"Hearsay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... alone. I soon found the fat old host, and engaged a room for the night. He was talkative and curious, and sat by my side when he had prepared my supper in the dingy dining-room downstairs. I felt quite sure that he would be able to tell me what I wanted, or at least to give me a hint from hearsay. But he at once began to talk of last year, and how much better his business had been then than it was now, as country landlords ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... from hearsay and evidence: Ileen had theories of her own. One, in particular, she disseminated to us untiringly. Flattery she detested. Frankness and honesty of speech and action, she declared, were the chief mental ornaments of man and woman. ...
— Options • O. Henry
... war which the Jews made against the Romans hath been the greatest of all times, while some men who were not concerned themselves have written vain and contradictory stories by hearsay, and while those that were there have given false accounts, I, Joseph, the son of Matthias, by birth a Hebrew, and a priest also, and who at first fought against the Romans myself, and was forced to be present at what was done afterwards, am ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... past. 'As we have heard so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God.' Yes, brethren! God's merciful manifestation for ourselves, as for those Israelitish people of old, has this blessed effect, that it changes hearsay and tradition into living experience;—this blessed effect, that it teaches us, or ought to teach us, the inexhaustibleness of the divine power, the constant repetition in every age of the same works of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Our failure lies in this, we would use the powers of soul and we have not yet become the soul. None but the wise one himself could bend the bow of Ulysses. We cannot communicate more of the true than we ourselves know. It is better to have a little knowledge and know that little than to have only hearsay of myriads of Gods. So I say, lay down your books for a while and try the magic of thought. "What a man thinks, that he is; that is the old secret." I utter, I know, but a partial voice of the soul with many needs. But I say, forget ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... the ordinary sense, in the centres where 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 can rarely have ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... that my informant is the Rev. R. Jones, whom I have often mentioned, who is a native of Llanfrothen, the scene of the occurrences I am about to relate, and that he was at one time curate of Denbigh, so that he would be conversant with the story by hearsay, both as to its evil ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... urged. Christ has not given His message in the first person. If He had done so our position would be stronger. It has been repeated by the hearsay and report of earnest but ill-educated men. It speaks much for education in the Roman province of Judea that these fishermen, publicans and others could even read or write. Luke and Paul were, of course, of a ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... normal bent of the mind. The spontaneous tendency of man is to yield 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 ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... myself on doubtful ground. What was said at the moment I know only by hearsay, for I was incapable of attending to anything for three months. There was an enormous amount of gossip and of talk; there were, I think, many hints and smiles; there were hundreds of people who knew the truth, but were careful not to submit their versions ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... God hath given me freely, and not for filthy lucre's sake. Other things I might speak in vindication of my practice in this thing: but ask of others, and they will tell thee that the things I say are truth: and hereafter have a care of receiving anything by hearsay only, lest you be found a publisher of those lies which are brought to you by others, and so render yourself the less credible; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... painter. "Not quite so fast, if you please. This is a matter of life and death. We can't settle it in five minutes, and as many words. You call yourself a man of the world, Mr. Ryfe, and, doubtless, have some familiarity with affairs of this kind, either from experience or hearsay. Do you seriously believe I am going to put my friend up as a target for yours to shoot at without some more definite information, some fuller explanation than you seem inclined to give? Lady Bearwarden has not left her home. My friend has been here ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... Drury Lane think it 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 ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... the Red Bull stage, but it was not issued until 1679, and does not seem to have anything to do with the Red Bull or with any other regular theater. The Messalina and Roxana pictures are small, and both show a rear curtain and a projecting stage. The DeWitt drawing was done from hearsay evidence, is inaccurate in details, and represents a theater with a movable stage, probably not long regularly used for plays; it gives little idea of the stage, but does afford a good general notion ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... now on this yarn has got to be more or less hearsay. I'll have to put this and that together, like the woman that made the mince meat. Some of the facts I got from a cousin of Deborah Badger's, some of them I wormed out of Asaph himself one time when he'd had a jug come down from the city and was feeling toler'ble philanthropic and conversationy. ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... several letters to Morse he refers to it as being Morse's. For instance, in a letter of April 20, 1848, he uses the words "your system of marking, lines and dots, which you have patented." All the evidence brought forward by the advocates of Vail is purely hearsay; he is said to have said that he ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... so much to Sanine before. That he was an original, she knew by hearsay; and she now felt agreeably perturbed at encountering so novel ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... considerably larger dimensions. In that year they counted seven leading congregations in London, and forty-seven in the rest of England; besides which they had many adherents in the Army. Although all sorts of impieties were attributed to them on hearsay, they differed in reality from the Independents mainly on the one subject of Baptism. They objected to the baptism of infants, and they thought immersion, or dipping under water, the proper mode of baptism: except in these points, and what they might involve, they ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... other. Moreover, when the missionaries git among the Redskins, some of 'em turns Christians an' some hypocrites—just the same as white men. What Unaco is, in the matter o' Christianity, is not for me to say, for I don't know; but from what I do know, from hearsay, of his character, I'm sartin sure that he's a good man and true, an' for that little bit of sarvice I did to his poor boy, he'd give me his life if ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... character; no longer literary or poetical, or romantic, or critical, he was now full of the last new play, the singers at the opera. He had the advantage over Mrs. Gibson, who, in fact, only spoke of these things from hearsay, from listening to the talk at the Towers, while Osborne had run up from Cambridge two or three times to hear this, or to see that, wonder of the season. But she had the advantage over him in greater boldness of invention to eke out her facts; and besides she had more skill in ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... freshness, minuteness, and accuracy. The writers of these books travelled over many thousands of miles, and they described, in the main, what they saw, although, of course, they repeated, with more or less of exaggeration, much which they only knew from conversation or from hearsay. Besides the written stories of such experiences, other Europeans who accompanied these travellers, or who made independent journeys to various parts of Asia, spread knowledge of the same things. The author of a later popular volume ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... suspect, quoted this passage from hearsay, for originally it stood:—'If he could have got the money, he could have counted it' (p. 68). In the British Museum there are copies of the first ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... them in a Dutch ship, which they afterwards took going to Mocha; and three of those women, marrying some of these men, went with them to live in their new plantation. But of this I speak only by hearsay. ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... sacrificed their intellects 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 news ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... innuendoes had been based on flimsiest hearsay. The chances were that Michael Lanyard was an utterly uninteresting person ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... of the Jesuits in the Portuguese dominions, with all the means at his command, and a correspondence extending throughout Eastern Asia, had been able to hear of but three. These were entirely from hearsay. First, John Deyro said he knew that Xavier had the gift of prophecy; but, unfortunately, Xavier himself had reprimanded and cast off Deyro for untruthfulness and cheatery. Secondly, it was reported vaguely that at Cape Comorin many persons affirmed that Xavier ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Loring's trunk, and, to the amaze of the court, Loring declined to cross-examine. Petty was a failure. He wanted to swear to a thousand things that other people had told him, for of himself he knew nothing, and though the defense never interposed, the court did. It was all hearsay, and he was finally excused. Mrs. Burton appeared, but like Mrs. Cluppins of blessed memory, had more to say of her domestic and personal affairs than the allegations against the accused. Miss Allyn, said the judge ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... and credible witnesses;" but we must add that the greater part of the kingdoms and towns spoken of by Marco Polo he certainly did visit. We will follow the route he describes, simply pointing out what the traveller learnt by hearsay, during the important missions with which he was charged by Kublai-Khan. During this second journey the travellers did not follow exactly the same road as on the first occasion of their visit to the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... has lately combined with the Mine d'Or d'Abowassu (Abosu), the capital being quoted at five millions of francs. Thus the five working mines are reduced to four, while the 'Izrah' and others are coming on (May 1882).]) I had thus an opportunity of gathering much hearsay information, and was able to compare opinions which differed widely enough. I also had long conversations with Mr. A. A. Robertson, lately sent out as traffic-manager to the Izrah, and with Mr. Amondsen, the Danish sailor, then en route to the hapless ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... have their own way, and to be allowed freely to excite and foster revolutionary sentiments. The press, which groaned under the most odious and intolerable censorship, was to be wholly resigned to them. I do not state these facts from hearsay. I happened by chance to be present at two conferences in which were set forward projects infected with the odour of the clubs, and these projects were supported with the more assurance because their success was regarded as certain. Though I had not seen Napoleon since my departure for ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... the exploits of Big Ferre and the number of his victims. The story just quoted is not, however, a legend; authentic and simple, it has all the characteristics of a real and true fact, just as it was picked up, partly from eye-witnesses and partly from hearsay, by the contemporary narrator. It is a faithful picture of the internal state of the French nation in the fourteenth century; a nation in labor of formation, a nation whose elements, as yet scattered and incohesive, though under one and the same name, were fermenting ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... that he depended only on Jack Witherspoon's mere hearsay for any proofs of wrong-doing. "Yes! I've only Jack's eagerness to marry that dainty Francine Delacroix to thank for my fortune—if I ever get it. A woman whom I never have seen decides my whole destiny, while I would give my life up, my last ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... seen; so many of friends, so many of physicians, so many continually of other men, which unless we should believe, we should do nothing at all in this life; lastly, with how unshaken an assurance I believed of what parents I was born, which I could not know, had I not believed upon hearsay -considering all this, Thou didst persuade me, that not they who believed Thy Books (which Thou hast established in so great authority among almost all nations), but they who believed them not, were to be blamed; and that they were not to be heard, who should say to me, "How knowest ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... have joined in the same "hue and cry" with their worthy compeers. The reasons were evident in their case. They knew I was invading their dearest worldly interests. There were others who only knew me from hearsay. Why should they become my enemies? It was because I held in my possession secrets, whose exposition would make many of them tremble. It would be to them like the interpreted handwriting upon the wall. Hence they were ready to contribute ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... and that his corpse, as well as the corpse of Montague, the earl's brother, had been exposed to view for two days in St. Paul's. They gave him the names of some of the chief men who had fallen at Tewkesbury, obtained, they assured him, not from hearsay but from eye-witnesses—special war correspondents, whom the City had despatched for the express purpose of reporting on the state of the field, and they concluded by exhorting him to do as they themselves had done, and to acknowledge Edward ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... 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 early period. ...
— 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
... "Hearsay," the Captain said gruffly. "And that was in a declared war." And then he wondered just how valid the distinction was. There were, he supposed, sadists on both sides. And then it came down to who committed the first cruelty and just how should you rank them? Was intentional torture for ...
— Decision • Frank M. Robinson
... to let Anselmo return and by his presence compel the work to be left unfinished; for love has no better agent for carrying out his designs than opportunity; and of opportunity he avails himself in all his feats, especially at the outset. All this I know well myself, more by experience than by hearsay, and some day, senora, I will enlighten you on the subject, for I am of your flesh and blood too. Moreover, lady Camilla, you did not surrender yourself or yield so quickly but that first you saw Lothario's whole soul in his eyes, in his sighs, in his words, his promises ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... 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 was in a position to give the Board a definite ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... interpretation of the evidence. A human mind cannot readily create simple forms that are absolutely new; what it fashions will naturally resemble what other minds have fashioned, or what it has known through hearsay or through sight. A circle is one of the world's common stock of figures, and that it should mean twenty in Phoenicia and in India is hardly more surprising than that it signified ten at one time in Babylon.[124] It is therefore quite probable that ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith
... say, "criticise anyone or anything on hearsay. See for yourself and then make up your own mind; but don't hurry ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... companion, from whose priceless memoirs we have chiefly drawn, ends his story thus:—"I make known to all readers of this little book that the things which I say I have seen and heard of the king are true, and steadfastly shall they believe them. And the other things of which I testify but by hearsay, take them in a good sense if it please you, praying God that by the prayers of Monseigneur St. Louis it may please Him to give us those things that He knoweth to be necessary as well for our bodies ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... 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 ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... into the 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 ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... hadn't. You tell your father that I'll tell him about it, when he comes. I ain't goin' to be doctored by hearsay. Did you see Sol Bassitt's barn, as you ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... compromising the persons of the Queen and the Princesse de Lamballe: a trust, of her claim to which her undoubted fidelity was an ample pledge. Still, however, she was often absent from Court at moments of great importance, and was obliged to take her information, upon much which she has recorded, from hearsay, which has led her, as I have before stated, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... letter to the same person, dated the 27th of January 1707, M. de Cerisy says, "My dear cousin, I spoke to you in my last letter of the famous alchymist of Provence, M. Delisle. A good deal of that was only hearsay, but now I am enabled to speak from my own experience. I have in my possession a nail, half iron and half silver, which I made myself. That great and admirable workman also bestowed a still greater privilege upon me—he allowed me turn a piece of lead which I had brought with me into pure gold, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... was, that they were too transparently amateurish; that is to say, it was probably too plainly perceptible that the lecturer was trying to tell people about the horrid effects of liquor when he didn't really know anything about those effects except from hearsay, since he had hardly ever tasted an intoxicant in his life. His scheme, now, was to prepare himself to speak from bitter experience. Hawkins was to stand by with the bottle, calculate the doses, watch the effects, make notes of results, and otherwise assist in the preparation. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... competition, exhibitions, the support of a government, the encouragement of a public, the counsels of an enlightened criticism. All these benefits which we enjoy abundantly, are wholly denied to them, and are only known to them by hearsay. ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... 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 behind the saddle, finally went off with Don Fernando ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... 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, depends ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... stalks through Continental traditions, down even till to-day, for we find him in Mr. Thomas Tobyson of Tottenwood in Henri de Regnier's La Double Maitresse. For the most part the manners and customs of this type of man are only known to us by hearsay which we may refuse to credit. But about Thicknesse there is no manner of doubt; he has written himself down; he is the veridic and positive embodiment of the type. That is his ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... him to herself. Her 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
... be made at the time, on the spot, and may be used by the witness in court as a refresher to the memory, though not altogether to supply its place. All evidence is made up of testimony, but all testimony is not evidence. The witness must not introduce hearsay testimony. In one case only is hearsay evidence admissible, and that is in the case of a dying declaration. This is a statement made by a dying person as to how his injuries were inflicted. These declarations are accepted ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... coming into Flanders, before their characters were known except by hearsay, they were received with extraordinary enthusiasm. Travelling by way of Luxembourg, they came to Namur, where their first visit was made the occasion of a military fete, conducted under the personal supervision ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... of imparting to the general reader—who is, of course, a violent patriot—the idea that I am narrating facts showing an exceptionally bad condition in municipal affairs, in the triumph of one or the other of two bad men. This impression I should be loath to give. Colonel McCorkle, whom we know by hearsay only, seems to be so good a citizen that his belated attempt to be "broad" and "liberal" excites laughter in some quarters. As for Mr. Brassfield, there are at least nine chances in ten that he is the man who would have received the support of the ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... and, as several of these letters an from individuals who joined the Peninsular Array from this country, in which they had passed many years, the statement may be relied on as coming from men who have had men than hearsay knowledge of ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... hesitated on your account, but of course I want all your help and advice. It's this: There seems to be no doubt that the conditions under which women are working in our factories are hideous—dangerous—the law is broken with perfect impunity. I know you can't act on rumors and hearsay. Even the inspectors don't give out the truth. And so we are going to persuade the Woman's Forum to abandon its ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... Allenby, commanding the Third Army before he was succeeded by Gen. Sir Julian Byng and went to his triumph in Palestine, I knew very little except by hearsay. He went by the name of "The Bull," because of his burly size and deep voice. The costly fighting that followed the battle of Arras on April 9th along the glacis of the Scarpe did not reveal high generalship. There were many young officers—and some divisional generals who complained ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... unknown persons who happened to be connected with his subject; but in his judgment of a man who, considered simply as a statesman, was infinitely greater than Halifax or Dauby, he depends altogether on hearsay, and gives that hearsay the worst possible appearance. In his article on Bacon, he not merely evinces no original research, but he so combines the loose statements he takes for granted, that, in his presentation of them, they ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... replied Joe; "I s'pose it wouldn't be comfortable if those were your feelin's, but I reckon you don't know much about it unless from hearsay. But I tell you one thing, whiskey's a friend to be trusted"—adding, slowly, with a glance at George's face—"to get you into trouble if you let it get the upper hand of you. It's like a woman in that! It begins with the same letter too, and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... short time before this been despatched to Macao for the protection of the China trade. I speak of course from hearsay, as what I am about to relate occurred just before I came into existence; indeed, of many other subsequent events which I shall venture to describe I cannot be said to have any very vivid recollection, although present ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... streaming down in curls to her feet, and brilliant as a sunbeam, that she was universally called the Fair One with Golden Locks. A neighbouring king, having heard a great deal of her beauty, fell in love with her upon hearsay, and sent an ambassador with a magnificent suite to ask her in marriage, bidding him be sure and not fail to bring the princess home with him. The ambassador did his best to fulfil the king's commands, and made as fair a speech as he could to persuade the lady; but, either she was not in a good ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... different world, in many worlds, all with a proper space, all with the same evidence of real existence, all full of life, full of sensations, fall of beauties and transports - this became for me a matter of simple experience. And no one only knowing it from hearsay can realize how different and how much more profound is the effect ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... paramount. Tell him that I have studied my own heart as well as one can, and I know its weakness as well as I do its needs. That is why I decline to hear his pleas, whatever they may be. I did not condemn him through hearsay or doubtful evidence, and that is why I made no charge. But, since he persists in hearing what he already well knows, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... he glanced round the miserable place, and the look of pity on his face deepened into one of pain, while Neddy appeared even more shocked. He had, I suspect, known little of poverty, but by hearsay; and the bare, terrible reality ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... of conflict with a vessel of superior power—no improbable occurrence before the battle of Trafalgar. Information about relatives on board men-of-war was scarce and scanty, and often picked up by hearsay or chance means; and every scrap ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... impropriety, confound the Bedouin always by sneering at their ignorance, saying that where you come from men know what is proper. And Jimgrim, having truly made the pilgrimage to Mecca, will confound them likewise, having knowledge, whereas most of these rascals only know by hearsay." ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... "Only hearsay. Stones of his brave deeds and big hunting on the Labrador and westward! He had a sense of game that comes very rarely; he moved with the animals instinctively, so that the best pelts were always his. And he had luck. One year, he brought in three of the six silver-fox skins taken that winter ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... from hearsay. I was in France during the week preceding that battle, the most anxious and gloomy period, probably, of the entire war. What I am about to relate is based either on authoritative information gathered on the spot, or on my own observations. In telling it, nothing is farther from my thoughts ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... developed. I enumerate them: First, I knew nothing, except by the merest hearsay, of the art of brewing tea. Second, I had failed to provide myself with a teapot or similar vessel. Third, in the natural confusion of the moment I had left the tea on board the train. Fourth, there was no milk, neither was there cream or sugar. A sense of lassitude, with a slight headache, ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... "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 I myself saw ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... 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 ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... Birch, who has turned away seventeen ushers and second-masters in eleven years, and half as many French masters, I suppose, since the departure of her FAVORITE, M. Grinche, with her gold watch, &c.; but this is only surmise—that is, from hearsay, and from Miss Rosa taunting her aunt, as she does sometimes, in her graceful way: but besides this, I have another way ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 present is beneath ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... as the murmurs became louder. At this point a sharp-faced lawyer from Belfast got to his feet and objected that the gentleman from Elkington was wasting the time of the House, indulging in hearsay. His remarks were not germane, etc. The Speaker rapped again, with a fine show of impartiality, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... 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, and fairly well axe ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... know much about Isenland and its maiden-queen. And indeed, if there is any truth in hearsay, he has had the best of means for learning. Now, if our good King Gunther has set his mind on going upon this dangerous enterprise, mayhap Siegfried would be willing to ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... which wise people and brave should shrink; and I fear for the future of the Theosophical Society if it follows the track of many of the religions and lets go its hold of knowledge of the other worlds, and comes to depend on hearsay, tradition, belief in the experience of others, and the avoidance of the reverification of experience. For it must be remembered that in giving a vast mass of knowledge to the world, H.P.B. distinctly stated that these are facts which can be ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... going to tell you now is not mere hearsay, but well known both to you and me: that at first, Pericles was glorious and his character unimpeached by any verdict of the Athenians—this was during the time when they were not so good—yet afterwards, when they had been made good and gentle by him, at the very end of his life they convicted ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... several in this way. I will, however, refer the reader to Jules Gerard's book for a description of this kind of sport. I did not stay long enough in North Africa to be able to judge of it myself. What I recount now with regard to lion hunting is from hearsay, not ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... in 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 Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... 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
... 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 it was not ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... only 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
... not the man to depend upon hearsay. He had followed after Rigby, and had overheard every word that had passed between the man ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... is sometimes raised that evidence like this of Magendie's cruelty is only "hearsay." Is not this generally the case where inhumanity is concerned? When Wilberforce described the atrocities of the African slave trade, or Shaftesbury the conditions pertaining to children in coal-mines and cotton mills, their statements ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... notorious; and his absolute injustice, when his partisan spirit was uppermost, is everywhere patent to the readers of his Letters. In the present case he was not of the encroaching party; and he speaks from hearsay solely. But his friends had, in his opinion, been outraged by a man, who, according to his ideas of fitness, should have come to them cap in hand; and as a natural consequence, the story, no doubt exaggerated when it reached him, loses nothing under ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... Bogardus has given me a telegram to send, and I don't know whether to send it or not. It's going to make a whole lot of talk. I am not much acquainted with Mrs. Bogardus myself, except by hearsay. That's partly what surprises me. It looks a little reckless to send out such a message as that, by the first hand that comes along. Hadn't we better give her time to think it over?" He opened the telegram for the other to read. "The man himself can't speak. But he just pants ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... 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 him ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... then the difficulty comes in, that they ask artlessly whether such a story as the miracle of Cana, or the feeding of the five thousand, is true. I reply frankly that we cannot be sure; that the people who wrote it down believed it to be true, but that it came to them by hearsay; and the children seem to have no difficulty about the matter. Then, too, I do not want them to be too familiar, as children, with the words of Christ, because I am sure that it is a fact that, for many ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... measures, etc., I have really no personal knowledge of the action taken by American missionaries, and hearsay is not a good foundation for opinion. It is said that vindictive feeling rather than tender mercy has been noticed. But even if so, it cannot be wondered at, so cruel were the Chinese assailants when they had the upper hand. The occasion has been altogether ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... neither Government kept adequate statistics before 1820. With the end of the Napoleonic wars there came great distress in England from which the man of energy sought escape. He turned naturally to America, being familiar, by hearsay at least, with stories of the ease of gaining a livelihood there, and influenced by the knowledge that in the United States he would find people of his own blood and speech. The bulk of this earlier emigration to America resulted from economic causes. When, in 1825, one ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... they had produced to you amounts to no more than that such a man believes such a man heard of something; and to close the whole of this hearsay account, Sir Elijah Impey, who always comes in as a supplement, declares that no man doubted of the existence of this rebellion, and of the guilt of the Begums, any more than of the rebellion of 1745: a comparison which, I must say, is, by way ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... about her. The imagination, however, refuses to conceive that a man of serious age and of high functions should have degraded himself to the level of a Peeping Tom in this way; all the French historians, nevertheless, repeat the story though on the merest hearsay evidence. And they also relate, with more apparent truth, how a double treachery was committed upon the unfortunate prisoner by stationing two secretaries at these openings, to take down her conversation with a spy who had been sent to ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... I always calc'late to give Quaco Ledge the widest kine o' berth. An I hope you'll never know anythin more about that same place than what I'm tellin you now. The knowlege which one has about that place, an places ginrally of that kine, comes better by hearsay ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... to explain what riotous living is. I only know, from hearsay, that it is an excellent way to get rid of money. And so this spendthrift ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... enjoyed the advantage of conversing with any of the Ewaipanoma, or men without heads, or of that other tribe, 'who have eminent heads like dogs, and live all the day-time in the sea, and speak the Carib language.' Of all these he speaks from modest hearsay, and less confidently than Othello did to Desdemona. It is true that he relates marvellous and fabulous things, but it is no less than just to distinguish very carefully between what he repeats and what he reports. For the former we have to take ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... Governor Harvey of Wisconsin, who lost his life in the same service—that where public good is to be done, the State should be worthily and effectively represented by her chief executive officer. There on the spot, trusting to no hearsay, Mr. Yates, while distributing the bounteous stores of which he was the bearer, ascertained by actual observation the condition and wants of the troops, and at once set about devising measures of relief. After Shiloh, that Golgotha ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... enjoyed in a like degree the faculty of observation. That is a rare gift of nature, like all eminent qualities. He possessed a sort of intuition which discerned the truth, apart from his own observations, and thus information given by him from hearsay has a value that seldom attaches to statements of that nature. His mind, early ripened by reflection and study (he was but in his thirty-third year at the time of his death), invariably went straight to the point. His narrative, always sober, is filled—one ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... 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 ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... doctor, his doubts vanished. Without a trace of the much hated professional manner she gave him glimpses of wide experience, and at one point mentioned an operation she had just performed—which he knew by hearsay as one of grave difficulty—with the same enthusiastic pleasure another young woman might have shown in the description of a successful bargain-hunt. She was to Stefan a new type, and he was delighted with her. Mary, watching him, thought with affectionate irony that had the little surgeon been ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... and yet I know what love might be. The spring wind sighs in these forests, and the nightingales are my friends. Though I know only of the world by hearsay, I know that men and women have done great things for love's sake, and are remembered with songs and tears. I am ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Bret Harte had left his indelible stamp upon the literature of the land, and Mark Twain was soon to spread widely his impressions of life as seen in "Roughing It"; while countless newspaper men and book writers were edging out and getting hearsay stories of things known at first hand by a very few ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... said that whosoever worships God by hearsay, as others tell him, and knows not what God is from light within himself; or that thinks God is in the heavens above the skies, and so prays to that God which he imagines to be there and everywhere, but from any testimony ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... the course of justice, recklessly liberates criminals, persecutes citizens who differ from him, neglects to observe the royal decrees, threatens even the clergy and friars, and tyrannizes over the entire community. It may be noted that Messa bases most of these accusations on report and hearsay, without citing any definite authority for his statements. Messa accuses the governor of neglecting his duties, and failing to provide for the defense of the country, while spending the royal revenues lavishly; and even assails Fajardo's personal character. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... the man of wisdom and reason, is not fit for all persons; and not everything can be proved by reason. Revelation in the Law is necessary for the simple minded. "I am the Lord thy God" (Exod. 20, 2) is a hint to the philosopher, who need not depend on hearsay, for real knowledge is proved knowledge. But as not everyone is in a position to have such knowledge, the Bible adds, "which brought thee out of the land of Egypt." This all can understand, the simple minded as ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... this child, Mary Ellen, kept in confinement by this brute. Much moved by this recital, the visitor felt impelled to demand the interference of the police. They told her this was impracticable unless she was able to furnish proof of her allegation. She knew the facts only upon hearsay, and only in case a misdemeanor were actually proved would it be possible for the police to interfere as she desired. The charitable feelings of the lady would not permit her to stop here. She made inquiries among benevolent societies. But ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... to him by the ghost of the murdered person. "Hold, sir," said his lordship; "the ghost is an excellent witness, and his evidence the best possible; but he cannot be heard by proxy in this court. Summon him hither, and I'll hear him in person; but your communication is mere hearsay, which my office compels me to reject." Yet it is upon the credit of one man, who pledges it upon that of three or four persons, who have told it successively to each other, that we are often expected to believe an incident inconsistent with the laws of Nature, however agreeable ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... 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
... you a little Uncle Maurice instead,' said Aunt Jane. 'How things come round! Perhaps you would not believe, Gill, that Aunt Ada was once in a scrape, when she was our Mrs. Malaprop, for applying that same epithet on hearsay to Maurice.' ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... so certain, but some people have a similar idea of the upper portion of Minnesota. If there are any, however, thus distrustful of its climate, they probably live out of the territory. I have no means of knowing what the climate is here in winter, except from hearsay and general principles. It seems to be an approved theory, that the farther we approach the west in a northern latitude the milder becomes the winter. The stage-drivers tell me that the snow does ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... inquiries, I have been able to get ... [but little] concerning Louise Amelia Knapp Smith. There are no people now living here who knew her even by hearsay. The records of Amherst Academy show that she attended that institution in 1839 and 1840.... Miss Smith's name adds another to the long list of writers who have lived here at one time or another, and Amherst Academy has added many names to that list. Two ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... 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
... captain of gendarmerie remitted to the Justice of the Peace a report of what had occurred in the prison, of which he was a witness. I, who was not present, do certify to what I have learned by hearsay only. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... of any Negro, whether it was the mansion of a gentleman or the hut of a peasant of that race. The whole tenor of the book indicates his rigid adherence to this one-sided course, and suggests also that, as a traveller, Mr. Froude considers maligning on hearsay to be just as convenient as reporting facts elicited by personal investigation. Proceed we, however, to strengthen our statement regarding his definitive abandonment, and that without any apparent reason, of the plan he had professedly laid down for himself at starting, and failing ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... accepts the views of the classical authorities and argues from them in his own peculiar way,[164] but Sullivan will have it that the materials afforded from classical sources are worthless: "they consist of mere hearsay reports without any sure foundation, and in many cases not in harmony with the results of modern linguistic and archaeological investigations."[165] Neither Turner nor Palgrave has any doubt as to the authority of these early accounts,[166] and Dr. Giles accepts the accounts which he so usefully ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... 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
... the petitioners leave to withdraw. Such evidence as this, not only hearsay, but heard from the party most interested in misrepresenting the Administration, was not entitled to much consideration. It had, moreover, the additional disadvantage of proving nothing against the President and Secretary, even if every word of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... perhaps. I can't." Valencia studied her beneath a droop of eyelids behind which she was very alert. "Those things aren't said about a man unless they are true. Moreover, it happens we don't have to depend on hearsay." ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... 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 ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... his manner was throughout, the experience in the main did mean the exchange of a personal for a paper and hearsay knowledge. When, indeed, had he, or Fontenoy, or anyone else ever denied that the life of the poor was an odious and miserable struggle, a scandal to gods and men? What then? Did they make the world and its iron conditions? And yet this long succession of hot ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a clearness that did her credit, repeated all the information she had had—all that her mother had told her—what she had extracted from Colonel Lund with difficulty—and lastly, but as the merest untrustworthy hearsay, the story that had reached her through her friend Laetitia. In fact, she went the length of discrediting it altogether, as "Only Goody Wilson, when all was said and done." The fact that her mother had told her so little never seemed to strike ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... of Epictetus is that "the wise man does not merely know by tradition and hearsay that Jupiter is the father of gods and men; but is inwardly convinced of it in his soul, and therefore cannot help acting and feeling according ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... serious of the painter-violinists. Down to the end of his life he delighted in playing the sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven, and, from all accounts, he played them remarkably. I can say this only from hearsay, for I never heard him. The few times that I ever saw him at home in my youth, I found him with his brush in hand. I saw him after that only at the Academie, where we sat near each other, and he always greeted me cordially. We talked music from time to ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... hunter, the fighter, From the unlucky French of Gallipolis he descended, Heir to Old World want and New World love of adventure. Vague was the life he led, and vague and grotesque were the rumors Through which he loomed on the people,—the hero of mythical hearsay, Quick of hand and of heart, impatient, generous, Western, Taking the thought of the young in secret love and in envy. Not less the elders shook their heads and held him for outcast, Reprobate, roving, ungodly, infidel, worse than a Papist, With ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... 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 was strange indeed if he could ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... disposal of the ordinary for his judicial administration of the parish was extraordinarily flexible. Courts Christian were unencumbered by the formalities of the common law or by the cooeperation of juries. They could proceed ex officio, i.e., without formal presentment and upon hearsay only, and they were armed with the formidable power of administering the oath ex officio by which a parishioner was forced to disclose all he knew against himself. They could in all cases command the doing, as well as ...
— The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects • Sedley Lynch Ware
... poor and knew how to pass judgment on books proposed for their reading. It was definitely understood that every book should be read by the reviewers from cover to cover. We would not depend upon advertisements, hearsay, or vague recollections of books read by ourselves years ago, but every book should be read from beginning to end with the immediate question in view of the admission of the book to the little libraries ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine |
