"Tattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the trouble I made them; but I don't mind telling you, Maggie, because you're a real first-class girl, and won't tattle. I was always bothering about how we could have the earthquake. We played everything else of Robinson Crusoe's, you know, but I couldn't see how to get that up." Billy was so eager that he forgot, and tried to lean on his lame elbow. That made him twist his face, but after a moment he smiled ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... 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 plain ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... was stubbornly bent on going down to the garden as soon as ever she heard Madame Deberle's voice there. All Rosalie's tittle-tattle regarding the next-door house she drank in greedily, ever restless and inquisitive concerning its inmates and their doings; and she would even slip out of the bedroom to keep watch from the kitchen window. In the garden, ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... all sincerity. George Sand was quite indifferent about all the great events of Parisian life, about social tittle-tattle and Boulevard gossip. She knew the importance, though, of every episode of country life, of a sudden fog or of the overflowing of the river. She knew the place well, too, as she had visited every nook and corner in all weathers and in every ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... fashions and of plays, But more of players and their private lives; Related tittle-tattle of their words and ways, Their lightning change of husbands and of wives. And there was chat of garments and their price, Of operas and balls and all ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... foreigner, and that neither she nor any of her immediate followers could speak English, told heavily against the lady in the estimation of the countryside. Then, hardly anyone ever saw her (which in itself was an offence, and the cause of still further tattle). She was very little, folk said who professed to be well informed, and her face and hands showed strangely brown against the white robes that she habitually wore; her eyes were like stars; her temper quick to blaze up without due cause. Backstairs gossip, no doubt; but there ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... was not of the serenest, and her manners perhaps were not such as would have honored him had she followed him into the great world; but she made him a good wife,—and we need not repeat the tattle which we are told is still current among some of the high families of Philadelphia. They had two children,—a son, the idol of his father's heart, who died as a child; and a daughter, who married Richard Bache, and is the ancestress ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... Palace of Antipas to-day, a ruin, black and shapeless. Thought I, where is the majesty of order and the beauty of strength that was this place? And then," his voice fell to a whisper, "beshrew the boy's tattle, I said, the footprints of his Prophet before the throne ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... of an undeserved punishment she was worthy—more than worthy; and for the Colonials, among whom alone that scandal would count against her, he had a habit of contempt. He could, and would in his humour, force Boston to court her salons and hold its tongue from all but secret tattle. The thought, too, of Lady Caroline at this moment crossing the high seas to be met with the news agreeably ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Cooper, who did attend him, is not now 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 cannot bear him, as well as of all the other ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... You can't live on it,—you can't ruin Eleanor's prospects for ever. In point of fact, you can't resign; the bishop wouldn't accept it; the whole thing is settled. What I now want to do is to prevent any inconvenient tittle-tattle,—any ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... this subject, let you into certain Arcana that will be very useful for you to know, but which you must, with the utmost care, conceal and never seem to know. Women, then, are only children of a larger growth; they have an entertaining tattle, and sometimes wit; but for solid reasoning, good sense, I never knew in my life one that had it, or who reasoned or acted consequentially for four-and-twenty hours together. Some little passion or humor always breaks upon their best resolutions. ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... it, he was anxious to get away again, for by a quick retreat the two girls might be saved the knowledge of the Clark episode, and he, a very probable second insult. But the evangelist, having no wish to tattle about Lancaster, yet hoping that the elder girl would learn what her father had done and administer a deserved ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... colors. Switzerland was at that time overrun by the English, whom the recently-signed Peace had attracted to the Continent. The laureate took the lead of those who tried to make the good but bigoted people of Geneva believe in all the tittle-tattle against Byron which was passed about in London, and actually attempted to make a scandal of his very presence in their town. When he passed in the streets they stopped to stare at him insolently, putting up their glasses to their eyes. They followed him in his rides; they reported that he ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... named 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
... veil, remove the veil, tear aside the veil, tear the curtain; unmask, unveil, unfold, uncover, unseal, unkennel; take off the seal, break the seal; lay open, lay bare; expose; open, open up; bare, bring to light. divulge, reveal, break; squeal, tattle, sing, rat, snitch [all coll.]; let into the secret; reveal the secrets of the prison house; tell &c (inform) 527; breathe, utter, blab, peach; let out, let fall, let drop, let slip, spill the beans, let the cat out of the bag; betray; tell tales, come out of school; come out with; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... amusements and stir 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 interest in her almost solitary life, and exercised her mind on ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... lived on for a short time longer. Many said, when she followed, that she ate herself to death; but I mention the rumour in order to deny it, for I am sure it was grief that killed her. It is a pity some dogs will repeat everything they hear, without considering the mischief such tittle-tattle may occasion—although it has been asserted by many that in this case the false intelligence came from the Cats, who had no great affection for poor Lady Bull. Whatever the cause, she died, and with her ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... 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 circumstances of my lord's conduct, he did not care to exasperate ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... materials on which men can agree, not upon subjects which try the passions. But this good lady wants to see men chatting together upon the Pelagian heresy— to hear, in the afternoon, the theological rumours of the day—and to glean polemical tittle-tattle at a tea-table rout. All the disciples of this school uniformly fall into the same mistake. They are perpetually calling upon their votaries for religious thoughts and religious conversation in every thing; inviting them to ride, walk, row, wrestle, and dine out religiously;—forgetting that the ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... the first rush of spring. The very doctors of the winter resort shake hands with one another, the sermons of the chaplain lose their frost-bitten savour and die down into something like charity, scandal and tittle-tattle go to sleep in the sunshine. The stolid, impassive English nature blooms into a life strangely unlike its own. Papas forget their Times. Mammas forget their propriety. The stout British merchant finds himself astride of a donkey, and exchanging good-humoured badinage ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... 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
... was circumscribed; though very free in her manners, she was very deficient in other respects; and hence it was she so much avoided all society of females who were better informed than herself, courting in preference the lively tittle-tattle of the other sex, who were, in turn, better pleased with the gaieties of youth and beauty than the more substantial logical witticisms of antiquated Court-dowagers. To this may be ascribed her ungovernable passion for great societies, balls, masquerades, and all kinds ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... fool, rubbing his hands together. His master often rewarded him for particularly choice morsels of loose tittle-tattle. ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... honourable men need not, of course, convince us of the fact. But this evidence is in itself a fact to be considered—'Why do these gentlemen tell this tale?' we ask; but Dr. Carpenter puts the testimony on the level of patristic tattle many centuries old, written down, on no authority, long after the event. Yet the worthy doctor calmly talks about 'want of scientific culture preventing people from appreciating the force of scientific reasoning,' and that after giving such ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... the Sunday schools long ago without ever being converted to the church. And there you see them, the fat, duty-doing, self-satisfied "firsts" in this world, who shall be last and least in the world to come. Those least inclined to tattle about their neighbors, I found, were poor, pathetic sinners with damaged reputations, who could not afford to talk about others. They belonged humbly to the church, but never figured loudly in it. And if God is God, as I do firmly believe in spite of all I ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... Kelly was no fighter; He loved his pipe and glass; An easygoing blighter, Who lived in Montparnasse. But 'mid the tavern tattle He heard some guinney say: "When France goes forth to battle, The Legion ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... erudition, though the courtiers were of opinion he would have liked to absent himself from her evening parties more frequently than was particularly agreeable to the Princess Anna and her imperial parents. This was partly explained by the private tattle of the court, which averred, that the Princess Anna Comnena had been more beautiful when she was less learned; and that, though still a fine woman, she had somewhat lost the charms of her person as she ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... with this difference, that it is better to ruin one's self than all the world. I am sure you would think as I do, though Pyrrhus were King of Prussia. I long to have you bring back the only hero that ever I could endure. Adieu, Madam! I sent you just such another piece of tittle-tattle as this by General Waldegrave: you are very partial to me, or very fond of knowing every thing that passes in your own country, if you can be amused so. If you can, 'tis surely my duty to divert you, though at the expense of my character; for I own I am ashamed ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... on the Noda that he 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
... confessing. Nevertheless, what a commotion it would all cause in the parliamentary duck-pond. He at once realised the inevitable consequences, the ministry overthrown and swept away by this fresh whirlwind of denunciation and tittle-tattle. Mege would renew his interpellation on the morrow, and Vignon and his friends would at once lay siege to the posts they coveted. And he, Monferrand, could picture himself driven out of that ministerial sanctum where, for eight months past, he had been taking ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... brought back from his voyages have turned 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 scenes ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... Lockhart dark brown; her features not regular, but her complexion, figure, and so forth 'unusually attractive.' Not very much is said about her in any of the authentic accounts, and traditional tittle-tattle may be neglected. She does not seem to have been extremely wise, and was entirely unliterary; but neither of these defects is a causa redhibitionis in marriage; and she was certainly a faithful ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... without force they would obey any big boy who might choose to order them. It was some time before this scheme became known to Ernest Bracebridge and his friends. As he never listened to the tales and tittle-tattle of the school—indeed, he found that the current stories were generally absurd exaggerations of the truth—he might have remained some time longer ignorant, had not Bouldon come to him one afternoon, ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... what he was going to tattle was that I thought the old gent might feel hurt, 'cause none of them was named after him, so I told him Polly's middle name ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... disguised in sugar of milk to conceal their taste and appearance; the world of letters, in the same way, triturates the most disgusting things to get them swallowed without raising your gorge. There is an incessant manipulation of neighbours' gossip and play-box tittle-tattle, all wrapped up in perfidious good taste to mask ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... Aristophanes: Je tiens pour une maxime constante, qu'une beaute mediocre plait plus generalement qu'une beaute sans defaut. Mr Congreve hath made such another blunder in his Love for Love, where Tattle tells Miss Prue, "She should admire him as much for the beauty he commends in her as if he himself was ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... 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 ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... 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, but ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... 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 expected, doing ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street I hear the drummers makin' riot, An' I set thinkin' o' the feet Thet follered once an' now are quiet,— White feet ez snowdrops innercent, Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, Whose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... used in preference to the plain. Frequent mention is made in the plays of this time of its use and varieties. In Congreve's "Love for Love," one of the characters presents a young lady with a box of snuff, on receipt of which she says, "Look you here what Mr. Tattle has given me! Look you here, cousin, here's a snuff-box; nay, there's snuff in't: here, will you have any? Oh, good! ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... was a downright sort of person. After her fashion she was kind to Ermie, but it never entered into her head to flatter her. She was a gossiping sort of body, and she wanted the child to recount to her all the tittle-tattle she knew about Glendower. Ermengarde had neither the power nor the inclination to describe the goings on at Glendower graphically. The stout lady soon got tired of her short answers, and began to survey her from head to foot in a critical and ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... skill and 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 ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... upright, sturdy ways. I can but wish them well, even at the price of terrible disenchantment. Instead of rustic hostelries at St. Enimie, gigantic hotels after the manner of Swiss tourist barracks; the solitude of the Causses broken by enthusiastic tittle-tattle; tourist-laden flotillas bearing the ensign of Cook or Gaze skimming the glassy waters of ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... stockholders. He had time to kill and thoughts to 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 by Miss Lana Vanadistine, who would be a house guest of ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... journals, and absorb the gossip, tittle-tattle, and personalities—absorb it because they have no means of comparison or of checking the impression it produces of the general loose tone of society. They know all about it, much more than you do. No turn of the latest divorce case or great social ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... less true of mere fancy. The Arabian Nights—futile enough in any case—would be absolutely intolerable if they contained no Oriental manners, no human passions, and no convinced epicureanism behind their miracles and their tattle. Any absolute work of art which serves no further purpose than to stimulate an emotion has about it a certain luxurious and visionary taint. We leave it with a blank mind, and a pang bubbles up from the very fountain ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... way it fell. This one chip contains inscribed on it the whole history of the wood-chopper and of the world. On this scrap of paper, which held his sugar or salt, perchance, or was the wadding of his gun, sitting on a log in the forest, with what interest we read the tattle of cities, of those larger huts, empty and to let, like this, in High Streets and Broadways. The eaves are dripping on the south side of this simple roof, while the titmouse lisps in the pine, and the genial ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... 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 ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... 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 ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... back late they would not be seen, as all the cacklers were sure then to be dressing for dinner, and he would not pass the Clubs. 'I couldn't suggest it,' he said. 'But Dannisburgh's an old hand. But they say he snaps his fingers at tattle, and laughs. Well, it doesn't matter for him, perhaps, but a game of two . . . . Oh! it'll be all right. They can't reach London before dusk. And the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... known at the time, though, of course, out of respect to the feelings of the two noble families, every attempt was made to hush it up, and a full account of all the circumstances connected with it will be found in the third volume of Lord Tattle's Recollections of the Prince Regent and his Friends. The ghost, then, was naturally very anxious to show that he had not lost his influence over the Stiltons, with whom, indeed, he was distantly connected, his own first cousin having been ...
— The Canterville Ghost • Oscar Wilde
... an entertaining tattle, and sometimes wit, but for solid reasoning and good sense I never knew one in my life that had it, and who reasoned and acted consequentially for four and twenty hours together."—Lord Chesterfield, ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... indescribable; but to come from the sublime to the ludicrous, I would advise future travellers not to follow our example in respect of a woman-boatman. The good woman, who acted as guide to the Falls could not hold her tongue for a single moment, and her loud inharmonious tittle-tattle put us in ill-humour for the rest of the day. When you make a long journey to see such a phenomenon as this, you should see it alone, or, at least, in perfect quiet. We had come opportunely for the Falls, however, ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... farewell; fair weather after you. Your blessing, quotha? I'll not give a single halfpenny for't. Who would live under a mother's nose and a granam's tongue? A maid cannot love, or catch a lip-clip or a lap-clap, but here's such tittle-tattle, and Do not so, and Be not so light, and Be not so fond, and Do not kiss, and Do not love, and I cannot tell what; and I must love, an I ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... the Grand Duke were current all over Florence, and evil gossips at Court affirmed that the liaison had been of long continuance, wherein, too, the Duchess Isabella was herself implicated. Cosimo seems to have been conversant with the tittle-tattle, and, fearing the evil effect it might have for all concerned, determined to take the bull by the horns, so to speak, and to keep ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... detestable to any one else's ideas; but it appears exactly suited to the coarse tastes and hearty appetite of their husbands. Being uneducated, and a large proportion unable to read, their chief intellectual amusement consists in tittle-tattle and gossip. They are generally inclined to be religious after a fashion, and frequent the chapel or the cottage in which the itinerant preacher holds forth. In summer this preacher will mount upon a waggon placed ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... songs. The mob—it was nothing less—could hardly be reduced to order. All those people had seen one another the day before, and they were all going to see one another the day to follow, yet talk they would and must and did. Engagements, marriages, acceptances, excuses, compliments, tittle-tattle, personalities—a rolling flood of chatter and gossip. Mrs. Pence took her people for what they were, apparently, and kept up with the best of them herself. Now and then her husband would do a little feeble something to quiet the tempest, ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... the blue looks of Tyrrell, the Head of our 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
... don't say any more. I know all that your life has been, and why. You did quite right. What is a little trouble to me, a little passing inconvenience, the tattle of a few idle tongues, compared with what Jack's life is to you? I see now that I ought to have opposed it strongly instead of letting it take its course. You were right—you always have been right, John. There is a sort ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... wanted, and he kept her going by his evident interest. After she tired of providing more realistic details of the night's uproar, Caleb deliberately tapped another vintage of tittle-tattle in hope of further ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... 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, offers ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... culture and courage, able to appreciate new ideas. The difficulty is more with the newspapers than their representatives. For a sad aspect of the present state of affairs lies in the fact that the desire to obtain tittle-tattle and gossip concerning the players often outweighs the desire to obtain sincere, intelligent criticism, and the result is obvious. There is ten times more "copy" published about the persons and personal affairs ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... his accent and manners; the children teheed and tittered whenever he passed through the town-square; and all were of one mind that Khalid was a worthless fellow, who had brought nothing with him from the Paradise of the New World but his cough and his fleece. Such tattle and curiosity, however, no matter what degree of savage vulgarity they reach, are quite harmless. But I felt somewhat uneasy about him, when I heard the people asking each other, "Why does he not come to Church like honest ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... you must needs bestow her funerall, The fields are neere, and you are gallant Groomes: This done, see that you take no longer daies But send the Midwife presently to me. The Midwife and the Nurse well made away, Then let the Ladies tattle what they please ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... towards calming the confusing whirl necessarily incident to sudden mutations. I wept over them tears of happiness and gratitude.' He accordingly left the army, with its rough barrack-life and coarse mess-room tittle- tattle, and returned to Linden House, full of this new-born enthusiasm for culture. A severe illness, in which, to use his own words, he was 'broken like a vessel of clay,' prostrated him for a time. His delicately strung organisation, however indifferent ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... much touched: his good heart and his good taste alike dissuaded him from attempting commonplace consolation. He ventured to take her hand and pressed it to his lips. "Dear lady!" he murmured, and he led her to a seat. "I fear my foolish tattle has added to pain which I would gladly ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... of paper, costing a halfpenny, which they believed to be extraordinarily bright and attractive, and which never really succeeded until it became extremely dull, discarding all serious news and replacing it by vapid tittle-tattle, and substituting for political articles informed by at least some pretence of knowledge of economics, history, and constitutional law, such paltry follies and sentimentalities, snobberies and partisaneries, as ignorance can ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... in [the vacant] seat [of his father] than he was surrounded by fops, coxcombs, "thiggars [97] and sornars," liars and flatterers, who became his favourites and friends. I began to have them constantly in my company. They amused me with the gossip of every place, and every idle, lying tittle tattle; they continued urging me thus. "In this season of youth, you ought to drink [98] of the choicest wines, and send for beautiful mistresses to participate in the pleasures thereof, and enjoy yourself in ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... public career was so general, that the moment he was installed in office, the whigs smiled on him; political conciliation became the slang of the day, and the fusion of parties the babble of clubs and the tattle of boudoirs. ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... world, no chance for us young people to enjoy ourselves, without some penalty to pay, some drawback to worry us like these confounded 'all-rounders.' Even here, where all seems free and easy, there's no end of gossips and spies who tattle and watch till you feel as if you lived in a lantern. 'Every one for himself, and the Devil take the hindmost': that's the principle they go on, and you have to keep your wits about you in the most exhausting manner, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... to forward the match with my Lord Duke of Richmond, that she might be married out of the way: but above all, it is a worthy part that this good lady hath acted. My sister Michell [The wife of Balthazar St. Michel, Mrs. Pepys's brother.] come from Lee to see us; but do tattle so much of the late business of the Dutch coming thither that I am weary of it. Yet it is worth remembering what she says: that she hath heard both seamen and soldiers swear they would rather serve the Dutch than the King, for they should be better used. She saw "The ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... in the Rue Saint-Jacques, at which time he became acquainted with Florent and Quenu. In 1856 he retired from this business, and to amuse himself took a stall in the poultry-market. "Thenceforth he lived amidst ceaseless tittle-tattle, acquainted with every little scandal in the neighbourhood." Gavard was a leading spirit in the revolutionary circle which met in Lebigre's wine-shop, and was the means of bringing Florent to attend the meetings there. He was arrested ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... would be a grievous thing If, for the fear of idle talk 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 to ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... mind not being quite ripe for such proceedings as took place twelve years afterwards. She still continued to brave public sentiment, lived on in the same free and easy style, paying no regard to the scowls of the sanctimonious or the foolish tittle-tattle of the superstitious. She kept her house of entertainment, shovel-board, and other appurtenances. Sometimes, however, she resented the calumnies circulated about her being a witch, in a manner that made it to be felt ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... to kiss in country fashion, but to press lips with city gentlefolks. Never hope to kiss my lovely mouth, nay, not even in a dream. How thou dost look, what chatter is thine, how countrified thy tricks are, how delicate thy talk, how easy thy tattle! And then thy beard—so soft! thy elegant hair! Why, thy lips are like some sick man's, thy hands are black, and thou art of evil savour. Away with thee, lest thy presence soil me!' These taunts she mouthed, and thrice spat in the breast of her gown, and stared at me all ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... hast each secret of the household, Francis. I dare be sworn thou hast been in the buttery, Steeping thy curious humour in fat ale, And in thy butler's tattle—ay, or chatting With the glib waiting-woman o'er her comfits— These bear the key to each domestic mystery. ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... speak nonsense. Dunbar F., 112. O.N. blabbra, lisp, speak indistinctly, Dan. blabbre id., Dan. dial. blabre, to talk of others more than is proper. M.E. blaber, cp. Cu. blab, to tell a secret. American dial. blab, to inform on one, to tattle. There is a Gael. blabaran, sb. a stutterer, which is undoubtedly borrowed from the O.N. ...
— Scandinavian influence on Southern Lowland Scotch • George Tobias Flom
... to 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 ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... by his visit; and even then it was oftener 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. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to hear La Cibot's tittle-tattle. Schmucke, Mme. Cibot, and Dr. Poulain meant all humanity to him now, when his sickroom became the universe. If invalid's thoughts, as a rule, never travel beyond in the little space over which his eyes can wander; if their selfishness, in its narrow sphere, subordinates all creatures and all things ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... a rainy night, as this is, When rarely and more rare the coaches rattle From street to street, to sip thy fragrant kisses; While from the Strand remote some drunken battle Far-faintly echoes, and the kettle hisses Upon the glowing hob. No tittle-tattle To make a single thought of mine an alien From thee, my coffee-pot, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Vialls devoted himself with 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 the ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... universal favourite, too, is the Devil, our old friend from the Miracles! 'My husband, Timothy Tattle, God rest his poor soul!' says good Gossip Tattle, 'was wont to say, there was no play without a fool and a devil in 't; he was for the devil still, God bless him! The devil for his money, would he say, I would fain see the ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... 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 ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... been very young; Virtuous she was—and had been, I believe; Although the world has such an evil tongue That—but my chaster ear will not receive An echo of a syllable that 's wrong: In fact, there 's nothing makes me so much grieve, As that abominable tittle-tattle, Which is the cud eschew'd ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... pleasant life out here, my dear," she said, "if one does but take it in the right way. There is a great deal of tittle tattle in the Indian stations, and some quarreling; but, you know, it takes two to make a quarrel, and I make it a point never to quarrel with anyone. It is too hot for it. Then, you see, I have the advantage of being Irish, and, for some reason or other that I don't understand ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... luck was going 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 determined to destroy it ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... the fine stories came the little legends—things about Charlotte when she was a governess herself at Mrs. Sidgwick's, and the tittle-tattle of the parish. One of the three curates whom Charlotte made so shockingly immortal avenged himself for his immortality by stating that the trouble with Charlotte was that she would fight for mastery in the parish. Who can believe ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... 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
... half-dozen young people, each of whom thought he or she was being imposed upon by the others. "Hand me that knife." "Git it yourself." "I'll tell maw how you air wolfing down the potatoes as fast as I can fry 'em." "Go on, tattle-tale." This was the repartee, mingled with the hiss of frying meat, the grinding of coffee, the thumping sound made by bread being hastily mixed in a wooden bowl standing on a wooden table. The babel grew in volume. Dogs added to it by yelping emotionally when the smell of the newly fried ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... hereby be enabled to come to them not altogether destitute of some sort of relish of them, not as to things that he has heard nothing of before, nor with an head confusedly full of the false notions which he hath sucked in from the daily tattle of his mother and nurse,—yea, sometimes too of his father and pedant,—who have been wont to speak of rich men as the happy men and mention them always with honor, and to express themselves concerning death and pain with horror, and to look on virtue without riches and glory as a thing of nought ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... down four flights of stairs—to do something very terrible in fact—something deadly and horrible and final that would put an end forever to this melancholy haunt of Tuesday stews and ghoulish boarders with the torturing tattle of their everlasting tongues. I shocked the Little Woman daily with words and phrases, used heretofore only under very trying conditions, that had insensibly become the decorations ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and drink. Caused by a dearth of scandal, should the vapours Distress our fair ones—let them read the papers; Their powerful mixtures such disorders hit; Crave what you will—there's quantum sufficit. "Lord!" cries my Lady Wormwood (who loves tattle, And puts much salt and pepper in her prattle), Just risen at noon, all night at cards when threshing Strong tea and scandal—"Bless me, how refreshing! Give me the papers, Lisp—how bold and free! ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... going back to town? Then, if you please, be so good as to pass out through that rear entrance, and close the glass door after you. A side path leads to the lawn; and I prefer that you should not meet the servants, who pry and tattle." ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... some time. The beard would be gone, to be sure; but there'd be all the rest to tattle—eyes, voice, size, manner, walk—everything; and smoked glasses couldn't cover all that, you know. Besides, glasses would be taboo, anyway. They'd only result in making me look more like John Smith than ever. John Smith, you remember, wore smoked glasses for some time to hide Mr. Stanley ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... I? I was in bad, I'll say. What? Well, I guess. I got a second summons this A. M. I couldn't side-step it. His high and mightiness had the whole story of the accident from some tattle-tale. He wouldn't give me a chance to say a word hardly. One more break in the speeding line and our cars go home for good. He certainly laid down the law to me. I've a mind to tell you something else." Leslie paused before the door of her ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... monarch presently—his essential character must be judged from his conduct, and conduct extending over a good many years. One might say, conduct and reputation, but that reputation is so often the result of a confused mixture of superficial observation, gossip, tittle-tattle, envy, hatred and uncharitableness, and, in the case of an Emperor, of ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... 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 ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... for sin must continue, and suffering must continue, and we can do no more than we have done. Example—a good example! We have only each to set one, and say nothing. Talk, talk, talk; I will listen no more to such tattle! It is mere pride of intellect, which is put to shame by the first gentle innocent girl who comes, strong in purity and faith, and simply bids us all look up! Did not our heart burn within us? Was not the worst among us and the most worldly moved to repent?" He looked across ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... tired, standing up for a tattle-tale! Anyhow, you go on home. I'm goin' to hang round a while and see if Miss Lee ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... his maker down; Or if more general arguments engage,— The court or camp, the pulpit, bar, or stage; If half-bred surgeons, whom men doctors call, And lawyers, who were never bred at all, Those mighty letter'd monsters of the earth, Our pity move, or exercise our mirth; Or if in tittle-tattle, toothpick way, Our rambling thoughts with easy freedom stray,— 110 A gainer still thy friend himself must find, His grief suspended, and improved his mind. Whilst peaceful slumbers bless the homely bed Where virtue, self-approved, reclines her head; Whilst ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... did not want a tattletale. So he took a fine, young pup, and tried to bring him up to be a good hunter and to keep his tongue. He took good care of him. He often told him how foolish it was to tell everything he knew. The pup would promise not to tattle, but he was only a dog, and blood will ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... Tattle, thou hast Tongue Enough to talk an Oyster-Woman deaf: I say it cannot be. —What means the panting of my troubled Heart! Oh, my presaging Fears! shou'd what she says prove true, How wretched and how lost ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... declared the man over his shoulder, a contemptuous sneer curling his lips. "I confess my own wrong-doing but I do not tattle the sins of other people. Your father will never be the wiser about you so far as I am concerned. Whatever you want him to know you will ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... crumpling the paper in his hand, cried out in a hoarse, choking voice, "Yes, it's a fact: I done it. It's no use denying on't.. Here it is, in black and white. Everybody knows it: ghosts come spooking around to tattle about it. What's the use of lying? I ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... soon as I can get out. I'm expected in New York within ten days at the latest. And then, Emma, the wide world! No more little-town tittle-tattle! All I've got to do, in the big world, is to deliver the goods. And I'm going to deliver ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... 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 result of his onslaught; ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... literature over again, and reviews, but new circumstance worth telling, apropos to every subject that is touched upon: frank observations on character, without either ill-nature or the fear of committing themselves: no blue-stocking tittle-tattle, or habits of worshipping, or being worshipped: domestic, affectionate, good to live with, and, without fussing continually, doing what is most obliging, and whatever makes us feel most at home. Breakfast is very pleasant in this house, and the two good sisters look ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... little slip had brought a very good man to unhappiness, how much harder was it for Sir Duncan Yordas, who had committed no offense at all! No Yordas had ever cared a tittle for tattle—to use their own expression—but deeper mischief than tattle must ensue, unless great luck prevented it. The brother knew well that his sister inherited much of the reckless self-will which had made the name almost a by-word, and which ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... flourish in an artificial society; and that perhaps accounts for the fact that the curled darlings of our modern community spend much of their leisure in reading papers devoted to tattle and scandal. It seems as though the search after pleasure poisoned the very sources of nobleness in the nature of men. In our monstrous city a man may live without a quarrel for forty years; he may be popular, he may be ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... jokes I ever heard!-Come to a play, and not know what it is!-Why, I suppose you wouldn't have found it out, if they had fob'd you off with a scraping of fiddlers, or an opera?-Ha, ha, ha!-Why, now, I should have thought you might have taken some notice of one Mr. Tattle, that is ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... rather angrily, for I hated all the tittle-tattle of that little circle of gossips who dawdle over the tea-cups of Redcliffe Square and its neighbourhood. I had attended a good many of them professionally at various times, and was well acquainted with all their ways and all their exaggerations. The ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... clothes—that was nearly all the "plenishing" of this hermitage. It was never likely to be discovered, except by the smoke, when the inmate lit a fire. The local shepherd knew it, of course, but Allen had bought his silence, not that there were many neighbours for the shepherd to tattle with. ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... opinion of the Home Government that influences him. You report to headquarters. Never mind what anybody else thinks of you. Your business is to please Christ, and the less you trouble yourselves about pleasing men the more you will succeed in doing it. Be deaf to the tittle tattle of your fellow soldiers in the ranks. It is your Commander's smile that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... woman with your eyes and your mouth ever yet lived a loveless life!—never forget that it is the biggest thing in the world, the one altogether good and perfect gift. Don't let any twopenny-halfpenny considerations of worldly advantage influence you, nor the tittle-tattle of other folks, and even if it seems that something insurmountable lies between you and the fulfillment of love, go over it, or round it, or through it! If it's a real love, your faith must be big enough to remove the mountains in the way—or ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... 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", says Gobemouche, narrating the story—and such a story! "And I am ...
— English Satires • Various |
