoys, for word had gone forth,—the mysterious rumour of India that is like a weird static whispering to the four corners of the land a message,—had flashed through the tented city that the men from Karowlee were to take the oath of ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... slender and very beautiful English girl whose name, as a novelist and playwright, is known on both sides of the Atlantic. I met her in the American Consulate at Ghent, where she was pleading with Vice-Consul Van Hee to assist her in getting through the German lines to Brussels. She had heard a rumour that Brussels was shortly going to be burned or sacked or something of the sort, and she wanted to be on hand for the burning and sacking. She had arrived in Belgium wearing a London tailor's idea of what constituted a suitable costume for a war correspondent—perhaps ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... Delhi, Vincent's old friend of Kohat days, unmarried and alone in camp with a stray Settlement Officer, whose wife and children were at Home. There was Mr Bourne—in the Canals—large-boned and cadaverous, with a sardonic gleam in his eye. Rumour said there had once been a wife and a friend; now there remained only work and the whisky bottle; and he was overdoing both. To him Thea devoted herself and her fiddle with particular zest. The other two lonelies—a Mr and Mrs Nair—were medical missionaries, ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... emissaries were set to work. Every person interested in the success of the project endeavoured to draw a knot of listeners around him, to whom he expatiated on the treasures of the South American seas. Exchange Alley was crowded with attentive groups. One rumour alone, asserted with the utmost confidence, had an immediate effect upon the stock. It was said, that Earl Stanhope had received overtures in France from the Spanish Government to exchange Gibraltar and Port Mahon for some places on the coast of Peru, for the security and enlargement of the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... for these excellent people never withheld their admiration from a reach of intellect of which they themselves were not conscious, and spoke of Isabel as a prodigy of learning, a creature reported to have read the classic authors—in translations. Her paternal aunt, Mrs. Varian, once spread the rumour that Isabel was writing a book—Mrs. Varian having a reverence for books, and averred that the girl would distinguish herself in print. Mrs. Varian thought highly of literature, for which she entertained that esteem that is connected with a sense of privation. Her own large house, ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... strong post of Ticonderoga was adequately garrisoned by a formidable force. A general gloom was cast over the political affairs of the colony; and it was understood that a great effort was to be made, the succeeding campaign, to repair the loss. Rumour spoke of large reinforcements from home, and of greater levies in the colonies themselves than had been hitherto attempted. Lord Loudon was to return home, and a veteran of the name of Abercrombie was to succeed him in the command ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... was several days after the festival before the news of the Latham divorce was made definitely public by a paragraph under the heading of "Society News," in one of the New York papers, though of course the rumour had crept into every house on the Bluffs, by way of the ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... but Flaxman undertook it. Never did he forget the scene. Some ominous rumour had spread, and the New Brotherhood was besieged. Impossible to give the reading. A hall full of strained upturned faced listened to Flaxman's announcement, and to Elsmere's messages of cheer and exhortation, and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... whither the rumour of their success usually precedes them, the war-party is received with loud acclamations, the people coming down to the riverside to receive them. Before they ascend to the house, the heads have to be safely lodged ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... probity and good sense I had long known, should seriously and circumstantially relate to me an account of a miracle wrought before their eyes, and in which it was impossible that they should be deceived: if the governor of the country, hearing a rumour of this account, should call these men into his presence, and offer them a short proposal, either to confess the imposture, or submit to be tied up to a gibbet; if they should refuse with one voice to acknowledge that there existed any falsehood or imposture in the case: ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... felt as if with these the gods themselves were again returned unto Rome. After Camillus had sacrificed to the gods, and purified the city according to the direction of those properly instructed, he restored the existing temples, and erected a new one to Rumour, or Voice, informing himself of the spot in which that voice from heaven came by night to Marcus Caedicius, foretelling the coming ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... rumour it abroad That Anne, my wife, is very grievous sick; I will take order for her keeping close: Inquire me out some mean poor gentleman, Whom I will marry straight to Clarence' daughter;— The boy is foolish, and I fear not him.— ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... not been asleep. This second and infinitely more appalling discovery began to be known. Slowly. By a hint, a breath of rumour here; there an allusion, half taken back. The man, whose incinerated body still lay curled in its bed of cinders, had been dressed at the moment of disaster; even to the watch, the cuff-buttons, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... lucrative jobs had been such as to compel him to run round from one to another on a piebald pony in the style of Sir Hugh Corver, his view of the profession would not have altered. He spoke with terrible sarcasm apropos of a rumour current in architectural circles that a provincial city intended soon to invite competitive designs for a building of realty enormous proportions, and took oath that in no case should his firm, enter for the competition. In short, his condition was ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... know only too well what rumour used to say of him; and I should be the last person to approve of his conduct as a young man, supposing that rumour spoke the truth. But it is not a wife's part to be her husband's judge. You should have considered it your ...
— Ghosts - A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... A rumour of what had happened within had reached them, which some believed, and some doubted: but when they saw OMAR and HAMET return together, and observed that their looks were full of resentment and trouble, they became ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... said, a vigorous campaign on our side; and the Delectable One was re-elected by something more than his usual majority. On the night of the election it was reported—though this may have been mere rumour—that the bills which he laid on the counter of each saloon in the ward (and always forgot to take any change) were of the value of fifty dollars each. That was some years ago, but I understand that he is still in that same City Council, representing ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... that was worked here in Devon was brought from all over England—Dorset, Gloucester, Wales, London, and also Ireland; and clothmaking had become so large an industry that agriculture had suffered considerably. "And every rumour of war or contagious sickness . . . makes a multitude of the poorer sort chargeable to their neighbours, who are bound to maintain them . . . the meanest sort of people also will now rather place their children to some of these mechanical trades than to husbandry, ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... twelve thousand. But in the year 1782, after a real muster by himself, he found, to his great astonishment, that the fighting men did not then amount to three hundred. Now the fact was, that Sir Archibald Campbell's first position was founded upon rumour only; and was not true. For according to Mr. Long, the Maroons were actually numbered in 1749; when they amounted to about six hundred and sixty in all, having only a hundred and fifty men fit to carry arms. Hence, if when mustered by Sir Archibald Campbell he found three hundred fighting ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... who asked her why she was fetching water so early, and she said, "Because the Raja has a tortoise inside him and my husband is going off to see it." In less than an hour the village was full of the news, and the rumour spread until it reached the ears of the Raja. The Raja was very angry and said that he would kill the man who started the report, unless he could prove it to be true. So he sent messengers throughout the country to trace back the rumour ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... (such is rumour's tale), Faced with a rude financial deadlock, Is bent on mulcting every male Who shirks the privilege of wedlock; With such a hurt Time cannot deal, And Lethe here affords no tonic; Nothing but Death can hope to heal What looks as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... a man who makes accurate forecasts of the weather may get up to any devilry. And he protests too much. He keeps coming up to me and making long speeches to prove that he didn't do it. But I never said he did. Somebody else started that rumour, but of course he thinks that I did. That comes of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... Constantine lapsed into her former life of loneliness; and by these prompt measures the ghost of a rumour which had barely started into existence was speedily laid to rest. It had probably originated in her own dwelling, and had gone but little further. Yet, despite her self-control, a certain north window of the Great House, that commanded an uninterrupted view ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... life in battle, and brought the tale to pass: Then goeth the word of the Giants, and the world seems waxen old For the dimness of King Rerir and the tale of his warfare told: Yet unhushed are the singers' voices, nor yet the harp-strings cease While yet is left a rumour of the mirk-wood's broken peace, And of Sigi the very ancient, and the unnamed Sons of God, Of the days when the Lords of Heaven full ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... certain Northern suburb has died down. The rumour that there was a polite grocer there turns out to be cruelly at variance ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... be rumours starting from this interne's remark and supported by your avowed doctrines, but we must combine to suppress them. The newspapers cannot print a line without our authority, and they'll never get it. They will not dare to print a rumour that cannot be substantiated. I spoke of George a moment ago for a very good reason. I am afraid of him. He has been going down hill pretty fast of late. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that he had sunk low ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... his department. Broke was at once created a Baronet and a Knight of the Bath. In America, on the other hand, the story of the fight was received with mingled wrath and incredulity. "I remember," says Rush, afterwards U.S. Minister at the Court of St. James, "at the first rumour of it, the universal incredulity. I remember how the post-offices were thronged for successive days with anxious thousands; how collections of citizens rode out for miles on the highway to get the earliest news the mail brought. At last, when the certainty was known, I remember ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... A RUMOUR once prevailed that a neighbouring mountain was in labour; it was affirmed that she had been heard to utter prodigious groans; and a general expectation had been raised that some extraordinary birth was ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... of me Who gave me back my child?' 'Be comforted,' Said Cyril, 'you shall have it:' but again She veiled her brows, and prone she sank, and so Like tender things that being caught feign death, Spoke not, nor stirred. By this a murmur ran Through all the camp and inward raced the scouts With rumour of Prince Arab hard at hand. We left her by the woman, and without Found the gray kings at parle: and 'Look you' cried My father 'that our compact be fulfilled: You have spoilt this child; she laughs at you and man: She ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... a family, which, of all others, has ever been devoted to her, and inimical to us. Had we not been wary, she would have been purveyed of a page as much to her purpose as her waiting-damsel. I hear a rumour that an old mad Romish pilgrimer, who passes for at least half a saint among them, was employed ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... the spirit of adventure. He was the owner of the title to a land-lot somewhere in the neighbourhood of Hog Mountain, and this land-lot was all that remained of an inheritance that had been swept away by the war. There was a tradition—perhaps only a rumour—among the Woodwards that the Hog Mountain land-lot covered a vein of gold, and to investigate this was a part of the young man's business in Gullettsville; entirely subordinate, however, to his desire to earn the ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... everybody in such a state of unpleasurable excitement that they were only too glad to get another Englishman with whom to talk over matters. Not that their information amounted to much, however. There was a rumour of the Bronker's Spruit disaster and other rumours of the investment of Pretoria, and of the advance of large bodies of Boers to take possession of the pass over the Drakensberg, known as Laing's Nek, but there ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... youngest child, her little Paul, would not be torn from her side to follow the bloody trail of war. Her two first-born sons, the younger of whom was twenty-two, had long been very finished young gallants, trained to every military enterprise, and eager to unsheathe their swords whenever rumour told of slight to King Henry or his haughty queen from the proud Protector, who for a time had held the reins of government, though exercising his powers in the name of the ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of any more particular cognomen, they had christened him the Major; because in his curt manners, his closely buttoned-up coat, tightly-strapped trousers, and heavy moustache, there was a certain military flavour, which had given rise to the rumour that the unknown had in some remote period been one of the defenders of his country. Whether he had enlisted as a private, and had been bought-off by his friends; whether he had borne the rank of an officer, and had sold his commission, or had been cashiered, ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... man and boy, nearly ninety years. He had never been off the island, and had strange notions of the rest of the world. Talked of England, London, theatres, palaces, king's entertainments, evening parties. He saw them all through the mists of rumour, and by the light of his Bible. He had strange notions, some of them bad shots for the truth, some of them startlingly true. I dare not tell you what they were. A Royal Institution audience would be aghast. They had, as a whole, a strong smell of sulphur. But the old bard was not merely ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... a rumour in letters of some disturbance or complot in the French Pyrenean army—generals suspected or dismissed, and ministers of war travelling to see what's the matter. 'Marry (as David says), this ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... should presume to inspect the transaction or claim a share in the settlement has filled the British mind with profound indignation, the echoes of which are heard rumbling round the world from the Guildhall to Gaboon and from the Congo to Tahiti. The mere press rumour that France might barter Tahiti for German goods filled the British newspaper world with supermundane wrath. That France should presume to offer or Germany should accept a French Pacific island in part discharge of liabilities contracted at Algeciras was a threat to British interests. Tahiti ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... an expression of disgust into his countenance, answered, "No good;" and on further examining him, Mr Worthy came to the conclusion that she was either a pirate, or a craft engaged in carrying off the inhabitants to work in the mines of Peru—the rumour having reached us at Valparaiso that some vessels had been fitted out for that purpose. He had for some time been serving on board a whaler, where he had learned English; and having deserted at a port in Peru, had joined this craft in the ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... do that again. There's a fresh rumour that Rajah Hamet is bringing his men up there; and we may have an attack from the lower ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... he entered, the lion threw his paws upon his shoulders, and licked his face, and ran to and fro in the den, fawning and full of joy, like a dog at the sight of his master. After several embraces and salutations exchanged on both sides, they parted very good friends. The rumour of this interview between the lion and the stranger rung immediately through the whole city, and Sir George was very near passing for a saint among the people. The great duke, when he heard of it, sent for Sir George, who waited upon his highness, to the den, and to satisfy his curiosity, gave ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... diaphaneity, is on the point of disappearing altogether. It is the name of a nonentity, and has no right to a place among first principles. Those who still cling to it are clinging to a mere echo, the faint rumour left behind by the disappearing 'soul' upon the air of ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... sort of inn or resting-place, the proprietor finding compensation for the dreariness of his situation in the large profit derived from an illegal but thriving traffic in liquor. A more unkempt, unattractive establishment could hardly be imagined, and if rumour was to be relied upon, it had good reason to be haunted by more than ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... busy haunts of men, and the rumour of wars or political changes came worn to a mere sound, to our mountain abodes. England had been the scene of momentous struggles, during my early boyhood. In the year 2073, the last of its kings, the ancient friend of my father, had abdicated in compliance with ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... when it was announced that Rabelais had returned to life and was about to deliver a lecture at the London School of Economics, Mrs. Whirtle, who was a learned woman, with a well-deserved reputation in the field of objective psychology, called it a rumour and discredited it (in a public lecture) on ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... stealing on her? She dared not confide her fears to any neighbour, nor would she have put much faith in the report of observation unwhetted thereby; and she lived in daily dread of hearing the news announced as no mere conjecture or rumour, but a very hard fact. As the days wore on the idea took possession of her more and more completely, but she could only wreak her helpless ill-humour by doing foolish and futile things, such as dilating to ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... unnoticed and be buried in an unrecorded grave. When the Earl of Arundel, a few years later, sought to learn where he might set up a monument to one he so greatly admired, there was only this vague and uncorroborated rumour that the painter was buried in Saint Catharine-Cree. And so no monument was built to mark the spot where Holbein's "measure of sliding sand" had been spilled ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... many interwoven sounds, soft lisp of wavelets on the sands a hundred feet below, hum of nocturnal insect life in thickets and plantations, sobbing of a tiny, vagrant breeze lost and homeless in that vast serenity, wailing of a far violin, rumour of distant motor-cars. A night of potent witchery, a woman ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... When there was a rumour of war with France a while ago, I met a poor Sligo woman, a soldier's widow, that I know, and I read her a sentence out of a letter I had just had from London: "The people here are mad for war, but France seems inclined to take ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... interval, before the enemy were actually at hand, but while rumour said they were advancing, Cyrus took on himself a three-fold task: to bring the physical strength of his men to the highest pitch, to teach them tactics, and to rouse their spirit for martial deeds. [21] He asked Cyaxares for a body of assistants whose duty it should be to provide each of ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... his aides-de-camp in great splendour like Napoleon. To me it seemed that his personality and his despotic rule hung like a dark shadow over the camp. He was especially interesting and terrible to us chaplains, because rumour had it that he did not believe in chaplains, and no one could find out whether he was going to take us or not. The chaplains in consequence were very polite when inadvertently they found themselves in ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... as of your advice for collecting and restoring to a sound state the fragments that remain. For the present, though I believe everything finds its way to you in the letters of your friends, or even by messengers and rumour, yet I will write briefly what I think you would like to learn from niy letters above all others. On the 4th of August I started froui Dyrrarhium, the very day on which the law about me was carried. I arrived at ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the sea's, he is still Beethoven, gigantic in pride, purity, and passion. "I dream now," said Rodomant; "like the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters, so stir my shadows, dim shapes of sound, across the chaos of my fathomless intention." This "Rumour" has never been reprinted in America; it will, then, be excusable to give here a scene which Is indeed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... progress of civilisation school life in Scotland has taken on a high degree of refinement, and rumour has it—but what will people not say?—that a new boy will come in a cab to the Seminary and will receive a respectful welcome from the generation following Peter, and that the whole school will devote itself to his comfort for days—showing him where to hang ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... and God grant they are not true. About a month ago, some one who makes a show of friendship for me spoke very evilly about their deeds. I rebuked him, told him that it was not well to talk so, and begged him not to do so again to me. However, I should like Buonarroto quietly to find out how the rumour arose of my having calumniated the Medici; for if it is some one who pretends to be my friend, I ought to be ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... have the disposal of the new ones. Therefore, without seeming to have any foresight concerning the lands that were coming on to be out of lease, I set myself to constrain Mr M'Lucre to give up the guildry, as it were, of his own free-will; and what helped me well to this, was a rumour that came down from London, that there was to be a dissolution ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... recently broken ice, and had come on into town while we slept and none knew of our return, with the news that some one had been drowned. The mail for Fairbanks did but await the mail from Fort Yukon, and the town rumour, instantly identifying the abandoned sled, was carried across to Fairbanks, to my great distress and annoyance. The echoes of the distorted account of this misadventure which appeared in a Fairbanks newspaper still reverberate ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... christened "PEKOE" by his schoolfellows. Mrs. DABCHICK rides in a huge landau with blue wheels, and leaves cards on the fringes of the aristocracy. DABCHICK himself aspires to Parliament, and never keeps the same circle of friends for more than about six months. He knows one shady Viscount to whom rumour asserts that he has lent immense sums of Guatemalan money, and the approach of a Marquis makes him palpitate with emotion. But he is a profoundly miserable man. Of that I am assured. It amuses me when I meet him in pompous society to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various
... her fate unknown, he still would be vainly searching for her throughout those seas, till, perchance, some spars, or part of the hull, might be washed on some distant shore, and recognised, and a rumour might reach his ears of the destruction of the pirate's bark, and the suspicions of her doom might at length be confirmed. This thought was, perhaps, the most cruel she had to bear. These and many more passed through ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... two were of the usual stolid, sulky type. The third, who accompanied me, was a character. A squat little bundle of furs, with beady black eyes twinkling slyly from a face to which incessant cold and bad brandy had imparted the hues of a brilliant sunset. Local rumour gave Mikouline forty years, but he might have been any age, certainly an octogenarian in such primitive vices as were feasible within the restricted area of his Arctic home. Mikouline had once travelled some distance down the coast, and was therefore installed as guide. He and ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... only child of an old English family of fallen fortune. Rumour said he was of extravagant habits, but that he expected some day to inherit a fine property and large fortune ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... said he, "to this idle and mischievous rumour. Means have been used to discover its likelihood or credibility, but we find it to be utterly false and unworthy of our notice. The inventor of these tales shall ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... ran down the batch, for the chapel-goers were all inside. The hedges were full of white 'archangel' and purple vetch. When she came to the beginning of Hunter's Spinney she felt frightened; the woods were so far-reaching, so deep with shadow; the trees made so sad a rumour, and swayed with such forlorn abandon. In the dusky places the hyacinths, broken but not yet faded, made a purple carpet, solemn as a pall. Woodruff shone whitely by the path and besieged her with scent. Early wild-roses stood here and there, weighed down with their own beauty, ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... patrician element, shaped their own political destiny by the light of nature and in the teeth of great difficulties. Almost to a man their leaders in this great work would have been regarded as "turbulent demagogues and dangerous agitators," and often were so regarded, when the rumour of their activities penetrated to far-off London. The old catchwords of revolution, spoliation and treason, consecrated to the case of Ireland, would have been applied here with equal vehemence, and were in fact applied by the official classes in the Colonies themselves, round whom small anti-democratic ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... the Zoo's dietary," says Mr. POCOCK, "were effected without difficulty." The rumour that the hippopotamus demanded a pailful of jam with its mangel-wurzels, in the belief that they were some kind of homoeopathic pill, appears ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 9, 1917 • Various
... was always in great favour with him. Nemours excited his jealousy, and Nemours only dreaded Conde. However, shortly before, in the month of March, 1652, the Marquis de la Boulay and Count de Choisy, both enamoured of this Queen of Hearts, were bent on fighting a duel about her. A rumour of their intention got wind. The Duchess de Chatillon heard of it, and appeared unexpectedly on the spot fixed by the two adversaries for a rendezvous; and at the very instant they were about to unsheath their swords, she flung herself between them, seized each by the hand, and led them ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... would have indeed remained under an ineffaceable stain had they left women and children without shelter upon the veldt in the presence of a large Kaffir population. Even Mr. Stead could hardly have ruined such a case by exaggeration. On some rumour that it would be so, he drew harrowing pictures of the moral and physical degradation of the Boer women in the vicinity of the British camps. No words can be too strong to stigmatise such assertions unless the proof ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ultimately lost. Spare kit including Sam Browne belts was packed and consigned to the Depot. In anticipation of an early death many of the officers and men made their wills. This was encouraged by a rumour that the War Office had ordered a further 76,000 ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... Rumour with its hundred tongues had spread far and wide the news, that a more than ordinary demonstration would be made of the might of Town, and that this demonstration would be met by a corresponding increase of prowess ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... stir or rumour in the world than many of his admirers expected. Sir Samuel Romilly, for example, writing on the 20th of August to a French lady who had wanted a copy of the new edition of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, says: "I have been ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... were much surprised by the appearance of a prahu with three Dayaks who had a dog and a sumpitan and brought a pig which they had killed in the morning. They were the chief, with two companions, from Data Long on the Kasao River for which we were aiming. The rumour of our party had reached his ears, and with thirty men he had been waiting for us on this side of the watershed. Their scanty provisions soon ran out, and after waiting nine days all had returned home except the present party, whom we welcomed. ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... from their nation, presumed, in confidence of that merit, to approach the hall in which he dined: being discovered, they were exposed to the insults of the bystanders; they took to flight; the people pursued them; the rumour was spread that the king had issued orders to massacre all the Jews; a command so agreeable was executed in an instant on such as fell into the hands of the populace; those who had kept at home were exposed to equal danger; the people, moved by rapacity ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... waxen image of his friend, what a stormy life he himself has passed; how little real tranquillity he can ever have enjoyed, and wondering whether he will be permitted to finish his presidential days in peace, which, according to rumour, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... there was fighting on the line to Ornes and at Herbebois, and there, too, the garrisons held their positions, having fought throughout the day and inflicted enormous losses on the Boches. Elsewhere I cannot tell you what the position is, though there is rumour ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... drawing near. In the last few days of November, as the rumour of a Coup d'Etat was circulating, the prince-president was accused of seeking ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... followed for Fedor Ivanitch. He found himself in a continual fever. Every morning he made for the post, and tore open letters and papers in agitation, and nowhere did he find anything which could confirm or disprove the fateful rumour. Sometimes he was disgusting to himself. "What am I about," he thought, "waiting, like a vulture for blood, for certain news of my wife's death?" He went to the Kalitins every day, but things had grown no easier ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... and fell back into his lethargy. Whips cracked, and the gigantic vision had passed. That was June 11—Waterloo was the 18th. On the 20th, three or four hours after the first doubtful rumour had reached us, a carriage drew up to change horses. There was the same inert figure, and the same question and answer. The team broke into a gallop, and the fallen Napoleon was gone. Soon all went on in the ordinary way, and in our little town, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the whole Harold Smith party held their heads very high. It was not only that their man had been made a Cabinet minister; but a rumour had got abroad that Lord Brock, in selecting him, had amazingly strengthened his party, and done much to cure the wounds which his own arrogance and lack of judgement had inflicted on the body politic of his Government. So said the Harold-Smithians, much elated. And when we consider what Harold had ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... manner up and down the streets, seemingly bent on some mischief. All the men being obliged to mount guard, the women were terrified to remain by themselves in their houses, expecting every moment to be murdered or scalped. During this confusion, a false rumour was spread, that they had cut off the president's head with a tomahawk, which so exasperated the inhabitants, that it was with difficulty the officers could prevent them from firing on the savages. To save a ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... deal farther; and they were found drugged with cigarettes or chocolates and their whole property missing. Then came one case where the girl was found dead; but deliberation could not quite be proved, and, what was more practical still, the criminal could not be found. I heard a rumour of his having reappeared somewhere in the opposite character this time, lending money instead of borrowing it; but still to such poor widows as he might personally fascinate, but still with the same bad result for them. Well, there is your innocent man, ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... blest ground but it was play'd about With its peculiar glory. Then I rais'd My voice and cried "Wide Afric, doth thy Sun Lighten, thy hills enfold a City as fair As those which starr'd the night o' the Elder World? Or is the rumour of thy Timbuctoo A dream as frail as those of ancient Time?" A curve of whitening, flashing, ebbing light! A rustling of white wings! The bright descent Of a young Seraph! and he stood beside me There on the ridge, ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... came that they had caught you. I did not believe it; others present doubted it.... But as the rumour concerned you, I took no chances; I came instantly. I—I had rather be dead than see you here——" Her voice became unsteady, but she ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... Rumour ran through the ranks of the Four Hundred, and the rustle of it was as the wind in a great forest. For one of the proudest titles from beyond the sea, before which the wealth and fashion of the city had marshalled their ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... indeed that I went in," he said to Gervaise, "for I found the city in an uproar. The alarm bells of the churches were calling all citizens to arms, and troops were being hurried down to the forts and batteries. Rumour had of course exaggerated the strength of the fleet, and half the population believed that the safety of the city itself was menaced by the approach of a mighty squadron. As soon as my news was bruited ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... himself in doubt the average man is naturally in utter confusion. The more conservative communions neither accept nor teach the results of the higher criticism, and so it reaches the body of their communicants only as rumour and a half-understood ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... vigour to the public through the newspapers, which it was claimed they owned or subsidized. Then followed a series of arraignments of the strike leaders calculated to stir the wildest prejudices and fears of the citizens of Hampton. Antonelli and Jastro—so rumour had it—in various nightly speeches had advised their followers to "sleep in the daytime and prowl like wild animals at night"; urged the power house employees to desert and leave the city in darkness; made the declaration, "We will win if we ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... distribute his whole fortune equally among the three, but in such a manner that they should not possess or enjoy what was given them; {and} further, that as soon as they should cease to have the property which they had received, they should pay over to their Mother a hundred thousand sesterces. The rumour spreads all over Athens. The anxious Mother consults the learned in the law. No one can explain in what way they are not to possess what has been given, or have the enjoyment {of it}; and then again, in what way those who have received nothing, are to pay money. After a long time ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... vastly suspicious by the many wiseacres who knew the business of everybody better than their own. And the rumour waxed and spread. ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... justified. Here, however, in this land of convents and confessionals, such a presence as his was not to be suffered with impunity in a "pensionnat de demoiselles." The school gossiped, the kitchen whispered, the town caught the rumour, parents wrote letters and paid visits of remonstrance. Madame, had she been weak, would now have been lost: a dozen rival educational houses were ready to improve this false step—if false step it were—to her ruin; but Madame was ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... Minos; nor can I liken myself to Ariadne; wherefore speak not of guest-love. But only do thou, when thou hast reached Iolcus, remember me, and thee even in my parents' despite, will I remember. And from far off may a rumour come to me or some messenger-bird, when thou forgettest me; or me, even me, may swift blasts catch up and bear over the sea hence to Iolcus, that so I may cast reproaches in thy face and remind thee that it was by my good will thou didst escape. May I then be seated ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... into the elevator. "They've been working on their job since before the war, and there isn't a harbour on the east or west coast that they haven't got sized up. They've spent a million dollars in graft since January, and there's a rumour that the new Navy Department scheme for dealing with submarines, which was only adopted last month, is ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... stories of Dr. Johnston's severity; of his keeping boys in after school for a whole afternoon; of the tremendous whippings he gave with that terrible strap of his, the tails of which had, according to popular rumour, been first soaked in vinegar, and then studded with small shot; of the rigorous care with which the lessons were heard, every boy in the class having to show that he was well prepared, or to take the consequences. These, and other stories which had reached Bert's ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... Tantalus was given A long-withheld repose. A son alone Was wanting to complete my parent's bliss; Scarce was this wish fulfill'd, and young Orestes, The household's darling, with his sisters grew, When new misfortunes vex'd our ancient house. To you hath come the rumour of the war, Which, to avenge the fairest woman's wrongs, The force united of the Grecian kings Round Ilion's walls encamp'd. Whether the town Was humbl'd, and achiev'd their great revenge I have not heard. My father led the host In Aulis vainly for a favouring gale ...
— Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... Eustace did not refer to the property at all. In the natural course of things, the widow would only have a life-interest in the income. Why should Sir Florian make away, in perpetuity, with his family property? Nevertheless, there had been a rumour abroad that Sir Florian had been very generous; that the Scotch estate was to go to a second son in the event of there being a second son;—but that otherwise it was to be at the widow's own disposal. No doubt, had Lord Fawn been persistent, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... than this will be has never been known. From village to village the rumour will fly that his own son has risen against his poisoner of a father at the head of the people, has cut to pieces every member of his family, and levelled his ancestral halls to the ground. He will be looked upon as a public avenger. Horribly black rumours will be noised abroad all over the ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... claims to sit for Barchester such as could be despised. If money were to be of avail, he had plenty of it, and was prepared to spend it; whereas, rumour said that Mr Moffat was equally determined to do nothing so foolish. Then again, Sir Roger had a sort of rough eloquence, and was able to address the men of Barchester in language that would come home to their hearts, in words that would endear him to one party ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... This rumour put an end to all inquiry after his jewels, his ring, or his watch; and as for the seven hundred pistoles, that I secured. For the bills which were in hand, I owned I had them, but that, as I said I brought my husband thirty thousand livres portion, I claimed the said bills, ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... chaff we should lose the corn hidden there. Where there is smoke it is well to remember there is always, at least, a smoulder of fire. Grant that much has been made of little, which is a weakness of the critic in every time, and that all the rumour has resulted simply from some lack of definiteness on the part of a few. Grant, also, that as the criminal is always far more talked about for his transgression than the honest man for his honesty, so the man who ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... driving at full speed to St. James's Palace, heralded by the dove of peace, while Fox, Sheridan, etc., hang on behind and cry out, "Stop; stop; take us in." Pitt and Dundas are seen leaving the palace. The rumour gains in credibility from a Memorandum of the Marquis; but it is doubtful whether George ever thought seriously of giving up Pitt, still less of seeking support from the discredited and unpopular Lansdowne, whose views on the French Revolution were utterly opposed to those of the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... mail-coach, when carrying down the first tidings of any such event. And it is to be noted that, from our insular situation, and the multitude of our frigates disposable for the rapid transmission of intelligence, rarely did any unauthorised rumour steal away a prelibation from the first aroma of the regular despatches. The government news was generally ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... the first rumour of the fact that the Van Dam Trust was backing the schemes of the Allied Bankers in their sensational raid on the market ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... rumour of this wonderful recovery had escaped to without the house—passing from one watcher to the other till at length it reached the ears of the solitary man crouched in the shadow of the pines. He heard, and starting as though he had been shot, strode to the door of the Vicarage. Here his ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... It has even been rumoured in the neighbourhood that he had abandoned the child and its mother in order to go away with a strange woman. In a few hours this rumour has grown into definite accusations, and at the same time the feeling against him has risen to such a point that his life is threatened and he is ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... that flits on baby's eyes—does anybody know from where it comes? Yes, there is a rumour that it has its dwelling where, in the fairy village among shadows of the forest dimly lit with glow-worms, there hang two shy buds of enchantment. From there it comes to kiss ...
— The Crescent Moon • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.) |
