"Hearsay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scientific man makes is to distinguish between the two kinds of truth in each respective realm, and to separate that kind which may be demonstrated to the experience from that which must be taken on hearsay. That is, in the natural realm, in the department of chemistry, for example, the laws of chemical action can be put to the laboratory test of experiment, while the history of the science of chemistry must always be taken on hearsay. ...
— The Church, the Schools and Evolution • J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant
... the hues of the past, and, in addition, contains some up-to-date threads of severely utilitarian composition. The number of those who claim direct experience of spiritual verity as against mere hearsay is greater than ever. The discovery of the soul is attracting students of every description. The powers of suggestion, and the creative possibilities of the subconscious mind, have opened up new fields of religious ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... long purse; and the story is left to be told, for the first time, in this place. As the Judge might once have heard it, so the Reader shall hear it now. No circumstance of importance, from the beginning to the end of the disclosure, shall be related on hearsay evidence. When the writer of these introductory lines (Walter Hartright by name) happens to be more closely connected than others with the incidents to be recorded, he will describe them in his own person. When his experience fails, he will retire from ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... at work. Religion, striving to maintain itself upon the dogmatic creeds of the past, was rapidly petrifying into a mere "dead Letter of Religion," from which all the living spirit had fled; and those who could not nourish themselves on hearsay and inherited formula knew not where to look for the renewal of faith and hope. The generous ardour and the splendid humanitarian enthusiasms which had been stirred by the opening phases of the revolutionary ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... make such a charge just on hearsay evidence. It would only be common sense for me to see ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... Hargreaves, Ross—refer casually to this early era and are valuable for local identification, but quite worthless for authentic data on the period preceding their own lives. This does not impair the value of their records of the time in which they lived. It simply means that they had no data but hearsay on ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... themselves to criticise, to doubt, to argue, their very existence, as a people, would have ceased. They must go on believing, or all reality vanishes from their minds, accustomed for so many ages to take in that solid knowledge founded, it is true, on hearsay; but how else can truth reach us save by hearsay? Hence, their simple and artless acquiescence in any thing they hear from trustworthy lips - acquiescence ever refused to a known enemy, never to a well-tried ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... and sweet. In a town half mountain, half plain, he made friends at the inn with Don Fernando, son of an ancient, proud, decaying house, poor as poverty. Don Fernando had been in Paris, knew by hearsay England, and had heard Scotland mentioned. Spaniard and Scot drank together. The former was drawn into almost love of Ian. Here was a help against boundless ennui! Ian and his horse, and the small mail strapped ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... instead of going yourself. It is, that then the occasion remains wholly fair in your memory. You, who devote yourself to dining out, and who are to be daily seen affably sitting down to such feasts, as I know mainly by hearsay—by the report of waiters, guests, and others who were present—you cannot escape the little things that spoil the picture, and which ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... Bedouin always by sneering at their ignorance, saying that where you come from men know what is proper. And Jimgrim, having truly made the pilgrimage to Mecca, will confound them likewise, having knowledge, whereas most of these rascals only know by hearsay." ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... Tolstoy. Dostoievsky was a profounder nature, greater than Tolstoy, though he was not the finished literary artist. All that Tolstoy tried to be, Dostoievsky was. He did not "go to the people" (that pose of dilettantish anarchy)—he was born of them; he did not write about Siberian prisons from hearsay, he lived in them; he did not attempt to dive into the deep, social waters of the "submerged tenth," because he himself seldom emerged to the surface. In a word, Dostoievsky is a profounder psychologist than Tolstoy; his faith was firmer; ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... clearly and distinctly conceived. The objects of knowledge fall into certain groups or series; in each series there is some simple and dominant element which may be immediately apprehended, and in relation to which the subordinate elements become intelligible. Let us accept nothing on hearsay or authority; let us start with doubt in order to arrive at certitude; let us test the criterion of certitude to the uttermost. There is one fact which I cannot doubt, even in doubting all—I think, and if I think, I exist—"Je ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... life since they had last seen her. She felt a need for a reaction of gaiety, after her sadness of the days just past. The Graces fixed their round eyes upon her, upon that Lily who was so thoroughly up in all sorts of things which they knew only by hearsay: men, love. A life fit to kill a horse; and a very nice girl, for all that: a kind of forbidden fruit, pink and fair-haired, soft to the touch; and no jealousy between them, friendship rather, a rare ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... we'll find a way," declared the old sailor, with a hopefulness he was far from feeling, for he knew well, by hearsay, of the terrible swamp quagmires that swiftly suck their victims down to a horrible death in the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and of warlike might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and His breath shall be drawn in the fear of Jehovah. And He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, nor decide by hearsay: but with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and give sentence with equity for the meek of the earth; but He shall smite the scorners with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked, so that righteousness shall be the girdle of ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... possess, or for those with which our own love endows them. Here was a young girl, inexperienced in world and men, joyfully sinking her own life in that of a man whom, but a few months before, had been only a matter of hearsay to her. Yet she had apparently taken him, as women will, for better, for worse, till death, as trustfully as if he and men generally were as knowable as A B C, instead of as unknown as the algebraic X. Only once had she faltered in her trust of him, and then but ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... my attention—you didn't see me. I heard you ask for the book—I will not mention the name. I saw the clerk hand it to you—give you your change. Saw the whole transaction with my own eyes! This is no hearsay." ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... steamboat to reach Yuma with supplies was the Uncle Sam, which arrived in 1852. Of all this I can tell, of course, only by hearsay, but there is no doubt that the successful voyage of the Uncle Sam to Yuma established the importance of that place and gave it pre-eminence over any other shipping point into the territories for ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... that I am filling certain gaps in the narrative with imagined detail. But the facts are true. My added detail is only intended to give an appearance of life and reality to my history. Let me, therefore, insist upon one vital point. I have not been dependent on hearsay for one single fact in this story. Where my experience does not depend upon personal experience, it has been received from the principals themselves. Finally, it should be remembered that when I have, imaginatively, put words into the mouths ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... a witness to wander at will over the entire field of knowledge, hearsay, surmise and opinion has several distinct advantages over our practice. In giving hearsay evidence, for example, he may suggest a new and important witness of whom the counsel for the other side would not otherwise have heard, and who can then be brought into ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... Other accounts say that Venkatadri was killed in the battle, and that Tirumala alone of the three brothers survived. Firishtah only wrote from hearsay, and was perhaps misinformed. Probably for ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... joined in the same "hue and cry" with their worthy compeers. The reasons were evident in their case. They knew I was invading their dearest worldly interests. There were others who only knew me from hearsay. Why should they become my enemies? It was because I held in my possession secrets, whose exposition would make many of them tremble. It would be to them like the interpreted handwriting upon the wall. Hence they ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... I can tell you nothing more about him, except what is derived from hearsay evidence, which is always unsatisfactory evidence, ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... the man by hearsay, though we had never met before; and I knew that he was of a nature to be pleased with his own prominence as coroner, especially in the case of so important a man as ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... assent to affirmations, and to reproduce them, without even clearly distinguishing them from the results of his own observation. In every-day life do we not accept indiscriminately, without any kind of verification, hearsay reports, anonymous and unguaranteed statements, "documents" of indifferent or inferior authority? It takes a special reason to induce us to take the trouble to examine into the origin and value of a document on the history of yesterday; ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... overpowering, far exceed any thing imputed to the Indians of America; and, as several of these letters an from individuals who joined the Peninsular Array from this country, in which they had passed many years, the statement may be relied on as coming from men who have had men than hearsay ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... between white men and black, lynching must be wrong, and must tend to make the difficulties of a mixed population even greater than they were already. Whatever may be the vices of the black man, burning negroes alive at the mandate of an irresponsible mob, who are acting on rumour and hearsay, cannot but be the very acme of human depravity. And it is as stupid as ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... first time I have had a chance to tell it as it was, without some squirt of a lawyer pointing his finger at me and trying to make me change the story; or some other limb of the law interrupting me with objections that it was incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial, not the best evidence, hearsay, a privileged communication, and a lot of other balderdash. This is what took place, just as I have stated it; and this is all the Vandemark Township, Monterey County, or Iowa history there was ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... masterly defence by Erskine and Gibbs, aroused a tumult of joy in the vast crowd outside such as London had rarely seen. Hardy afterwards asserted that, in case of a conviction, Government had decided to arrest about 800 more persons.[333] This is mere hearsay; but it has been fastened upon by those who seek to father upon Pitt the design of reviving the days of Strafford and "Thorough." A fortnight previously Watt, once a government informer, was convicted at Edinburgh ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... was in raptures: he knew something, he said, of the lady's father, and enough of the family, by hearsay, to confirm all I had said of them; and besought me to do my utmost to bring the affair to a ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... There is hearsay evidence that Peg added to this speech a wish and desire to "bust the crust" of her traducers, and remarking that "that was the kind of hair-pin" she was, closed the conversation with an unfortunate accident to the plate, that left a severe contusion on the legal brow of her ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... a random shot, as she did not know Billings or any other town save by hearsay, but it made a bull's-eye. Susie knew it by the startled look which she surprised from him, and Smith could have throttled ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... great a chasm between them and ecclesiastical writings. Why should I look with more respect on the napkins taken from Paul's body (Acts xix. 12), than on pocket-handkerchiefs dipped in the blood of martyrs? How could I believe, on this same writer's hearsay, that "the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip" (viii. 39), transporting him through the air; as oriental genii are supposed to do? Or what moral dignity was there in the curse on the barren fig-tree,—about which, moreover, we are so perplexingly told, that ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... said that what is revelation to the man who receives it, is only hearsay to the man who gets it at secondhand. If anyone comes to you with a message from God, first button your pockets, and then ask him for his credentials. You will find that he has none. He can only tell you what someone else told him. If you meet the original messenger, he can only cry "thus saith ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... proper to give notice that advertisements of their plays, by their authority, are published only in this paper and the Daily Courant, and that the publishers of all other papers who insert advertisements of the same plays, can do it only by some surreptitious intelligence or hearsay, which frequently leads them to commit gross errors, as, mentioning one play for another, falsely representing the parts, &c., to the misinformation of the town, and the great detriment of the said theatre." And the Public Advertiser of January 1st, 1765, contains ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... Pilate:—Historical truths are merely probabilities. If you had fought at the battle of Philippi, that is for you a truth which you know by intuition, by perception. But for us who dwell near the Syrian desert, it is merely a very probable thing, which we know by hearsay. How much hearsay is necessary to form a conviction equal to that of a man who, having seen the thing, can flatter himself that he has a ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... all those notes I took—not worth the paper on which they are written. Everything is hearsay—nothing definite. And yet there is some mystery attached to the whole affair. I am sorely puzzled about that missing gold and where the Rector obtained the money ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... this experiment and to participate in it. But even this morning I warned you, that there have been such experiments before and that they have always ended in ignominious failure, at least those of which we know personally; while those of which we know only by hearsay are dubious as regards authenticity. But you have begun the business—and go on with it. We ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... little children get tired of nursery rhymes, or their elders turn away from "Punch and Judy," though the same little play has been performed for centuries. As for inventing stories about real people, that may well have seemed permissible in an age when historians recorded mere hearsay as actual fact. Richard III., perhaps, had one shoulder higher than the other, but within a few years of his death grave historians had represented ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... exacting money, as has been set forth in the preceding narrative. And his purpose was to lead the army straight for Palestine, in order that he might plunder all their treasures and especially those in Jerusalem. For he had it from hearsay that this was an especially goodly land and peopled by wealthy inhabitants. And all the Romans, both officers and soldiers, were far from entertaining any thought of confronting the enemy or of standing in the way of their passage, but ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... a summer trip across the Atlantic!" Thus sung and chorused my good friends one and all; some from experience, most from hearsay, ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... permission, to make a careful examination in precisely the one place where information was most likely to be found. The very existence of the manuscripts at Dux was known only to a few, and to most of these only on hearsay; and thus the singular good fortune was reserved for me, on my visit to Count Waldstein in September 1899, to be the first to discover the most interesting things contained in these manuscripts. M. Octave Uzanne, though he had not himself ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... inordinate fondness for the dance was the chief vice of the French court. Unfortunately the moral turpitude of the king and his favorites rests upon less suspicious grounds than the revolting stories told on hearsay by the unfriendly writer of the Eusebii Philadelphi Dialogi (Edinburgi, 1574), ii. 117, 118. The "Affair of Nantouillet," occurring just about the time of the Polish ambassadors' arrival in Paris, is only too authentic. The "Prevot de Paris," M. de Nantouillet (cf. ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... an Irish family, and, despite the Statute of Kilkenny, obtained a special permission to that effect—another evidence that social life among the natives could not have been quite what the malice of Cambrensis, and others who wrote from hearsay reports, and not from personal knowledge, have ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... curious sightseers." Sam Brewster never changed a muscle of his serious face nor did his voice have the slightest sign of any other feeling than a reverent desire to help his fellow-man. But the two men knew Sam Brewster by experience as well as from hearsay. ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... reason she has been so hard to kill. Nothing is so long-lived as a chimera, nothing so difficult to lay as a ghost. From her first appearance, or rather mention, in literature, Mrs. Grundy has been a mere hearsay, a bugaboo being invented to frighten society, as "black men" and other goblins have been wickedly invented by nurses to frighten children. In the old play itself where we first find her mentioned by name, she herself never ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... of reluctance to labour far exceeding the reality. Those who pay a reasonable price for work, and are punctual in their payments, do not fail to get as many labourers as they require. I assert this not from any vague hearsay, but from various unquestionable and authentic documents, amongst which are the examinations taken by Committees of the House of Assembly appointed to inquire into the causes and difficulties alleged to exist in the cultivation of estates. Whilst the poverty of ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... the keepers of the building could not be got to show them, since they contained, as they said, the sepulchres of the kings who built the labyrinth, and also those of the sacred crocodiles; thus it is from hearsay only that I can speak of the lower chambers. The upper chambers, however, I saw with my own eyes, and found them to excel all other human productions. The passage through the houses, and the various windings of the path across the courts, excited in me infinite admiration, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... Westminster. One virulent speech declared that the Convention had no prospects, never had any, and was never intended to have any. This was accompanied by an attack on the action of the Ulster group—based, of course, on hearsay. Those of us who felt that at any rate the Convention offered a better hope for Ireland than any which now could be based on action at Westminster pleaded for the acceptance of a proposal which Redmond put ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... Cuccaro. This testimony was afterwards withdrawn by the prosecutor; as it was found that the monk's recollection must have extended back considerably upward of a century. [265] The claim of Balthazar was negatived. His proofs that Christopher Columbus was a native of Cuccaro were rejected, as only hearsay, or traditionary evidence. His ancestor Domenico, it appeared from his own showing, died in 1456; whereas it was established that Domenico, the father of the admiral, was living upwards of thirty years after ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... examined. Ally was the first one sworn. He deposed to the circumstances attending the whipping of Phyllis, and the assault on Selma; but, as his evidence was altogether hearsay—he not being present on either occasion—it was ruled out, as was also his account of the bribing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... it is produced. The regular visitor to the Paris salons might know almost all that has been done in France in the way of mural painting. The public of our American exhibitions knows only vaguely and by hearsay what our mural painters have done and are doing. It is true that such work is infinitely better seen in place, but it is a pity it cannot be seen, even imperfectly, by the people who attend our exhibitions—people who ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... begin haymaking, and the air was fragrant of tossed and sun-dried grass. One of them walked apart from the rest, without interest or freedom of movement; her face, sealed and impassive, was aged beyond the vigour of her years. I knew the woman by sight, and her history by hearsay. We have a code of morals here—not indeed peculiar to this place or people—that a wedding is 'respectable' if it precedes child-birth by a bare month, tolerable, and to be recognised, should it succeed the same by less than a year (provided ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... This condition of affairs caused a clash among the 1,100 claimants, 700 of whose petitions on the definitive list were examined. Many other claimants were seeking evidence to secure compensation. They were not successful, however, for Cheves opposed the admission of hearsay testimony as well as the testimony of slaves. Well informed as to the progress of the commission, Congress passed an act May 15, 1828,[83] specifying August 31st as the last day on which the commission ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... like owls than eagles. As of old books, so of ancient virtue, honesty, fidelity, equity, new abridgments; every day spawns new opinions: heresy in divinity, in philosophy, in humanity, in manners, grounded upon hearsay; doctors contemn'd; the devil not so hated as the pope; many invectives, but no amendment. No more ado about caps and surplices; Mr. ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... stores on Main Street; never patronized the picture-show, and even had these glimpses been afforded, they'd have been pretty unsatisfactory. There was only one real way of discovering what the creature was like; discovering for yourself, that is—and hearsay evidence is notoriously unreliable; that was to buy a hat of ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... life, his heart bounded at the thought, that he was about to see all those scenes of courtly splendour and warlike adventures, of which the followers of Sir Halbert used to boast on their occasional visits to Avenel, to the wonderment and envy of those who, like Roland, knew courts and camps only by hearsay, and were condemned to the solitary sports and almost monastic seclusion of Avenel, surrounded by its lonely lake, and embossed among its pathless mountains. "They shall mention my name," he said to himself, "if the risk of my life can purchase me opportunities of distinction, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... Pleader at once objected to this statement being recorded, as it was hearsay. Nalini, however, assured the judge that the eye-witnesses were in attendance, and called them, one by one, to give evidence. Passing strange was their story. On the evening of Siraji's death they found her writhing in agony on the floor and, on being questioned, she gasped out ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... that it is a strict principle that "hearsay evidence" of an utterance will not be accepted in lieu of that of the person to whom the remark was made. Neither can we think it out of probability that such an objection may have been made by some over punctilious judge wishing to restrain Sam's exuberance. ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... 'Tis a common way with the Arabian Authors, when they intend to shew a vast disproportion between things, to compare the greater to the Sun and the lesser to Saturn. The meaning of this Distich, is that there is as much difference between what a Man knows by hearsay, or what notions he imbibes in his Education, and what he knows when he comes to examin things to the bottom, and know them experimentally, as there ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... nature, in a posthumous and metaphysical sphere. A mythical economy abounding in points of attachment to human experience and in genial interpretations of life, yet lifted beyond visible nature and filling a reported world, a world believed in on hearsay or, as it is called, on faith—that ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... rede of thine. Yesterday was I born, my feet are tender, and rough is the earth below. But if thou wilt I shall swear the great oath by my father's head, that neither I myself am to blame, nor have I seen any other thief of thy kine: be kine what they may, for I know but by hearsay." ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... has, so far, a knowledge of zoology, which is real and genuine, however limited it may be, and which is worth more than all the mere reading knowledge of the science he could ever acquire. His zoological information is, so far, knowledge and not mere hearsay. ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... satisfied his mind only partially. Some men whom he valeted might have been doped with opium, certainly, but all did not exhibit those indications which, from hearsay, he associated with the resin of ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... to find out, Mr. David Kent; not by hearsay, but in good, solid terms of fact that will appeal to a level-headed, conservative newspaper editor like—well, like Mr. Hildreth, of the Argus, let us say. Are you big enough ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... special kind; he himself, having no time to spare for loftier studies, became perforce a practical man. He adopted (how should he have done otherwise?) the language, errors, and opinions of the Parisian tradesman who admires Moliere, Voltaire, and Rousseau on hearsay, and buys their works, but never opens them; who will have it that the proper way to pronounce "armoire" is "ormoire"; "or" means gold, and "moire" means silk, and women's dresses used almost always to be made of silk, and in their cupboards they locked ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... volume has been in the press Sir G. Arthur's Life of Lord Kitchener has appeared, giving a different version of this story and probably the correct one. Walter Kitchener was speaking, I think, from hearsay.] ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... this much about the place from hearsay," he said in a guttural whisper. "It's supposed to be haunted. I've heard more than one of these jays,—big huskies too,—say they wouldn't go near the place after dark for all ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... no indictable offense in Jagger's connection with the horrid crimes of the Sink or Swim (as the doctor said with a wry face): for Docks would be but a poor witness in a court of law at St. Johns' knowing nothing of his own knowledge, but only by hearsay; and the bones of Skipper Jim already lay stripped and white in the waters of the Harbourless Shore. But, meantime, the doctor kept watch for opportunity to send frank warning to the man of Wayfarer's Tickle; and, soon, chance offered by way of the schooner Bound Down, Skipper ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... itself in ways not to be mistaken. There were incendiary fires within the lines. It was discovered that messengers had been sent to regiments at other stations, with incitements to insubordination. The officer in command at Barrackpore, General Hearsay, addressed the troops on parade, explained to them that the cartridges were not prepared with the obnoxious materials supposed, and set forth the groundlessness of their suspicions. The address was well received at first, but had no permanent effect. The ill-feeling spread to other ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... for the glory of God? The pinching of the devil's tail he was ready and eager to believe, and not only in the figurative sense. Besides he had, before visiting the monastery, a strong prejudice against the institution of "elders," which he only knew of by hearsay and believed to be a pernicious innovation. Before he had been long at the monastery, he had detected the secret murmurings of some shallow brothers who disliked the institution. He was, besides, a meddlesome, inquisitive man, who poked his nose into everything. This was why ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... minister, and explained that though he did not acknowledge the 'Persian Letters,' he would not disown a work for which he had no reason to blush; and that he ought to be judged upon its contents, and not upon mere hearsay. At last the minister read the book, loved the author, and learned wisdom as to his advisers. The French Academy obtained one of its greatest ornaments, and France had the happiness to keep a subject whom superstition or calumny had nearly deprived her of; for ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... so well known, it is likely that some will write down his doings, and, not knowing them save by hearsay, will write them wrongly and in different ways, whereof will come confusion, and at last none will be believed. Wherefore, as he will not set them down himself, it is best that I do so. Not that I would have anyone think that the penmanship is mine. Well may I handle oar, ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... the perpetually moving spot where history ends and prophecy begins. It is our only possession: the past we reach through lapsing memory, halting recollection, hearsay and belief; we pierce the future by wistful faith or anxious hope; but the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... except what you have told him; and I doubt very much whether any boy of his age possesses the capacity to conjure up a very lively feeling of gratitude for an obligation of which he knows nothing except from hearsay. Therefore I hope that you will not allow yourself to worry over any seeming lukewarmness ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... branch of the Amazons, to the River Paumaron, but never could find it. I was told by a man in the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly that this humming-bird is found in Mexico; but upon questioning him more about it his information seemed to have been acquired by hearsay; and so I concluded that it does not appear in Mexico. I suspect that it is never ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... then, still flat on the ground, wriggle below the crest. In the three minutes three men were wounded and two killed; and the guns were withdrawn. I also withdrew. I withdrew first. Indeed, all that happened after the first three seconds of those three minutes is hearsay, for I was in the Santiago road at the foot of the hill and retreating briskly. This road also was under a cross-fire, which made it stretch in either direction to an interminable distance. I remember a government teamster driving a Studebaker wagon filled with ammunition coming ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... it; if it is not, I reject it. And what am I to go by? My brain. That is the only light I have from nature, and if there be a God, it is the only torch that this God has given me by which to find my way through the darkness and the night called life. I do not depend upon hearsay for that. I do not have to take the word of any other man, nor get upon my knees before a book. Here, in the temple of the mind, I go and consult the God—that is to say, my reason—and the oracle speaks to me, and I obey the oracle. What should I obey? Another man's ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... my father more gently; 'I will not press you farther. I believe I ought to be glad that these habits are only hearsay ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... men striving with infinite confusion, and often uttering words like the east-wind, than in those who can discourse calmly and eloquently about a righteousness and mercy, which they know only by hearsay. The belief which a minister of God has in the eternity of the distinction between right and wrong should especially dispose him to recognise that distinction apart from mere circumstance and opinion. The ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... mankind to take for truth without further investigation any assertion that has often been reiterated. Most people are prone to believe that an assertion made by a thousand hearsay witnesses is true, overlooking the possibility of their drawing from a common false source. But it is surprising that an author like Prof. Arthur T. Hadley should fall into such an error. In his otherwise excellent work, "Railroad Transportation, Its History and Its Laws," ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... and hearsay evidence, Gerard Vossius (de Poetis Graecis, c. 6) and Le Clerc (Bibliotheque Choisie, tom. xix. p. 285) mention a commentary of Michael Psellus on twenty-four plays of Menander, still extant in Ms. at Constantinople. Yet such classic ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... manner with that fraternity called "Cadgers," our knowledge has been equally limited. No correct account has ever yet been given of this idle, but cunning class of the community. All that we have been told concerning them, is, to use the common phrase, but mere hearsay. We remember reading, some few years ago, of one of those begging gentry boasting of being able to make five shillings a day. He considered that sixty streets were easily got through, from sunrise to sunset, and that it ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... life is great and theirs are little," said Helen, taking fire. "I know of things they can't know of, and so do you. We know that there's poetry. We know that there's death. They can only take them on hearsay. We know this is our house, because it feels ours. Oh, they may take the title-deeds and the doorkeys, but for this one night we ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... immediate death to ourselves took away all bowels of love, all concern for one another. I speak in general, for there were many instances of immovable affection, pity, and duty in many, and some that came to my knowledge, that is to say, by hearsay; for I shall not take upon me to vouch the truth ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... affirms that "men have died, and worms have eaten them, but not for love." There is, however, one notable instance of this on record, in the story (as related by Warton, in his History of English Poetry) of the gallant troubadour Geoffrey Rudel, who died for love—and love, too, from hearsay description of the beauty of ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... shows that all modes of perception or knowledge may be reduced to four:- I. (2) Perception arising from hearsay or from some sign which everyone may name as he please. II. (3) Perception arising from mere experience - that is, form experience not yet classified by the intellect, and only so called because the given event has happened to take ...
— On the Improvement of the Understanding • Baruch Spinoza [Benedict de Spinoza]
... understood what he had formerly learnt by hearsay, from George Alvarez, and other Portuguese, that the empire of Japan was one of the most populous in the world; that the Japonese were naturally curious, and covetous of knowledge, and withal docible, and of great capacity; that being generally ingenious, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... during the time of the early Merovingian periods. The first writers who have touched upon this subject have spoken of it very vaguely, or not being contemporaries of the times of which they wrote, could only describe from tradition or hearsay. Those monuments in which early costume is supposed to be represented are almost all of later date, when artists, whether sculptors or painters, were not very exact in their delineations of costume, and even seemed to imagine that no other ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... throughout, that it was difficult to say that his mind was not as good as it ever had been. He had stored in it very little to feed on, and any mind would get enfeebled by a century's rumination on a hearsay idea of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... with the misconduct of one at least of the regular native cavalry regiments in the late Affghan war. "I have seen," (says the colonel,) "a lineal descendant of Pathan Nawab's serving in the ranks of Hearsay's horse, as a common trooper on twenty rupees a-month, out of which he had merely to buy and feed his horse, procure clothes, arms, and harness, and sustain his hereditary dignity! By his commander and his fellow-soldiers ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... hearsay. I am not going to drop Mr. Arabian because of hearsay, more especially when I don't even know ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... part of his general business was managed exclusively by his son-in-law, Henry D. Bacon, who was young, handsome, and generally popular. How he was drawn into that affair of the Ohio & Mississippi road I have no means of knowing, except by hearsay. Their business in New York was done through the American Exchange Bank, and through Duncan, Sherman & Co. As we were rival houses, the St. Louis partners removed our account from the American Exchange Bank to the Metropolitan ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... of Scotland, all printed by Pynson, as well as that mysterious volume ycleped 'The Nigramansir,' said to be by John Skelton the poet-laureate who lived under five kings and died in 1529. Many of Skelton's works, perhaps even the majority of his writings, are known to us by title and hearsay alone; but who shall say that his 'Speculum Principis,' or 'the Commedy Achademios callyd by name,' which he himself mentions, are lost beyond all hope of recovery? 'The Nigramansir' was actually seen by Thomas ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... come with me to the porter's cottage, where I will shortly write out the substance of what he has said, and get him to sign it. You will then have far better grounds for interfering between Mr. and Mrs. Manston than if you went to them with a mere hearsay story.' ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... story of your old man interested me very much; I suppose a parent can love all through a whole lifetime of absence: but do you think there can be a very strong and enduring affection in a child's bosom for a parent hardly known except by hearsay? I should doubt it. I must leave ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... a short laugh. "Naturally you do not take my meaning. Obviously you think I am not a competent witness, that I know nothing except by hearsay. You are, extraordinary as it may seem, quite wrong. My testimony would be of nothing but what ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... naturally into his surroundings as to demand no second look even from the most observant; yet one seeming to possess a magnetic attraction for the eyes of the hall-boy of the apartment hotel (who, acquainted by sight and hearsay with the stout gentleman's identity and calling, bent upon him a steadfast and adoring regard), as well as for the policeman who lorded it on the St. Nicholas Avenue corner, in front of the real-estate office, and who from time to time shifted his contemplation from the infinite spaces ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... (Shekyani) buried their dead under the bed within the house, these detestable Kaylees ate not only their prisoners, but their defunct friends, whose bodies were "bid for directly the breath was out of them;" indeed, fathers were frequently seen to devour their own children. Bowdich evidently speaks from hearsay; but the Brazil has preserved the old traditions of cannibalism amongst ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... one might endure it," cried Erica. "But to have such a man as my father condemned just as hearsay by people who are living lazy, wasteful lives is really too much. I came to Greyshot expecting at least unity, at least, peace in a Christian atmosphere, and THIS is what ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... think of that, did you? Oh, no! You gave no thought to the ruined home and the weeping wife, the broken-hearted mother and the fatherless child. That was outside your reckoning altogether. And, if hearsay be true (and in this case I believe it is) you even went so far as to kill a defenceless woman who had been brave enough to wander out across that particular part of the Fens just to see what those ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... cheeks and white forehead and curly hair, was every inch a king. He was her hero, and nothing could please her so much to the end of her days as to have somebody announce, whether from actual knowledge or hearsay, that Captain Jack Prince was the best shipmaster that ever sailed out of Dunport.... She always was sure there were some presents stored away for herself and young Jack, her brother, in one of the lockers of the little cabin. Poor Jack! how he used ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... shivering hundreds lined up on Tenth Street, the light streamed out upon a remnant of Life's jetsam—that which is submerged, which never comes to the surface unless drawn there by some searching and rescuing hand; that which the home-sheltered never see by daylight, never know, save from hearsay. In the neighboring rectory of Grace Church one dim light was burning in an upper room. The marble church itself looked a part of the winter scene; its walls and pinnacles, already encrusted with ice crystals, glittered fantastically ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... men wrote seldom herself, and at her death even caused to be destroyed the greater part of the few notes she had made toward an autobiography. In the present Memoirs Madame Lenormant chiefly relies upon her own personal knowledge of Madame Recamier's life, and upon contemporary hearsay. It is a very interesting book, as we have it, though at times provokingly unsatisfactory, and at times inflated and silly in style. It is not only a history of Madame Recamier, but a sketch of French society, politics, and literature during very ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... prepared to see my hopes blasted, and my affection for you spurned! My happiness, my dear Miss Goodwin—my happiness for life depends upon the result of this interview. I know—but I should not say so—for in this instance I must be guided by hearsay—well, I know from hearsay that your heart is kind and affectionate. Now I believe this; for who can look upon your face and doubt it? Believing this, then, how can you, when you know that the happiness of a man who loves you beyond the power of language to express, is at stake, ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... know Knox by hearsay only, I believe the matter of this paper will be somewhat astonishing. For the hard energy of the man in all public matters has possessed the imagination of the world; he remains for posterity in certain traditional phrases, browbeating Queen Mary, or breaking beautiful carved work in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not know these men, Monsieur Comminges, but I know them, first personally, also by hearsay. I sent them to carry aid to King Charles and they performed prodigies to save him; had it not been for an adverse destiny, that beloved monarch would this day ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... thoughts concerning her husband are interrupted indeed by domestic concerns; but still they remain in the affection of her love; and this affection does not separate itself from the thoughts with women, as it does with men: these things, however, I relate from hearsay; see the two MEMORABLE RELATIONS from the seven wives sitting in the rose-garden, which are annexed to some ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... to, and of the convoy that waits for me on the other side, doth lie as a glowing coal at my heart. I see myself now at the end of my journey; my toilsome days are ended. I am going to see that head that was crowned with thorns, and that face that was spit upon for me. I have formerly lived by hearsay and faith, but now I go where I shall live by sight, and shall be with him in whose company I delight myself. I have loved to hear my Lord spoken of; and whenever I have seen the print of his shoe ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... told, and he has to keep a tight hand on them. But I know nothing except from hearsay. I've never come ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... my intention to write out the sequence of events in due order, depending on trustworthy hearsay when I was describing that which was beyond my own personal knowledge. I have now, however, through the kind cooperation of friends, hit upon a plan which promises to be less onerous to me and more ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... mind. If these were punchers from the Bar T outfit he was indeed in a bad way, for no one knew better than Larkin (by hearsay) the wild stories told of Beef Bissell's methods in a ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... whither we brought him from the river bank, and it was the barber here, Stepan Paramonoff, who treated him; and now Petr' Andrejitch, thank God, is going on well, and there is nothing but good to tell of him. His superiors, according to hearsay, are well pleased with him, and Vassilissa Igorofna treats him as her own son; and because such an affair should have happened to him you must not reproach him; the horse may have four legs and yet stumble. And you deign to write that you will send me to keep the pigs. My lord's will be done. ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... by the authors of more pretentious works are second-hand or hearsay; the author of this treatise, however, has no confidence in the accuracy of such material, therefore he has not made use of any such data. His material has been thoroughly sifted, and the reader may depend upon the absolute truth of the evidence ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... flirts with all the neighboring young men, and at last, at the end of the second act, has her attention led by Captain Location to the hero of the piece as a suitable mate for her wayward daughter, Miss Prosperity,—all this is usually written up from hearsay. For the third act, wherein the twin brothers Steamboat Navigation and Railroad Communication help the hero to press his suit, the imagination often suffices. The grand finale, however, brings back some of the old set of critics, together with a host of new ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... lay over Ralph's life. If Robbie could overtake Sim before Sim had time to overtake Ralph, he might prevent a terrible catastrophe. Even so fearless a man as Ralph was would surely hesitate if he knew, though but on hearsay, that perhaps a horrible accusation ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... Delafield that needed protection, and was inclined to make little of John Hewlett's warning, thinking that it rested on the authority of a sick nervous woman, and that there was no distinct evidence but that of the young man who would not speak out, and only went by hearsay. ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... passed, for at the time the wind blew high, drowning their voices. But I had seen enough, and cried to the bearers to take up the chair and proceed. That, my son, is what I have seen, not learned by mere hearsay. Would that I could have spared thee the telling, but 'tis for thy welfare I have ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... now, too, misunderstandings of which in the old days I had no idea except from hearsay. Though I am ashamed of it, I will describe one that occurred the other day ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... all except from hearsay and what you see here," he replied. "I don't know whether or not it has a bar at either end, but likely enough it has at both, though ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... evidence upon which he bases his astounding accusations, if he has any. If he has simply written on hearsay evidence, or, worse still, let himself be guided by his craving to be sensational, he has laid himself open not only to ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... waters of the Columbia, and going down that river to the Pacific; but this was only conjectural. The map in the hands of the explorers, the only basis for a preliminary outline of their route, was drawn partly from hearsay, partly from imagination; it showed the source of the Missouri to be somewhere in Central California; it showed nothing of the mighty barrier of the Rocky Mountains. There was one thin, uncertain line of hills, far to the west, that might have been the ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... who ever knew Mark Twain at any period of his life made the same discovery. Every one who ever took the trouble to familiarize himself with his work made it. Those who did not make it have known his work only by hearsay and quotation, or they have read it very casually, or have been very dull. It would be much more of a discovery to find a book in which he has not been serious—a philosopher, a moralist, and a poet. Even in the Jumping Frog sketches, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... struggle began. Dick knew well enough, from hearsay, the method of "breaking down" a wild horse. He knew that the Indians choke them with the noose round the neck until they fall down exhausted and covered with foam, when they creep up, fix the hobbles, and the line in the lower jaw, and ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... a misunderstanding with his father, which caused Alf to clear off, leaving the old man to mind everything himself. Of course, I'm only giving you the heads; and my information is derived from no random hearsay, but is obtained by an intransmissible power of induction, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... one suppose that we may attain to this true light and perfect knowledge by hearsay, or by reading and study, nor yet by high skill and ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... publeecity. What English judge, sitting in the light of Shorthand, would admit 'Jack swears that Gill says' for legal evidence. Speers has sworn to no facks. Heathfield has sworn to no facks but th' existence of Speer's hearsay. They are a couple o' lyres. I'll bet ye ten pounds t' a shilling Speers is ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... inconsistent either with his character or with earlier events in his personal history that the Czar should have yielded to a single shock of feeling, and have changed in a moment from the liberator to the despot. But the evidence of what passed in his mind is wanting. Hearsay, conjecture, gossip, abound; [281] the one man who could have told all has left no word. This only is certain, that from the close of the year 1818, the future, hitherto bright with dreams of peaceful progress, became in Alexander's view a battle-field between the forces of order and anarchy. The ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Balzac has been most severely criticized for her lack of affection for Balzac, and their married life has generally been conceded to have been very unhappy. This supposition seems to have been based largely on hearsay. Miss Sandars quotes from a letter written to her daughter on May 16 from Frankfort, in which, speaking of Balzac as "poor dear friend," she seems to be quite ignorant of his condition, and to show more interest in her necklace than in her husband. ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... write in my favour (and never was anything published more favourable than the Arctic paper). Lyell had difficulty in preventing Dawson reviewing the "Origin" (356/3. Dawson reviewed the "Origin" in the "Canadian Naturalist," 1860.) on hearsay, without having looked at it. No spirit of fairness can be expected from ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... the life and history of William, sixth Earl of Douglas, are not written from hearsay, but were chronicled within his lifetime by one who saw them and had part therein, though the part was but a boy's one. His manuscript has come down to us and lies before the transcriber. Sholto MacKim, the son of Malise the Smith, testifies to these things in his own clerkly script. He adds particularly ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... that exactly. In fact, I hardly know how to explain myself to you, since I know nothing save by hearsay, and ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold
... paced the streets, trying to think things out. His burning desire was to go straight to Eleanor and lay the whole matter before her. But according to his ethics it was a poor sport who would discredit a rival, especially on hearsay. He must leave it to Rose, and let her furnish the ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... swimming brain, as thunder relieves the tense and straining air. The feeling that he was going mad left him, as the simple solution of his mystery came to him. This girl must have heard of him in New York—perhaps she knew people whom he knew and it was on hearsay, not on personal acquaintance, that she based that dislike of him which she had expressed with such freedom and conviction so short a while before at the Regent Grill. She did not know ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... nature, dwelling continually in the presence of the most flint-hearted, atrabilious, and frigid man on earth; think of me as a young girl married to a skeleton, and you will understand the life whose curious scenes can only be a hearsay tale to you; the plans for running away that perished at the sight of my father, the despair soothed by slumber, the dark broodings charmed away by music. I breathed my sorrows forth in melodies. Beethoven or Mozart would keep my confidences sacred. ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... Shakespere's drama on the theme of Chaucer's poem), may be said to belong to the second cycle of modern versions of the tale of Troy divine. Already their earlier predecessors had gone far astray from Homer, of whom they only know by hearsay, relying for their facts on late Latin epitomes, which freely mutilated and perverted the Homeric narrative in favour of the Trojans—the supposed ancestors of half the nations of Europe. Accordingly, Chaucer, in a well-known passage in his "House of Fame," regrets, with ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... in psalmody and strict in the cloister. Pull your wits together and answer me straightly. In what form has the foul fiend appeared, and how has he done this grievous scathe to our brethren? Have you seen him with your own eyes, or do you repeat from hearsay? Speak, man, or you stand on the penance-stool in the chapter-house ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had ever been able to penetrate to the interior of the cabin in which she secluded herself, but it was reported that she spent her time in the garden and that she had many strange flowers and plants growing there. But of this Hanscom had only the most diffused hearsay. ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... of Gabriel Rossetti's intellectual career, to diverge into a description of what has so much exercised popular curiosity, the pre-Raphaelite movement of 1848. But there is no reason why, in a few notes on character, I should repeat from hearsay what several of the seven brothers have reported from authoritative memory. It is admitted, by them and by all who have understood the movement, that Gabriel Rossetti was the founder and, in the Shakespearian sense, "begetter" ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... dangerous thing for any man to sit down to "make" a book. If he has had personal experience, let him write a description of those subjects which he understands; but if he attempts to "make" a book, he must necessarily collect information from hearsay, when he will most probably gather some ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... the fatal day, but who could not be found, and was not at the station to aid in preserving the peace, was quick enough to arrest Neagle without a warrant, for an act not committed in his presence, and therefore known only to him by hearsay. Against the remonstrances of a supreme justice of the United States, who had also been chief justice of California, and who might have been supposed to know the laws as well at least as a constable, the protection placed over him by the Executive branch of the Federal Government ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... in all the old topographical histories of wards, without and within, which cumber the shelves of your dry-as-dust libraries. We must hunt up all available books; and when we've got all the information that books can give us, we can go in upon hearsay evidence, which is always the most valuable in ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... English colonies, where, at the expiration of ten years, they are supposed to be set at liberty. But during this period, their owners allow the greater number to die—of course, in the returns only—and the poor slaves remain slaves still; but I repeat that I only know this from hearsay. ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... surged into Tom's cheeks; but for once prudence took the upper hand of valour, and he remained sitting upright behind the still recumbent figure of Wildfire. He had restrained the horse from rising by the pressure of his hand. He knew by hearsay that robbers seldom fired upon a good horse if there were a chance of making a capture of so valuable an acquisition. He might find shelter behind the body of the ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... boldest of the band would no more venture to tell him of the crimes they commit while executing orders, than he would put his head in a lion's mouth. It is understood that Alston simply points to a thing when he wants it done, leaving all shocking details to his tools. But this is mere hearsay. No one really knows anything about him; that is to say, no one outside his band—if he actually has one. It is very generally believed, however, that he has only to blow a single blast on a horn at any hour of the day ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... the existence of much evil," said Lady Peveril, compelling herself to answer, and beginning at the same time to walk forward; "and from hearsay, though not, I thank Heaven, from observation, I am convinced of the wild debauchery of the times. But let us trust it may be corrected without such violent remedies as you hint at. Surely the ruin of a second civil war—though I trust ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... the cause, and dissipation, That is clear — Maybe friend or kind relation Cause of beer. And the talking fool, who never Reads or thinks, Says, from hearsay: 'Yes, he's clever; But, ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... without making him known as such? Is it just to give him as his sole credentials certain private signs, performed in the presence of a few obscure persons, signs which everybody else can only know by hearsay? If one were to believe all the miracles that the uneducated and credulous profess to have seen in every country upon earth, every sect would be in the right; there would be more miracles than ordinary events; and it would be the greatest miracle if there were no miracles wherever ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... nothing—it would be a folly to be getting myself ill-will in my old age. Jason did not marry, nor think of marrying Judy, as I prophesied, and I am not sorry for it: who is? As for all I have here set down from memory and hearsay of the family, there's nothing but truth in it from beginning to end. That you may depend upon, for where's the use of telling lies about the things which everybody knows as well ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... go upon in crying down the credit of the 54th beyond hearsay and the self-evident fact that they are half their nominal strength. To assume they won't put up a fight is a certain way of making the best troops gun-shy. We are standing up to our necks in a time problem, and the tide is on the rise. There is not a moment to spare. The ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... Vaws brought with them out of Ind books written in Hebrew and Chaldaic, concerning the life and deeds of these three blessed Kings, which books were afterward translated into the French tongue: and so, from these books, and from hearsay, and sight, and also from sermons and homilies out of divers other works, the story here written hath been brought ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... absence, he had started for Kansas City armed with a copy of the charges and specifications, had easily determined that the civilians cited as witnesses were men who really knew little or nothing, but had only a vague, "hearsay" idea of matters, which vigorous cross-questioning developed that they had mainly derived from letters or talks of Gleason's, or had got from Rallston himself, who, said they, was riled because he couldn't play off a lot of broken-down mustangs for sound horses ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... provided I could manage to bring the affair to a successful termination. I spent the remainder of that day at the Bank, carefully studying the various memoranda. A great deal of what I had read and heard had been mere hearsay, and this it was necessary to discard in order that the real facts of the case might be taken up, and the proper conclusions drawn therefrom. For three days I weighed the case carefully in my mind, and at the end of that time ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... said, "if you don't mind, we'd better talk it out. You see I do really need to know about him, and you're the only one that can tell me. Mother's is chiefly hearsay." ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... race from barbarism toward humanity is dear, should the Mediterranean Sea be one of the most august and precious objects on this globe; and the first sight of it should inspire reverence and delight, as of coming home—home to a rich inheritance in which he has long believed by hearsay, but which he sees at last with his own mortal ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley |
