"Tattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me tired, standing up for a tattle-tale! Anyhow, you go on home. I'm goin' to hang round a while and see if ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... the god he plied; The busy daw flew with him, side by side, And by a thousand teasing questions drew The important secret from him as they flew. 20 The daw gave honest counsel, though despised, And, tedious in her tattle, thus advised: 'Stay, silly bird, the ill-natured task refuse, Nor be the bearer of unwelcome news. Be warned by my example: you discern What now I am, and what I was shall learn. My foolish honesty was ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... also, ingrafted on the system by habit. It had a most unsatisfactory sound, and seemed more like a trick than a real effort of nature. His talk was civil, prosy, and fidgetty: much addicted to small scandal, and that kind of news which passes under the denomination of tittle-tattle, he was sure to tell one half of the town where the other drank tea, and recollected the blancmanges and jellies on a supper-table, or described a new gown, with as much science and unction as if he had been used to make jellies and wear gowns in his own person. Certain professional peculiarities ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... consulted, in consequence (Batchelor thinks) of some petty intrigue in some quarter. This O'Reilly, who has gradually insinuated himself into the King's confidence, and by constantly attending him at Windsor, and bringing him all the gossip and tittle-tattle of the neighbourhood (being on the alert to pick up and retail all he can for the King's amusement), has made himself necessary, and is not now to be shaken off, to the great annoyance of Knighton, who ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... to turn against him. The Major had just joined us—a creature of Lord Marlborough, put in much to the dislike of the other officers, and to be a spy upon us, as it was said. I know not whether the truth was so, nor who took the tattle of our mess to headquarters, but Webb's regiment, as its Colonel, was known to be in the Commander-in-Chief's black books: "And if he did not dare to break it up at home," our gallant old chief used to say, "he was ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... sausages and cabbage, a roast fowl, some salted cucumber, and the sweet tart which stands perpetually ready for use in such establishments; whilst, I say, these things were either being warmed up or brought in cold, the gentleman induced the waiter to retail certain fragments of tittle-tattle concerning the late landlord of the hostelry, the amount of income which the hostelry produced, and the character of its present proprietor. To the last-mentioned inquiry the waiter returned the answer invariably given in such cases—namely, "My master is a terribly hard man, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... have gladly heard The converse of the world polite, But in the drawing-room all appeared To find in gossip such delight, Speech was so tame and colourless Their slander e'en was weariness; In their sterility of prattle, Questions and news and tittle-tattle, No sense was ever manifest Though by an error and unsought— The languid mind could smile at nought, Heart would not throb albeit in jest— Even amusing fools we miss In thee, thou world ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... Disdainful of all artificial adjuncts of mystery, to all appearance a woman like other women, packing her little sick-baskets, balancing the coal-club accounts, teaching in her Sunday-school, the centre of religion, of charity, and of tittle-tattle, woman in orders fronts calmly the inquirer, a being fearfully and wonderfully English, ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... ten people there, and they all appeared to know about him, and all that concerned or belonged to him. It was the old London world over again, in little! the same tittle-tattle about well-known people, and nothing else—as if nothing else existed; a genial, easy-going, good-natured world, that he had so often found charming for a time, but in which he was never quite happy ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... attic on the street a rakish craft flies the skull and crossbones, and roves the Spanish Main on rainy afternoons. Innocent victims—girls, chiefly, who will tattle unless a horrid threat is laid upon them—are forced blindfold to walk the plank. If the wind blows, scratching the trees against the roof, it is, by their desire, a tempest whirling their stout ship upon the rocks. What ho! We split! Mysterious chalkings mark the cellar stairs and hint ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... he did live there very comfortably and contentedly, though not quite to the satisfaction of his neighbours, who resented the intrusion amongst them of a man who minded his own business, who would not listen to any tittle-tattle, who was absolutely indifferent as to what opinion, good or ill, they might have of him, and who took long and solitary walks among the hills on Sundays as on ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... of whom thought he or she was being imposed upon by the others. "Hand me that knife." "Git it yourself." "I'll tell maw how you air wolfing down the potatoes as fast as I can fry 'em." "Go on, tattle-tale." This was the repartee, mingled with the hiss of frying meat, the grinding of coffee, the thumping sound made by bread being hastily mixed in a wooden bowl standing on a wooden table. The babel grew in volume. Dogs added ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... of Paris, used to sit all day long, day after day, and for the most part of the time alone, though she received tiresome and inane visits which led her to think her loneliness preferable to empty tittle-tattle. If she permitted herself the slightest gleam of intelligence, it gave rise to interminable comment and embittered her condition. She occupied herself a great deal with her children, not so much from taste as for the sake of an ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... should be more troubled by the silly tattle of the hoodoo than even the Portygees had been was a problem Tunis could not solve. And seamen were so scarce just then in Boston that he had been obliged to risk another voyage without engaging strangers to man the Seamew. Besides, being a true Cape Codder, he disliked ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... o'clock?' and, 'How's the wind?' 'Who's chariot's that we left behind?' 90 Or gravely try to read the lines Writ underneath the country signs; Or, 'Have you nothing new to-day From Pope, from Parnell, or from Gay?' Such tattle often entertains My lord and me as far as Staines, As once a week we travel down To Windsor, and again to town, Where all that passes, inter nos, Might be proclaim'd at Charing ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... only the Convent. No place is less fit for you. You have a high spirit, and high religious sentiments: both would be mortified and shocked in a nunnery. Think you that convent-walls can shut out temptation? I know them better than you: they are strongholds of vanity, folly, tittle-tattle, and all the meanest vices of your sex. Nay, I forbid you to think of it: show me now your ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... neighbours left them nothing to guess at, three-fourths of civilized humankind, male or female, would have nothing to talk about; so we cannot too gratefully encourage that needful curiosity termed by the inconsiderate tittle-tattle or scandal, which saves the vast majority of our species from being reduced to the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of Damascus and the schaikh Abou-'l-Baraka al-Nawwam, 6; Story told by the Christian Merchant (relating to Qamar al-Zaman during the reign of Sultan Mahmoud, and different from the story known under this title); Story of Ahmad al- Saghir (the tattle) and Schams al-Qosour; Story of the Young Man of Baghdad and the Bathman (Baigneur, attendant in a Hammam), 7; 153; 21; Story of Khaledjan ibn Mahani; Story of Nour al-Din 'All and of Dounya (or Dinar) of Damascus, 133, Story of Prince Qamar-Khan and of the schaikh ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... my shoulders, for I had seen insinuations to this effect in a newspaper. I was very young at this time, but I already had a certain disdain for tittle-tattle. ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... for making it a club of the lowest species. Here, in advance, we contemplate the ways of the future revolutionary inquisition. They welcome burlesque denunciations; enter into petty police investigations; weigh the tittle-tattle of porters and the gossip of servant-girls; devote an all-night session to the secrets of a drunkard.[2218] They enter on their official report and without any disapproval, the petition of M. Hure, "living at Pont-sur-Yonne, who, over his own signature, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... rights are not to be resigned for nothing. Accordingly, he said with some asperity: "I shall resume my family name whenever I choose it. If Mr. Darrell does not like his daughter to be called Mrs. Jasper Losely—or all the malignant tittle-tattle which my poor father's unfortunate trial might provoke—he must, at least, ask me as a favour to retain the name I have temporarily adopted—a name in my family, sir. A Losely married a Hammond, I forget when—generations ago—you'll ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... these occasions, she told herself that she had done with Maurice Guest; and this decision was the more easy as, since the beginning of the year, she had moved almost entirely in German circles. But now the distasteful tattle was thrust under her very nose. It seemed to put things in a different light to hear Maurice pitied and discussed in this very room. In listening to her visitor, she had felt once more how strong her right of possession was in him; she ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... for his self-appointed servant. At the offices of the diligencias in various towns on the great road from Cordova to Madrid he left word for Concepcion Vara to follow, should the spirit of travel be still upon him, knowing that at these places where travellers were ever passing, the tittle-tattle of the road was on the tongue of every ostler and stable help. And truly enough there followed one who made careful inquiries as to the movements of the Englishman, and heard his messages with a grim smile. But this was not ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... neither she nor any of her immediate followers could speak English, told heavily against the lady in the estimation of the countryside. Then, hardly anyone ever saw her (which in itself was an offence, and the cause of still further tattle). She was very little, folk said who professed to be well informed, and her face and hands showed strangely brown against the white robes that she habitually wore; her eyes were like stars; her temper quick to blaze up without due cause. Backstairs gossip, no doubt; ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... hold your tongue: Enough of shameless talk. I'm master, now: And I'll not have Ruth hear this radgy slack. If you've no shame yourself, I'll find a way To bridle your loose tongue: so mind yourself: I'll have no tinker's tattle. ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... intellect abound; but it is the abundance of a jungle, not of a garden, unwholesome, bewildering, unprofitable from its very plenty rank from its very fragrance. Every fop, every boor, every valet, is a man of wit. The very butts and dupes, Tattle, Witwould, Puff, Acres, outshine the whole Hotel of Rambouillet. To prove the whole system of this school erroneous, it is only necessary to apply the test which dissolved the enchanted Florimel, to place the true by the false Thalia, to contrast the most celebrated characters which have been drawn ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... get the thanks you deserved, either, Doctor von Kammacher," he said in his broad dialect, rich in vowel sounds, and recounted a number of cases, of which Frederick had not known, in which good had been repaid by evil tattle. "The people around Plassenberg are not fit for men like you and me. Men like you and me belong in America, the land ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... wellborn both by Father and Mother's Side, being the Daughter of Thomas Prater, once an eminent Practitioner in the Law, and of Letitia Tattle, a Family well known in all Parts of this Kingdom, having been reduc'd by Misfortunes to wait on several great Persons, and for some time to be Teacher at a Boarding-School of young Ladies; giveth Notice to the Publick, That she hath lately taken a House near Bloomsbury- Square, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Ratapon. The weasels, too, their banner Unfurl'd in warlike manner. As Fame her trumpet sounds, The victory balanced well; Enrich'd were fallow grounds Where slaughter'd legions fell; But by said trollop's tattle, The loss of life in battle Thinn'd most the rattish race ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... tattle, and sometimes wit, but for solid reasoning and good sense I never knew one in my life that had it, and who reasoned and acted consequentially for four and twenty ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... could not get what the Three C's folks were getting—to advertise his impotency by making a twenty-mile tote trip over slushy and rutted roads—was a mighty poor send-off as a boss, he told himself. He knew what sort of tattle would pursue him. ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... to get you out of the room so you won't fill the flapping ears of your friends with gossip about Whitney and his wife. Though why she should send you out I can't understand. If you and the servants don't hear what's going on, you make up and tattle ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... curiosity," replied Jack, enjoying the consternation of his companions. "It is, as you say, a long while since. But it's singular how that sort of thing is remembered. One would think people had something else to do than talk of one's private affairs for ever. For my part, I despise such tattle. But there are persons in the neighborhood who still say it was an awkward business. Amongst others, I've heard that this very Luke Bradley talks in pretty ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... drawing-room. He glided to a seat on an ottoman, by the side of his hostess, and listened in silence to the conversation. What a conversation! At any other time, under any other circumstances, Ferdinand would have been teased and wearied with its commonplace current: all the dull detail of county tattle, in which the squire's lady was a proficient, and with which Miss Temple was too highly bred not to appear to sympathise; and yet the conversation, to Ferdinand, appeared quite charming. Every accent of Henrietta's sounded like wit; and when she ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... pangs; he hesitates, stops in his utterance, and always expresses himself inelegantly. His actions are all ungraceful; so that, with all his merit and knowledge, I would rather converse six hours with the most frivolous tittle-tattle woman who knew something of the world, than with him. The preposterous notions of a systematical man who does not know the world, tire the patience of a man who does. It would be endless to correct his mistakes, nor would he take it kindly: for he has considered everything deliberately, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... of battle, Yet hated of Ma(r)s, How ceaseless their tattle Of tumbles and scars! Such warnings are vain, For thy rites we prepare, Youth is yearning again In thy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 1, 1892 • Various
... hermitage. It was never likely to be discovered, except by the smoke, when the inmate lit a fire. The local shepherd knew it, of course, but Allen had bought his silence, not that there were many neighbours for the shepherd to tattle with. ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... meal was over, the children sate together in whispering tattle. Mrs. Ferrars had left the room to see if all was ready for their hour of retirement, and Mr. Ferrars was walking up and down the ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... (a custom in France being to bring the bridegroom a candle in the middle of the night, on his wedding night) if matters had not gone well with him, to give such a sign, and leave the rest to me. Now, he had his ears so battered and his mind so prepossessed with the eternal tattle of this business, that when he came to it, he did really find himself tired with the trouble of his imagination, and accordingly, at the time appointed, gave me the sign. Whereupon I whispered him in the ear, that he should rise under pretence of putting us out of the room, and ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... goodwill of those about her to be the first essentials to happiness, felt no weakness, no lack of self-reliance, now that she was in some measure pitted against the many. She resented the conduct of the passengers in making her the subject of their tittle-tattle with a bitterness she had never felt before. In overlooking her actions and assuming a right to influence her in a purely personal matter, these people were guilty of an insolence to which she would ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... Jean'. This was not in consequence of the attachment of romance perhaps; but I had a long and much-loved fellow creature's happiness or misery in my determination, and I durst not trifle with so important a deposit. Nor have I any cause to repent it. If I have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with the multiform curse of boarding-school affectation; and I have got the handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and the kindest heart in the county. Mrs. ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... his study, eagerly expecting a reply, but Cardan took no notice of the attack. Then one day some tale-bearer, moved either by the spirit of tittle-tattle or the love of mischief, brought to Julius Caesar the news that Jerome Cardan had sunk under his tremendous battery of abuse, and was dead. It is but bare charity to assume that Scaliger was touched by some stings of regret when he heard what had been the fatal ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... believe she told me she had come from a lonely part of Scotland, and wasn't used to living in a great city, and that crowds rather frightened her,' observed a girl who looked rather ashamed of having listened to this tittle-tattle. ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... she falls in a sweet reverie, her head leans upon her hand. Her soubrette, a pretty and chattering Swiss, whose republican virtue had been corrupted by Paris, as Rome by Corinth, endeavours to divert Mer lady's ennui: she excruciates her beautiful mistress with tattle about the admiration of Lord B———and the sighs of Sir Harry. Her Ladyship reprimands her for her levity, and the soubrette, grown sullen, revenges herself for her mistress's reproof by converting the sleepy process ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... The heavy flattened arches of M. de Brosse, that awkward architect of the Saint-Gervais portal. So much for art; and, as for history, we have the gossiping reminiscences of the great pillar, still ringing with the tattle of ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... worsted-work, and catechism are added as accomplishments; and then at eighteen—the age when a boy really begins his training—their education is completed, they are told; and they are turned into the world to devote their time and talents to trimmings, novels, and idle tittle-tattle. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... making the most commonplace remarks look brilliant, from the ease and liveliness with which they were spoken, and the tact with which they were made pleasant to the listener: while I wondered at myself, for enjoying from her lips the flippant, sparkling tattle, which had hitherto made young women to me objects of unspeakable dread, to be escaped by crossing the street, hiding behind doors, and rushing blindly into back-yards ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... persevered for a stricken hour in such a torrent of unnecessary tattle, as determined Peveril, at all events, to endeavour to procure a separate lodging. Having repeated his evening prayers in Latin, as formerly (for the old gentleman was a Catholic, which was the sole cause of his falling under suspicion), he set ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... into dead leaves according to custom; and the curiosities, upon which he set so extravagant a price, savour more of Wardour Street than of the genuine mediaeval artists. Nay, there are scoffers, though I am not of them, who think that the tittle-tattle which Miss Austen gathered at the country-houses of our grandfathers is worth more than the showy but rather flimsy eloquence of the 'Ariosto of the North.' Scott endeavoured at least, if with indifferent success, to invest his ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... the future to be thick-skinned, and when Gashmu's tongue is whispering, and whenever some busybody like Sanballat repeats Gashmu's words to us, let us act as Nehemiah did. Let us take no notice of the repeated tittle-tattle. ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... students and all. She was of a wild, roving nature, inherited from father and mother, who were both Bohemians, by taste and circumstance; if a lord was not by, she would talk to his courier with the greatest pleasure; the din, the stir, the drink, the smoke, the tattle of the Hebrew pedlars, the solemn, braggart ways of the poor tumblers, the sournois talk of the gambling-table officials, the songs and swagger of the students, and the general buzz and hum of the place had pleased and tickled the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... needn't say I'm the last man in Pianura to listen to women's tattle; but my wife had it straight from Cino the barber, whose sister is portress of the Benedictines, that, two days since, one of the nuns foretold the whole business, precisely as it happened—and what's more, many ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... young pup, and tried to bring him up to be a good hunter and to keep his tongue. He took good care of him. He often told him how foolish it was to tell everything he knew. The pup would promise not to tattle, but he was only a dog, and ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... remark by his visit; and even then it was rather in the shape of wondering conjectures whether he would dare to make love to her, than in any pretended knowledge of their relations to each other, that the public tongue exercised its village-prerogative of tattle. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... with a stream of ever-flowing anecdote. Much that he gives us in his "General History of the Stage" is only gossip, yet what is there more fascinating than tittle-tattle about players? The gossip of the drawing-room is merely inane, or else scandalous; but shift the scene to the theatre, and a story no longer bores; it is consecrated by the sacrament of interest. Is any apology ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... doubt that a great lack of discretion had been shown by the Court. Ill-natured tittle-tattle, which should have been instantly nipped in the bud, had been allowed to assume disgraceful proportions; and the Throne itself had become involved in the personal malignities of the palace. A particularly ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... distaste for pedants and tale-bearers. She did what we all would have done in her place; at first she did not listen to them but as they again began to repeat their tittle-tattle, she ended by believing them and decided to send Francoeur away. However, to give him an honourable exile, she sent him to Rome to obtain the blessing of the Pope. This journey was all the longer for ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... annoyed; it could not admit that it was wrong, and determined to penetrate the supposed mystery; accordingly all the gossips kept a watch upon the Rougons. They soon found ample matter for tittle-tattle. Rougon died almost suddenly, fifteen months after his marriage, from a sunstroke received one afternoon while he was weeding ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... of Dublin gossips into a rage because he declared that Dublin was called "the whispering gallery" and "the city of dreadful whispers" because it was populated by the descendants of informers and spies. That, he declared, was why Dublin people were so fond of tittle-tattle and tale-bearing and scandal-mongering. "The English hanged or transported every decent-minded man in the town, an' left only the spies an' informers, an' the whole of you are descended from that breed. That's why you can't keep anything to yourselves, ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... Spencer was sure that the sooner Helen and he were removed from their present environment the happier they would be. He hoped most fervently that the course of events might be made smooth for their departure. He cared not a jot for the tittle-tattle of the hotel. Let him but see Helen re-established in London, and it would not be his fault if they did not set forth on their honeymoon before the year was ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... don't so much matter, 'cause most folks wouldn't understand even if she tried to tattle, and I guess she don't. But not to Mis' Hemphill—she's a most su'prisin' gossip, ye know—nor to the Murfrees, nor Flahertys, nor nobody. These is fam'ly affairs, Lucy, and they ain't for public ears. I'm going down to ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... this is a very curious fellow. He picked up some scraps of learning while he served young Lord Trifte at the university. But what he most excels in is pimping. No one knows his talents better than I, for I was valet-de-chambre to Squire Tattle an intimate companion of Shuffle's lord. He got him self into a scrape by pawning some of his lordship's clothes on which account he was turned away; but, as he was acquainted with some particular ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... Juan, Sganarelle and M. Dimanche, which is here, with change of names, taken almost word for word. His men are gallants neither from love or passion, but from the custom of the age, of which it is said, "it would break Mr. Tattle's heart to think anybody else should be beforehand with him;" and Mr. Tattle was the type of a thousand fine gentlemen in the best English society of ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... Lord Harrington's seat, where was assembled a party in honour of Madame Guiccioli and her second husband, the Marquis de Boissy, and tells me that he attached himself to ladies, not to gentlemen, nor ever joined in general tattle. Like many other famous men, he passed through a period of shyness, which yielded to women's tactfulness only. From the first they appreciated him; "if you were as gentle as your friend Kinglake," writes Mrs. Norton reproachfully ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... told you she is infamous? Your innocency should be ignorant of such trumpery tittle-tattle. And one can be civil without ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... sent him an order to support Davoust. This order has never been produced, and it finds no place in the latest and fullest collection of French official despatches, which, however, contains some that fully exonerate Bernadotte.[111] Unfortunately for Bernadotte's fame, the tattle of memoir writers is more attractive and gains more currency than the prosaic ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... believe; Although the world has such an evil tongue That—but my chaster ear will not receive An echo of a syllable that 's wrong: In fact, there 's nothing makes me so much grieve, As that abominable tittle-tattle, Which is the cud eschew'd ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... the honest Doctor enabled him to despise this sort of tittle-tattle, though the secret knowledge of its existence could not be agreeable to him. He went his usual rounds with his usual perseverance, and waited with patience until time should throw light on the subject and history of ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... far better hold her tongue," continued Folliot. "Tittle-tattle of that sort is apt to lead to unpleasantness. And when it came to it, it turned out that all she had seen was this stranger strolling across the Close as if he'd just left your house. If—there's always some if! But I'll tell you ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... more presuming than the rest, and that his devotion had not failed to produce a good deal of talk. Little as Mrs. Herman was accustomed to pay attention to social gossip, she had not failed to hear tattle about Elsie Wilson; and while she probably did not much heed it, she was at heart too conscientious not to feel shame and irritation. That a woman in the position of Mrs. Wilson should allow herself to give rise to vulgar gossip moved her to deep disapproval; ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... Manuel and the Queen were the only persons qualified to speak of these matters with authority, and this was Dom Manuel's account of them. For the rest, he was sustained against tittle-tattle by the knowledge that he had performed a charitable deed in England, for the Queen's popularity was enhanced, and all the English, but particularly their King, were delighted, by the fine son which the stork duly brought to Alianora ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... triumphed in his mission. He certainly made the acquaintance of the Princess Dashkoff, and she, as certainly, in 1769-1771, when on a visit to England, gave out that d'Eon was received by Elizabeth in a manner more appropriate to a woman than a man. It is not easy to ascertain precisely what the tattle of the Princess really amounted to, but d'Eon represents it so as to corroborate his tale about his residence at Elizabeth's Court, as lectrice, in 1755. The evidence is of no value, being a biassed third-hand report of the Russian lady's gossip. There is a mezzotint, published ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... Florentines," said Lorenzo de Medici, in his harsh but not unkindly voice, as he met the boys in the grand and splendidly decorated entrance-hall; "if ye do but make your ways in life with such determination as that, all offices needs must yield to you. A truce to tattle, though, my fair Giulio. Modesty best becomes the young; Giovanni's cardinalate, remember, has not yet been proclaimed, and 't is wisest to hold our tongues till we may wag them truthfully. But, come," he added in a livelier tone, "to horse, to horse! the Triumph waits for none,—noble ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... genius, and courage, has excited that fear from all men which is the highest homage this world can offer to integrity. His personal sorrow, therefore, was not degraded by any foolish additional worry about the tittle-tattle of this, that, or the other personage. Tongues might wag; for himself, he could but do his duty and keep his account straight with God. He hoped that a public law-suit would be avoided. Baron Zeuill ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... that it is impossible to show one's nose in this hateful town without knocking against some vulgarity, stupidity, tittle-tattle, or some horrible injustice. One can't live here ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... a rent in it: for one or another of them will with grinning and laughing thrust her finger through it, and then shew it to the rest, taking also the first opportunity she can lay hold of, when they are a little at liberty, to make a whole tittle-tattle about it, and very much admireth the carelessness and negligence of the Child-bed woman; as if she were a greater wast-all, and worse house-wife than any of them else when to the contrary, if you should by accident ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... here all the afternoon.' 'Spare excuses,' said the saucer; 'you have sat on me before, sir.' 'Oh, I'll stir him up directly,' said the spoon. 'Stop your clatter! Stop your clatter!' cried the bread-and-butter platter 'Tittle-tattle!' sneered the tea-pot, with a shrug; 'Now, the most important question is my chronic indigestion.' 'Ah, you've taken too much tannin,' jeered the jug. 'Hey, hey, hey!' sang the silver-plated tray, 'It's time you had your faces washed. ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... things foul and ugly and of bad report; who do not talk, because they do not think of virtue, but of vice; or of praise either, because they are always finding fault with their neighbours. The man who loves a foul story, or a coarse jest—the woman who gossips over every tittle tattle of scandal which she can pick up against her neighbour—what do these people do but defile their own souls afresh, after they have been washed clean in the blood of Christ? Foul their souls are, and ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... perforce, to scribble such jingles as I am ashamed to read, because I must write something. . . ." Paul Vanderhoffen shrugged, and continued, in tones more animated: "There will be no talk of any grand-duke. Instead, there will be columns of denunciation and tittle-tattle in every newspaper—quite as if you, a baronet's daughter, had run away with a footman. And you will very often think wistfully of Lord Brudenel's fine house when your only title is—well, Princess of Grub Street, and your realm is a garret. And for a while even to-morrow's breakfast will ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... Then she would have to take her place in the great social exhibition where the gilded cages are daily opened that the animals may be seen, feeding on the sight of stereotyped toilets and the sound of impoverished tattle. O misery of semi-provincial fashionable life, where wealth is at its wit's end to avoid being tired of an existence which has all the labor of keeping up appearances, without the piquant profligacy which saves it at least from being utterly vapid! How many fashionable women at the end of a long ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... sir. Ask me to tattle of them for rewards, after thirty years!" And she put her apron up ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... his wife both declared that they minded what the bailiff said, and never let a word escape from them about the old man's suspicions; but rumour is a sad spreader of news, and the result of some bit of tittle-tattle turns up in places least ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... his enemies made this an additional subject of annoyance, and there were not wanting those who had the amazing bad taste to repeat to him some of their speeches. There are some who seem to think that a man must rather enjoy hearing all the low tittle-tattle of ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... literateur and the recluses of Plas Newydd; and it would seem from her correspondence, that their tastes were very comprehensive and multifarious; poetry and politics, music and mystery, tragedy and tattle, being alike acceptable. In a letter addressed to Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby, under date Lichfield, October ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... a bad sort. My brother Ed has got somethin' to say in this community an' I'm likely to control a few votes this fall myself. I figger if you came home with me to-day we c'ud manage to git you placed with us. There's been tattle about you ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... likeness with internal unlikeness; not rhyming, but strongly alliterative, and in every case with a change of the interior vowel from a weak into a strong, generally from i into a or o; as 'shilly-shally', 'mingle-mangle', 'tittle-tattle', 'prittle-prattle', 'riff-raff', 'see-saw', 'slip-slop'. No one who is not quite out of love with the homelier yet more vigorous portions of the language, but will acknowledge the life and strength which there is often in these and in others ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... as a clergyman, he was solemn and fervent; and his preaching evinced "how forcible are right words." But in his daily intercourse with this heterogeneous population, he was not always aware that clerical intimacy should never descend to familiarity. He overheard rude speeches and gossipping tattle; and was made acquainted with some domestic bickerings and feuds; and kindly, though not always discretely, endeavored to check them; but his mediation was repelled as uncalled-for interference.[1] To use the words of his biographer, "he attempted the doubly difficult task of reforming ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... stifle; he went on reading scrupulously, lingering over matters in which he had no interest, striving to occupy his mind and drive the bitter memories and his fears away from him. Never in his life before had he read the society tattle in the newspapers. However, dragging along the columns, he found a paragraph on which he dwelt for a long time. It stated that Miss Marston of Fifth Avenue had returned by motor from a house-party in the Catskills, accompanied ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... this discourse and pleasant tattle of drinking, Gargamelle began to be a little unwell in her lower parts; whereupon Grangousier arose from off the grass, and fell to comfort her very honestly and kindly, suspecting that she was in travail, and told her that it was best for her to sit down upon the grass under ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... "The tittle-tattle in these twopenny-halfpenny villages is almost past believing!" he exclaimed angrily. "Here's an absolute new-comer arrives in the district, and they've begun taking away the poor ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... to know where Julie had gone. He wanted no tattle and gossip about the castle and where there were so many servants and followers it could not be prevented unless they were kept in ignorance. It would be best to use a stranger, one who was known but little at Zillenstein, and he ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in the least, it will give the Old Lady a Complexion, She wants it, besides I was Indebted to her, for a full length She gave of me the other Day, to a Country Gentlewoman at Lady Tattle-Tongues ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... confidence (O heavens! how mean a skill! how mad a confidence!) to lard every sentence with an oath or a curse, making bold at every turn to salute his Maker, or to summon Him in attestation of his tattle; not to say calling and challenging the Almighty to damn and destroy him? Such a conceit, I say, too many have of swearing, because a custom thereof, together with divers other fond and base qualities, hath prevailed among some people, ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... occur, one in the frank intimacy of family correspondence, the other in the official reports of a diplomatic representative to his chief. They are both unquestionably disinterested, and are very much more valuable than the later tittle-tattle of Peter Martyr and Ramusio, which has plainly filtered through what Mr Beazley would call ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... about us, We had to sacrifice our friends. No, no; Even if we could bring ourselves to do it, Think you that everyone would then be silenced? Against backbiting there is no defence So let us try to live in innocence, To silly tattle pay no heed at all, And leave the gossips free ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... by his tattle has made the Marquise my mortal foe, I gained his good offices, and those of the Public Prosecutor, and Comte Octave de Bauvan; for Madame de Serizy told them the danger in which I stood in consequence of their allowing the source of ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... wherry (he now took care to leave for home betimes), or with his sister going about the shops. It would be but a bow in the bye-going, she passing on with equanimity and I with a maddening sense of awkwardness, that was not much bettered by the tattle of the plainstanes, where merchant lads and others made audible comment on the cousinly ardour ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street I hear the drummers makin' riot, An' I set thinkin' o' the feet 115 Thet follered once an' now are quiet,— White feet ez snowdrops innercent, Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, Whose comin' step ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... acquainted with all the leaders of fashionable society; and, in fact, if one listened to her conversation for an hour one could learn all the gossip of the day. Though she was unable to interest herself in this tittle-tattle, Marguerite was pretending to listen to it with profound attention when the drawing-room door suddenly opened and Evariste appeared with an impudent smile on his face. "Madame Landoire, the milliner, is here, and desires to speak with Madame ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... duke has entered, and into which he misleads his son, is dangerous. You tremble, Maria. It was no maiden, nor the tattle of the town, that brought you this. When did you last see or hear from him—from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... acrid zeal to the interests of the Conservative party. He was not the most influential of the Polterham clerics, for women in general rather feared than liked him; a sincere ascetic, he moved but awkwardly in the regions of tea and tattle, and had an uncivil habit of speaking what he thought the truth without regard to time, place, or person. Some of his sermons had given offence, with the result that several ladies betook themselves to gentler preachers. But ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... tattle, but she began again to lose heart. Sutton's restless appetite for rivets noted the new delay, and he grasped the cause of it at once. His first comment was to walk over to the furnace and smash Pafflow ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... with the avowed object of espousing the King's side, and covering the Queen and her friends with obloquy. Theodore Hook was the editor, but very few persons were in the secret. Every man or woman who was conspicuous as a friend of the Queen was duly gibbeted, and any tittle-tattle gossip or scandal that could be ferreted out against them was boldly printed in the most unmistakable terms. Trial for libel failed to discover the real proprietors, editor, and writers, and the men who stood their trial as printer, publisher, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... don't say any more. I know all that your life has been, and why. You did quite right. What is a little trouble to me, a little passing inconvenience, the tattle of a few idle tongues, compared with what Jack's life is to you? I see now that I ought to have opposed it strongly instead of letting it take its course. You were right—you always have been right, John. There is ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... light hours eating and drinking in company and he lay the night with her. The Wali feigned not to believe a word of this story, but he summoned the watchmen of the quarter one night and questioned them of this tittle-tattle. Quoth one of them, "As for me, O my lord, I saw none save a Jew[FN45] enter the street in question one night; but I have not made certain to whom he went in;" and quoth the Chief, "Keep thine eye on him from this time forward ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... boy. "Now remember this; if you tell the least little thing that happens here to Gaucher, or to the Grouage and Bellache people, or even to Marianne who loves us, you will kill your father. Never tattle again, and I will forgive what you said yesterday." The child began to cry. "Don't cry; but when any one questions you, say, as the peasants do, 'I don't know.' There are persons roaming about whom I distrust. Run along! As for you two," he added, turning to the women, "you have heard what ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... Intelligence. After all, this is Asquith's own affair. I do not for one moment believe Mr. Asquith would employ such agencies and for sure he will turn Murdoch and his wares into the wastepaper basket. I have reassured Tyrrell. Tittle-tattle will effect no lodgment in the ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... advise you to put faith in the true report of those who have daily experience of their mistress's excellent virtue, as they have of the sun's shining, and of the earth's bringing forth fruit, and not in the tattle of a few cowardly back-stair rogues, who wish to curry favor with the Guises. Come, we will say no more. Walk round with us by Appledore, and then home ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... to the strictest Rules of Reason himself, and knew how to look on the Foibles of others, with an Eye of Indulgence. Every one was surpriz'd to find, that notwithstanding he had such a Fund of Wit, he never insulted; nay, never so much as rallied any of his Companions, for that Tittle Tattle, which was so vague and empty, so noisy and confus'd; for those rash Reflections, those illiterate Conclusions, and those insipid Jokes; and, in short, for that Flow of unmeaning Words, which was call'd polite Conversation in Babylon. He had learned from the first Book of Zoroaster, that Self-love ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... sausage story above given, was told regarding me, by one of those reverend divines in whose frocks sit some anile chatterboxes, as any man who knows this world knows. They take the privilege of their gown. They cabal, and tattle, and hiss, and cackle comminations under their breath. I say the old women of the other sex are not more talkative or more mischievous than some of these. "Such a man ought not to be spoken to", ...
— English Satires • Various
... drawn into its vortex. By GOSSIP I don't mean scandal or malignant misrepresentations, or reports of petty strifes, intrigues, and jealousies, such as are common in all cliques and communities, but nuhou, mere tattle, the perpetual talking about people, and the picking to tatters of every item of personal detail, whether gathered ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... an honest woman, show thyself to thy worshippers, who are worn with regretting thee all these thirteen years. Hush the noise of battle, be a true Lysimacha to us.(1) Put an end to this tittle-tattle, to this idle babble, that set us defying one another. Cause the Greeks once more to taste the pleasant beverage of friendship and temper all hearts with the gentle feeling of forgiveness. Make excellent commodities flow to our markets, fine heads of garlic, early ...
— Peace • Aristophanes
... fellows pull an easy stroke; because of the heavy dew the clear sparkle of the stars seemed to fall on me cold and wetting. There was a sense of lurking gruesome horror somewhere in my mind, and it was mingled with clear and grotesque images. Schomberg's gastronomic tittle-tattle was responsible for these; and I half hoped I should never see Falk again. But the first thing my anchor-watchman told me was that the captain of the tug was on board. He had sent his boat away and was now waiting ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... without a sort of shudder of interest; and that singular fancy of his for describing complicated legal and commercial undertakings came in too. Nor did he spare, in this wide-ranging book, to bring in other favorite matters of his, the hobereau—or squireen—aristocracy, the tittle-tattle of the country town ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... to all the birds in the universe. A grasshopper remained a week with St. Francis during the absence of the Virgin Mary, and pittered on his head. He grew so companionable with a nightingale, that when a nest of swallows began to babble, he hushed them by desiring them not to tittle-tattle of their sister, the nightingale. Attacked by a wolf, with only the sign-manual of the cross, he held a long dialogue with his rabid assailant, till the wolf, meek as a lap-dog, stretched his paws in the hands of the saint, followed ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... indignation is at work within you, complaining now as to destiny, now on the subject of police agents. You keep going here and there to induce people as far as possible to formulate their accusations. This stupid kind of tittle-tattle is hateful to you, and you are anxious to put a stop to it as soon as possible. Am I right? Have I laid finger on the sentiments which actuate you? But you are not satisfied by turning your own brain, you want to do, or rather do, ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... you will satisfy my desires. Look, Countess! I consider myself as one of your most sincere admirers and it wounds me to hear all this tittle-tattle circulating in our set which links your ladyship's name ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... mouth to his ear, saying, 'There is a curse on whoso telleth of things in Aklis, and to tattle of the Seven ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... manner of life! Do you fancy that I am deaf as a post and blind as a bat? Do you think that I do not know some of the things that are spoken of me, by Mrs. Ames, for instance, or Horace Penfield, or even Edith Symmes? Do you fancy any word of that tittle-tattle escapes me? Sometimes it is repeated, or hinted in malice; sometimes as from Bea or Kitty in fright, as a warning, almost a prayer. I know that I lay myself open to gossip; but I can not help it, at least at present. It is impossible for me ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... Aunt Beulah, and I say, not so often as Uncle Jimmie does. Then she says does he go to see Aunt Margaret, and I say that he goes to see Uncle Peter the most. Well, if he doesn't he almost does. You can't tell Mrs. Madam Bolling that you won't tattle, because she would ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley |
