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Informant   Listen
noun
Informant  n.  
1.
One who, or that which, informs, animates, or vivifies. (Obs.)
2.
One who imparts information or instruction.
3.
One who offers an accusation; an informer. See Informer. (Obs. or R.) "It was the last evidence of the kind; the informant was hanged."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Informant" Quotes from Famous Books



... steeple. Indeed, so much more ecclesiastical in appearance is the town-hall than the Church, that (as I was told) a regiment of soldiers, on the first Sunday after their arrival at Berwick, marched to the former building for divine service, although the church stood opposite the barrack gate. My kind informant also told me that he found a strange clergyman one Sunday morning trying the town-hall door, and rating the absent sexton; having undertaken to preach a missionary sermon, and become involved in the same mistake ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various

... sit there, beside some well- informed Anglo-Indian or Indo-Anglian, and learn all the minutia of caste and be told who and what everybody was: what the different ochre marks signified on the Hindu foreheads; what this man did for a living, and that; and so forth. Even without such an informant I was never tired of drifting about the native quarters in whatever city I found myself and watching the curiously leisurely and detached commercial methods of the dealers—the money lenders reclining on their couches; ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... respect of this other man! I dare say the resemblance is not so exact, though, as that your informant became known to you through a letter from a correspondent with whom he had deposited money? How does that part of ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... with the gravity of age, left verbally his own biography with Mrs. McJoy, a neighbor; this made him, as he phrased it, General Washington's preacher. He was never after assailed as a lying author: but whenever his narrative was opposed to her memory, she had the excuse for him, that his informant had ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... picturesque memorials linked with names and events, epochs and usages, that have been familiar to his mind from childhood. But many such scenes and objects will escape notice or fail of due appreciation unless an informant be at hand qualified to proffer the needed suggestions without indulging in wearisome garrulity. Mr. Hare seems to us to meet very well the requirements of this office, his book being a happy medium between ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... living here ever since this house was built, and she could tell them all about it. And had it ever been sold before? Susimilkie! Why, since it had been built, no less than four families that their informant could name had tried to buy it and failed. She would tell them a little ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... writes that he "heard" what he states of the matter, Mr. Secretary Pepys was probably his informant, who was told it by his friend Sir John Winter, who again heard it from his grandfather, Sir William Winter, vice-admiral of Elizabeth's fleet, but kinsman to Thomas Winter of Huddington, who at the close of this reign was constantly aiding the Spanish Romanists in their intrigues here, and eventually ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... more, made the acquaintance of men as well as of girls, but never cared much for the former and had no love affairs until she met her husband. She was never demonstrative but always rather quiet and modest. Occasionally she spoke of thinking that people talked about her, but the informant doubted if she brooded over this, because she was not of a worrying disposition. Considering the ideas which appeared in her psychosis, it is striking that in her normal life she was rather antagonistic towards ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch

... in Piccadilly, who had been beaten by them, gave information against them for treasonable practices, and a committee of the House of Commons, headed by Sir W. Yonge and Lord Coke, was appointed to inquire into the matter. [The informant's name was Williams, keeper of the White Horse in Piccadilly. Being observed, at the anniversary dinner of the independent electors of Westminster, to make memorandums with a pencil, he was severely cuffed, and kicked out of the company. The alleged treasonable practices consisted in certain Offensive ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... suspect, was my informant himself, now a venerable, white-haired man, heard the poor woman's testimony; and his pillow that night was wet with tears of gratitude and joy because God had used him thus to bless the poor widow, and to answer ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... quartz and clay-slate; but these latter islands are of considerable size, and lie not very far from the South American coast (Judging from Forster's imperfect observation, perhaps Georgia is not volcanic. Dr. Allan is my informant with regard to the Seychelles. I do not know of what formation Rodriguez, in the Indian Ocean, is composed.): in the Indian Ocean, the Seychelles (situated in a line prolonged from Madagascar) consist of granite and quartz: in the ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin

... could remember seeing the "Christmas Brand" drawn by horses to the farmhouse door, and placed at the back of the wide open hearth, where the flame was made up in front of it. "The embers," says one informant, "were raked up to it every night, and it was carefully tended that it might not go out during the whole season, during which time no light might either be struck, given, or borrowed." At Cleobury Mortimer in the south-east of the county the silence of the curfew bell during "the Christmas" ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... however, are rare) formed of four slabs, resemble a drawing in Bell's Circassia, and descriptions in Irby and Mangles' Travels in Syria. He adds that many villages derive their names from these stones, "mau" signifying "stone:" thus "Mausmai" is "the stone of oath," because, as his native informant said, "there was war between Churra and Mausmai, and when they made peace, they swore to it, and placed a stone as a witness;" forcibly recalling the stone Jacob set up for a pillar, and other passages in the old Testament: "Mamloo" is "the stone of salt," eating ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... in that precise spot, or within a few hundred yards of the very place where the King of England at the moment was amusing himself with the fishing-rod. Highway robberies, however are now of exceedingly rare occurrence, that in question being spoken of as the only one within the knowledge of my informant for many years. ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... fall a victim to his friendship to the Spaniards. This name, as a sort of guarantee for the rest of his story, the native scribe inserted in place of the genuine one. The peculiarity of the figure is that it has an arrow or dagger driven into its eye. Not only is this mentioned by Cogolludo's informant, but it is represented in the paintings in both the "Books of Chilan Balam" above noted, and also, by a fortunate coincidence, in one of the calendar-pages of the "Codex Troano," plate xxiii., in a remarkable cartouche, which, from ...
— The Books of Chilan Balam, the Prophetic and Historic Records of the Mayas of Yucatan • Daniel G. Brinton

... to a Christmas Tree over the way at twelve o'clock mid-day, but we think it will be rather too hot for us to go then. My often quoted informant tells me that seeing there are no fir trees here they use instead a tamarisk branch, and its feathery, pine-like needles look almost as well as our fir trees at home, and go on fire in much the same way. We do not have a Christmas Tree or a dance for the Servants' ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... to the precise meaning of this phrase. It sounded elastic. But on Thursday Winona was able to announce that the day would be Saturday. They would come for Merle Saturday afternoon. She had been told this distinctly by Mrs. Harvey D. Though her informant had set no hour, Winona thought it would be three o'clock. She believed the importance of the affair demanded the setting of an exact hour, and there was something about three o'clock that commended itself to ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... gratified by this information, and thanked my informant with some degree of warmth. My gratitude he did not notice, but continued: "In order to beguile expectation, I have ordered supper; will you do me the favour to partake with me, unless indeed you have supped already?" I was obliged, somewhat awkwardly, to decline his invitation, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... adopted by the advice, and under the direction, of the celebrated John Hunter, with whom Dr. Livingstone of Aberdeen corresponded on the subject; and his nurse, to whom fell the task of putting on these machines or bandages, at bedtime, would often, as she herself told my informant, sing him to sleep, or tell him stories and legends, in which, like most other children, he took great delight. She also taught him, while yet an infant, to repeat a great number of the Psalms; and the first and twenty-third Psalms ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... never know their age, as they count everything by the changes of the moon and the seasons, having no knowledge whatever of the calendar year. While talking on this subject, imagine my surprise to hear my informant - who looks as if the Scriptures are the last thing in the world for him to speak of - volunteer the information that our venerable and venerated ancestors, the antediluvians, used to count time in the same way as the Indians, and that instead of Methuselah being nine hundred ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... made his escape from the boat. The clerk found him after a long search in one of the barracks; a circle of dragoons stood contemplating him as he lay on the floor, maudlin drunk and crying dismally. With the help of one of them the clerk pushed him on board, and our informant, who came down in the same boat, declares that he remained in great despondency during the whole passage. As we left St. Louis soon after his arrival, we did not see the worthless, good-natured little ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... declared guilty. I was told by one party that the respective relatives of the accused ones stand by and hold them down by main force. This statement was corroborated by all those present at the time, but, as neither my informant nor anyone else could explain what it would be necessary to do in case of asphyxiation, I do not give credence to ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... could not sass the king, and then, when the king came in the office the next day and stopped his paper and took out his ad., put it off on "our informant" and go right along with the paper. You had to go to jail, while your subscribers wondered why their paper did not come, and the paste soured in the tin dippers in the sanctum, and the circus passed by on ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... "securities" are somewhat weak, I have sent you one in my poor Greek, written by my own hand.[708] For your part, I should wish you to keep me informed of the course of the war in Gaul: for the less warlike my informant, the more inclined ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... his room, the seer recognised Sir George's costume, then antiquated. At last the seer went to Sir Ralph Freeman, who introduced him to the duke on a hunting morning at Lambeth Bridge. They talked earnestly apart, observed by Sir Ralph, Clarendon's informant. The duke seemed abstracted all day; left the field early, sought his mother, and after a heated conference of which the sounds reached the ante-room, went forth in visible trouble and anger, a thing never ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang

... additional facts about his youthful days. Soon after he left college he wrote some stories which he called "Seven Tales of my Native Land." The motto which he chose for the title-page was "We are Seven," from Wordsworth. My informant read the tales in manuscript, and says some of them were very striking, particularly one or two Witch Stories. As soon as the little book was well prepared for the press he deliberately threw it into the fire, and sat ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... were on the Avenue watching the suffragists parade. The informant was quite right. It seemed to those of us who attempted to march for our idea that day that the whole world was there-packed closely ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... be called 'gregarious', seldom more than five, or ten at most, being found together. It has been said, on good authority, that they occasionally assemble in large numbers, in gambols. My informant asserts that he saw once not less than fifty so engaged; hooting, screaming, and drumming with sticks upon old logs, which is done in the latter case with equal facility by the four extremities. ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... time my voluble informant had come to this period, I had reached the cabin door. Who could have expected to see smiles and hear exclamations of joy under ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... one Sam Nutting, who used to hunt bears on Fair-Haven Ledges, and exchange their skins for rum in Concord village; who told him, even, that he had seen a moose there. Nutting had a famous foxhound named Burgoyne,—he pronounced it Bugine,—which my informant used to borrow. In the "Wast Book" of an old trader of this town, who was also a captain, townclerk, and representative, I find the following entry: Jan. 18th, 1742-3, "John Melven Cr. by 1 Grey Fox ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... Lord Bute's informant appears to have been the Rev. Sir David Hunter Blair, as the journal mentions his arrival at Falkland on that day, and none of the other guests in the house were people who were likely to have heard anything ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various

... whole, are a long way below par. They inspire no confidence, they carry no weight, and nobody has any respect for them." Here my friend mentioned names, and spoke of an Irish M.P.'s conduct at Sligo. I give his story exactly as I heard it, premising that my informant's tout ensemble was satisfactory, and that he assured me I might rely on his words:—"At the Imperial Hotel a discussion arose—a merely political discussion—and blows were exchanged, the 'honourable gentleman' and others rolling about the floor like so many ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... indicated, and beheld some blocks of granite in course of erection into a pedestal. I confess to having been entirely ignorant at the time as to what claim Stephen B. Douglas may have had to this public recognition of his worth, but the tone of my informant's voice was sufficient to warn me that everybody knew Stephen B. Douglas, and that ignorance of his career might prove hurtful to the feelings of my new acquaintance, so I carefully refrained from showing by word or look the drawback ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... home and found it occupied by strangers his heart sank within him; on enquiring for Mrs. Fairfield he was informed that she had gone to America with her servant Bertrand. Grasping the railings to keep himself from falling, the poor stricken man gazed wildly at his informant, as though stunned by a severe blow; then gasping out an apology of some kind he rushed along the street like a madman, stopping not till he had got far out into the open country. There, throwing himself headlong on the grass, he shed tears of anguish, moaning as ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer

... had seen in the newspapers an account of one of my party having been killed by natives; and he stated that the names of four natives and two gins were mentioned, adding that the person murdered was supposed to have been my man in charge of the sheep. My informant also pointed towards where the white man was said to have been killed, as indicated by the blacks; and this was exactly where our distressing loss befell us. I was also informed that the natives thereabouts were now in dread of the arrival of soldiers, and thus, ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... peat or turf by a name which would certainly not be understood by an aboriginal Devonian. The local name of the peat or other turf cut for fuel is vaggs, and this has perhaps been confounded in the recollection of K.'s informant with ven. At all events, I can assure both P. and K. (who, I presume, are not familiar with the district) that the tenants of venville lands have no functions to perform, as such, in any degree connected ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 79, May 3, 1851 • Various

... Captain-General of Liberty Tree," and had charge of the illuminations, hanging of effigies, etc. Long afterward, in speaking of the tea party, he said, "It was my chickens that did the job." My informant, Mr. Schuler Merrill, then a boy of ten, remarks that it was a mystery to him, at that time, "how chickens could have anything to do with a tea party!" Mackintosh is described by Merrill as "of slight build, sandy complexion, and nervous temperament." He died in extreme poverty, at North Haverhill, ...
— Tea Leaves • Various

... Melbourne, in Derbyshire, cocks and hens may be seen running about the streets. One day a game cock attacked a small bantam, and they fought furiously, the bantam having, of course, the worst of it. Some persons were standing about looking at the fight, when my informant's house-dog suddenly darted out, snatched up the bantam in his mouth, and carried it into the house. Several of the spectators followed, believing that the poor fowl would be killed and eaten by ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... knew: the banker listened in his usual fashion, keeping his eyes steadily fixed on his informant. When Neale had finished, Mr. Chestermarke shook ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher

... not exact; It was not two black crows—'twas only one; The truth of that you may depend upon; The gentleman himself told me the case." "Where may I find him?" "Why, in such a place." Away goes he, and, having found him out, "Sir, be so good as to resolve a doubt." Then to his last informant he referred, And begged to know if true what he had heard. "Did you, sir, throw up a black crow?" "Not I." "Bless me! how people propagate a lie! Black crows have been thrown up, three, two, and one; And here, I find, all comes, at last, to none. Did you say nothing of a crow at all?" "Crow—crow—perhaps ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... the other told him that an unsealed letter, which he held in his hand, contained an offer of a pair of carriage-horses to the wife of the judge who had the control of his affair. On being told he dare not take so strong a step, M. de ——, my informant, was requested to read the letter, to seal it and to put it in the boite aux lettres with his own hands, in order to satisfy himself of the actual state of justice in France. All this was done, and "I can only add," continued M. de ——, "that I afterwards saw the horses ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... 'Of course,' replied my informant. 'You seem surprised; but M. Jerome is really a waiter at the Cafe ——, on the Boulevard des Italiens; came down for his health. We were comrades once, and I promised to keep the secret, for he thought it extremely probable that he might meet a wealthy English lady here, who might fall ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various

... business for her to have a husband in the 'profesh' if she's agoin' to stick to it," said his informant, Mrs. McClosky, "and she's nothing if she ain't business and profesh, Mr. Brant. I never see a girl that was born for the stage—yes, you might say jess cut out o' the boards of the stage—as that girl Susy is! And that's jest what's the matter; ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... was coming down the street towards the Capitol, conversing with some personal friends, and followed, as usual, by a large number of citizens. Just as he was passing in front of Demosthenes & Thucydides' drug-store, he was observing casually to a gentleman, who, our informant thinks, is a fortune-teller, that the Ides of March were come. The reply was, 'Yes, they are come, but not gone yet.' At this moment Artemidorus stepped up and passed the time of day, and asked Caesar to read a schedule or a tract or something of the kind, which he had brought for ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain

... story, Champlain, remaining in the woods, desired his informant to find Antoine Natel, and bring him to the spot. Natel soon appeared, trembling with excitement and fear, and a close examination left no doubt of the truth of his statement. A small vessel, built by Pontgrave at Tadoussac, had lately arrived, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... "that wonderful-looking Lady Sellingworth," dining at the Bella Napoli on a recent evening. Naturally Braybrooke supposed that the allusion was to the night of Lady Sellingworth's dinner with Beryl Van Tuyn, and he spoke of the lovely girl as Lady Sellingworth's companion. But his informant, looking rather surprised, told him that Lady Sellingworth had been with a very handsome young man, and, on discreet inquiry being made, gave an admirable description from the painter's point of view, ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... people, on reaching this island, told the children's father of their whereabouts, and he immediately took a boat, and hastened to the ferry. The poor little creatures were almost wild with joy when they saw him. When they were brought to their mother, she fell down "jes' as if she was dead,"—so our informant expressed it,—overpowered with joy on beholding the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... the pigsty; found his pig perfectly restored to health, and, mirabile dictu! as the white witch had predicted, the old woman, who it was supposed had bewitched the pig, came to inquire after the pig's health. The animal never suffered a day's illness afterwards. My informant was the owner ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various

... ranges, and capture the ugliest of Chowbok's ancestors whom they could find, in order to sacrifice them in the presence of these deities, and thus avert ugliness and disease from the Erewhonians themselves. It had been whispered (but my informant assured me untruly) that centuries ago they had even offered up some of their own people who were ugly or out of health, in order to make examples of them; these detestable customs, however, had been long discontinued; ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... All the scanty light which we have respecting this negotiation is derived from Reresby. His informant was a lady whom he does not name, and who certainly was ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... is now carried on in prose (my informant having forgotten the text of the ballad), and says that "Lady Mary wanted or challenged him to meet her in a masquerade" (probably meaning a duel in disguise), "and that his father told him to go." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... Sampaolo; I fancy the familiar park of Craford, the smooth, well-groomed, well-fed English landscape, melted away; I doubt if he saw anything of the actual save the white form, the strenuous face, the shining eyes, of his informant. ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... generations at Ballyreina. Once upon a time—a long-ago once upon a time—the Fitzgeralds had been great and rich; but gradually one misfortune after another had brought them down in the world, and at the time my informant heard about them the only representatives of the old family were three maiden ladies already elderly. Mrs. Gordon, the lady who told me all this, had met them once, and had been much impressed by what she heard of them. They had ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth

... ladies!" pleads Madame's late informant, holding off two or three bodily. "Ladies, sit down! Will you please to keep back!" Flora still leans out. Some ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... to the above exemplifies what I have just said. It is called emerald, he says, because it is green, from the Greek. I might make a query of this; but it is clearly a mistake of some half-learned or ill-understood informant. The name has nothing to do with green. Emerald, in Italian smeraldo, is, I dare say, from the Greek smaragdus. It is derived, according to the Oxford Lexicon, from [Greek: mairo], to shine, whence [Greek: marmarugae]. In looking for ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.03.23 • Various

... meddling," retorted the corporal, landing the back of his hand stingingly on his informant's face. It was a humiliating blow, that a prisoner ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock

... six millions gallons of purified water a day. In order to obtain the necessary quantity of pipe, piping will be torn up from various of the water-systems in America and brought across the Atlantic. As the officer, who was my informant remarked, "Rather than see France go short, some city in the States will have to ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... not to be named." On the same deck, you may see horses and human beings tenants of the same apartments, and going to supply the same market. The dumb beasts, being less manageable, are allowed the first place; while the human are forced into spare corners and vacant places. My informant saw one trader who was taking down to New Orleans 100 horses, some sheep, and between fifty and sixty slaves. The sheep and the slaves occupied the same deck. Many interesting and intelligent women were of the number. I could relate facts concerning the brutal ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... Dave Dennison did not come to school. Keith learned that he had fallen from a tree and broken his leg—"gettin' hawks' eggs for Phrony," Keith's informant reported. Phrony was quite scornful about it, but ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page

... benitier is removed, "because," said the man, "there is no distinction now, and the Cagots use the same as other people,"[54] I inquired if it was known who were Cagot families, and was told "certainly;" but little account was taken of the fact. "Bedous," said my informant, "was one of the Cagot villages, but the prejudice is almost worn out now: it is true we do not care to marry into their families if we can help it; not that there is any disease amongst them; it is all mere fancy. Only when people quarrel, they ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... They talked about America and soon confided to each other from which parts of the country they came, with other fragments of personal detail. They continued to travel for some days together, and my informant was so overwhelmed with kindness by his companion that at last he ventured to ask the reason. "Well," rejoined the other, "when the War was going on, I was serving in your native state; and one day our march ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker

... recently told that two crows alighting on a house betokens a death, and a very peculiar instance was given. My informant told me that his coat of arms bears three Choughs and the night before his father died two crows sat on the window sill of his father's bedroom, and it was remarked that one of the three birds being absent foretold the death which occurred ...
— Weather and Folk Lore of Peterborough and District • Charles Dack

... gadfly in order to give a hint, wishing to show Amleth that to his trick he owed his salvation, observed that latterly he had been singly devoted to Amleth. The young man's reply was apt. Not to seem forgetful of his informant's service, he said that he had seen a certain thing bearing a straw flit by suddenly, wearing a stalk of chaff fixed in its hinder parts. The cleverness of this speech, which made the rest split with laughter, rejoiced the heart ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... making themselves most agreeable to the lady. One of them leaned forward, and apparently conveyed to her information regarding Mr. Hamlin's profession in a single epithet. Whether Mr. Hamlin heard it, or whether he recognized in the informant a distinguished jurist, from whom, but a few evenings before, he had won several thousand dollars, I cannot say. His colorless face betrayed no sign; his black eyes, quietly observant, glanced indifferently past the legal gentleman, and rested on the much more pleasing ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... Your informant meant, of course, the two species of the coniferous family which are called mammoth trees, because they are the giants of the vegetable kingdom, as the mammoths were of the animal kingdom. They grow on the western flanks of the Sierra Nevada in California. When ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... compound, with those squalid mud-huts, facing the Khalifa's big wall, Osman Digna's house?" I asked. "Yes," said my native informant, "that is the house of the robber-chief, Osman Digna." I entered and found within only a few wretched slaves and poor Hadendowas. Osman, like the Khalifa, had given us the slip, leaving behind such of his people as he thought ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... offered against her well suggests on what slender grounds a witch might be accused. "This Informant saith that the house where this Informante and the said Mary did dwell together, was haunted with a Leveret, which did usually sit before the dore: And this Informant knowing that one Anthony Shalock had ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... the small station was a statue, which after questioning a number of people without result, I at length found to be that of Jean Palfyn who, my informant assured me, was the inventor of the forceps, and expressed surprise that I should be so interested in statuary as to care "who it was." He asked me if I was not English and when I answered that I was an American, looked somewhat dazed, much as if I had said "New Zealander" or "Kamschatkan," ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards

... earth on the instant, suddenly appeared standing at the searcher's side, perfectly motionless, and muffled in those dark funereal garments that have since been so familiar to our eyes. On lifting his head the man perceived her, started, but, my informant says, it was more the subdued start of one accustomed to face horror, than the overwhelming dismay of a person terrified for the first time: he folded his arms, as if endeavouring to collect himself, but his whole frame shook convulsively. He was about to speak, when a noise of workmen approaching ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... travel around the scenes of their crimes with branches of trees tied to their legs. The melancholy sounds which are heard in the still summer evenings, and which the ignorance of the white people looks upon as the screams of the goat-suckers, are really, according to my informant, the moanings of these unhappy beings"—Franklin's Journey to the ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... the most luxurious dining-saloons on one of the most luxurious of the great German liners—I promised my trustworthy informant not to be more definite—the man who was head-waiter during the year preceding the war impressed those under him with being much more interested in some mysterious business ashore than in his duties aboard ship. He threw ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... monition; news &c. 532; return &c. (record) 551; account &c. (description) 594; statement &c. (affirmation) 535. mention; acquainting &c. v; instruction &c. (teaching) 537; outpouring; intercommunication, communicativeness. informant, authority, teller, intelligencer[obs3], reporter, exponent, mouthpiece; informer, eavesdropper, delator, detective; sleuth; mouchard[obs3], spy, newsmonger; messenger &c. 534; amicus curiae[Lat]. valet de place, cicerone, pilot, guide; guidebook, handbook; vade mecum[Latin]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... the quarry in the morning all the same, as at this stage of affairs I really did not believe that they were capable of carrying out such a diabolical scheme, and was rather inclined to think that the informant had been sent merely to ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson

... did not notice it. There was a tempest in the Kansan's soul. Winnie's sweet and trusting faith in him filled him with an anguishing shame. Could he tell her now that he was drunk that night—that all the things said against him by Connelly and that unknown informant were true? Would she not turn against him if he did? Would she not despise him? Would not her love be obliterated? Badger felt as if the ground were reeling under ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish

... delight; all the more when I found that my informant had no tincture of the classics, and that he supported Galeso against Gialtrezze simply as a question of local interest. Joyously I took leave of him, and very soon I was in sight of the river itself. ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing

... know of Auld Maitland "and his three noble sons" except through an informant familiar with the Maitland MSS. in Edinburgh University Library. On the theory of a conspiracy to forge, Scott taught him, ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang

... assistance should be obtained in drawing an appeal case, which, as occasion for such writings then rarely occurred, was held to be matter of great nicety. The solicitor employed for the appellant, attended by my informant acting as his clerk, went to the Lord Advocate's chambers in the Fishmarket Close, as I think. It was Saturday at noon, the Court was just dismissed, the Lord Advocate had changed his dress and booted himself, and his servant and horses were at the foot of the close ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... corner of Monsieur de Clericy's card was unknown to me, although I was passably acquainted with the Paris streets. The Rue des Palmiers was, I learnt, across the river, and, my informant added, lay between the boulevard and the Seine. This was a part of the bright city which Haussmann and Napoleon III had as yet left untouched—a quarter of quiet, gloomy streets and narrow alleys. The ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... get there," laughed Phil, again thanking his informant and starting away, for he saw some people approaching whom he ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... located it in the Seventeenth. A policeman in East Houston street, in reply to the query, "Which is Murderer's Block?" waved his hand with a gesture indicative of unlimited space, and said, "You are on it." Not pleased with the impeaching tone of this reply, our informant made his way to another ward, where he put the same question to the first policeman who came along. Without giving him a direct reply, the officer winked, shifted his quid of tobacco so as to display his Check to full advantage, and pointed with his thumb over his shoulder ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various

... that the three children of the victim had been "quite agreeable," she thought of the misery she had witnessed on their faces. She pretended to believe the message, however, for to have shown knowledge of the murder would have been to condemn scores to the poison ordeal, in order that her informant might ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... and some of the Court of France," and was the first to receive news of the perilous illness of the young King. He carried the tidings to the Duke and Lord James, at the Hamilton house near Kirk o' Field, but would not name his informant. Then came the news of the King's death from Lord Grey de Wilton, at Berwick, and a Convention of the Nobles was proclaimed for January 15, 1561, to "peruse newly over again" ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... said Mrs. Venables, cordially, "you may well ask! Who was she, indeed! It was the first question I asked my own informant, who, by the way, was your friend, Mr. Langholm; but he knew no more than the man ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... maidens of Chili are disposed of with even less ceremony. In the choice of husbands, as we have seen, they have no more freedom than a Circassian slave. Our informant (E.R. Smith, 214) adds, however, that attachments do sometimes spring up, and, though the lovers have little opportunity to communicate freely, they resort occasionally to amatory songs, tender glances, and other tricks which lovers understand. ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... manner in which newspapers are treated while in transit. If what he says be true, I can easily understand how it is that so many newspapers miscarry—how so many numbers of 'Punch' and the 'Illustrated News' never reach their destination. My informant says that when an officer wants a newspaper, the mail-bag is opened, and he takes what he likes. He might just as well be permitted to have letters containing money. Many a poor colonial who cannot write a letter, buys and despatches a newspaper to his friends ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... embittered his days that he resorted to dissipation. Alexandria is filled with like ruined people; they walk as strangers through their ancient streets, and their property is no longer theirs to possess, but has passed into the hands of the dominant nationalists. My informant pointed out the residences of many leading citizens: some were now hospitals, others armories and arsenals; others offices for inspectors, superintendents, and civil officials. The few people that remained ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... the two machines, this peculiarity would be so far useful as that it might enable him to distinguish the one from the other, and thus to look in the proper place for whatever else he had heard remarkable concerning either; not that he or his informant would understand the machine any better or otherwise, than the common character of a whole class in the nomenclature of botany would enable a person to understand all, or any one of the plants contained in that class. But if, ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... had been informed that screams or groans had been heard issuing from his house on Christmas Day. Mr. Wildred laughed, remarking that, judging from what he knew of our informant, he had been waiting for us to ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson

... Sancha did on learning the unworthy role she had been made to play in this sad event is well told in the ballad which recounts the story, and here, as will be seen, a Norman knight is made to act as her informant. The verses ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... informant tells me that he believes she has since married. Now you know all that I know.' And Belton also knew that Mrs Askerton of the cottage was the Miss Vigo with whom he had ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... of imprisonment, was released. Austria humbled her pride and accepted an apology. Prochaska was compensated and bound to secrecy. As my informant had foretold, Austria ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... Madame Staubach. Linda, having made her statement, said not a word further. Though she had felt herself compelled to turn informant against her lover, and by implication against Tetchen, her lover's accomplice, nevertheless she despised herself for what she was doing. She did not expect to soften her aunt by her conduct, or in any way to mitigate the rigour of ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope

... his informant and hastened to the Lillington road. Stopping as before to inquire, he followed the woman for several hours, each mile of the distance taking him farther away from Patesville. From time to time he heard of the ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... Davies as soon as the anchor was down, instinctively leaving the sex of the inquirer to the last, as my informant had done. ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... Niagara,—yclept "The Mammoth Cave." Its distance from Louisville is ninety-five miles. There is no such thing as a relay of horses to be met with—at all events, it is problematical; therefore, as the roads were execrable, we were informed it would take us two long days, and our informant strongly advised us to go by the mail, which only employs twenty-one hours to make the ninety-five miles' journey. There was no help for it; so, with a sigh of sad expectation, I resigned myself to my fate, of which I had experienced a short foretaste on my way to ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... is mentioned with such signally poor taste in the columns of our sensational contemporary. I may state that I knew of this contemplated divorce action yesterday. Mr. Buford Castleton, Senior, was my informant." ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... was your Majesty's informant," she said quietly. "Lord Cloverton. He has always credited me with a power I do not possess, and has often set traps for me. They were subtly hidden, well devised to catch a schemer; but, being innocent, they failed ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... boy!" and, clutching a dagger, he motioned to leave the room, and would have done so to plunge it in the bosom of the lad, had not his informant interfered, and thus prevented him from executing so rash ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... set out. As they proceeded, Parravicin ascertained from the major that Disbrowe's house was situated in a small street leading out of Piccadilly, but as he could not be quite sure that he understood his informant aright, he engaged him to accompany him ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Southerners at that season of the year, and that slave-hunters and spies were numerous, that old residents of the city were not safe, and that any recent fugitive was in imminent danger. After this cheerful communication Douglass's informant left him, evidently fearing that Douglass himself might be a slave-hunting spy. There were negroes base enough to play this role. In a sailor whom he encountered he found a friend. This Good Samaritan took him home for the night, and accompanied him ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... and out of both camps all day long. One message that an Afghan told me the Germans had received, was that the British fleet was all sunk and Paris taken. But that sort of message seemed to me familiar, so that I was not so depressed by it as my Afghan informant had hoped. He went off to procure yet more appalling news to bring me, and no doubt was accommodated. I should have had burning ears, but that about that time, their amir came, Habibullah Kahn, looking like a European in his neatly fitting clothes, but surrounded by a staff of officers dressed ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy

... sure your message is accurate. This does not mean that something told you should not be reported, but it should be reported, not as a fact, but as it is—a statement by somebody else. It is well to add any information about your informant, such as his apparent honesty, the probability of his having correct information, etc.—this ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... Mercante's informant assured him that practically every girl had her affinity, and that there were at least twenty well-defined love affairs. The active party starts the conquest by making eyes, next she becomes more intimate, and finally proposes. Women being highly adaptable, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... from the report of General Simpson (p. 68), these early traditions must be very meagre. His informant, the celebrated "Hoosta-Nazle," is now dead. Of the Pecos adults then living at Santo Domingo, a daughter is still alive, and married to an Indian of the latter pueblo. General (then lieutenant) Simpson ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier

... disquieting news. A neighbor of Haught's had taken the trouble to ride up to inform us about the epidemic of influenza. The strange disease was all over the country, in the cities, the villages, the cow-camps, the mines—everywhere. At first I thought Haught's informant was exaggerating a mere rumor. But when he told of the Indians dying on the reservations, and that in Flagstaff eighty people had succumbed in a few weeks—then I was thoroughly alarmed. Imperative was it indeed for me to make a decision at once. I made ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... fellow-men. He urged them to do all in their power, without sacrificing their lives, to save the perishing emigrants from starvation and death. He then appointed Reasin P. Tucker, the father of our informant, captain of the company. With a pencil he carefully wrote down the name of each man in the relief party. The names were John Rhodes, Daniel Rhodes, Aquilla Glover, R. S. Mootrey, Joseph Foster, Edward ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan

... said," continued my informant, "that Ripari never could be induced to give another representation; and that he declared the luxuries that came from England were dear at the cost of being caressed ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... in other places,—all matters which serve to show that the same objects have been seen by different persons, but from different points of view, are to be allowed for as reconcilable with a truthfulness that may be implicitly relied upon. One informant may have blundered in geography, another may have been mistaken in an historical reference, a third may have misquoted or misapplied some prophetical allusion, and all may have given ample proof that they were not free from the ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... of this painful story in the words of my informant, the officer of the deck:—"I reported all this to the captain of the ship, and watched the effect. He seemed on the point of acknowledging that his heart smote him; but pride prevailed, and it was barely an ejaculation that escaped. So much for ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... had been taken ill in the office, and discharged in consequence of a witness having proved the robbery to have been committed by another boy, not in custody; and that the prosecutor had carried him away, in an insensible condition, to his own residence: of and concerning which, all the informant knew was, that it was somewhere in Pentonville, he having heard that word mentioned in ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... again returning to the charge, though certainly feeling not a little surprised at the singular laconicism of his informant, no less than the mellifluous tones of an accent then perfectly new to him. 'Pray, may I ask, what is the peculiar character of Mr. Bushe's eloquence? I mean of course, in his ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever

... of him. From a loquacious, good-natured and communicative old Irish woman who sold fruit at the door I gained the intelligence that the former of these was Mr. Keasberry the manager—the other Mr. Dimond. That Mr. D. said I to her, seems to be a proud man. "Och, God help your poor head!" said my informant; "it's little you know about them; by Christ, my dear, there's more pride in one of these make-games that live by the shilling of you and me, and the likes of us, than in all the lords in the parliament house of Dublin, aye and the lord-lieutenant along with them, though ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... did not state the evidence on which his cheering words were founded, but he set to work to investigate the Richards family. He learned in good time that Mr. Richards was a well-known business man and a very good man as far as was known. Our hero's informant, however, shook his head when he came to speak of Mrs. Richards, and ...
— A Successful Shadow - A Detective's Successful Quest • Harlan Page Halsey

... pointed out to the writer, on the borders of Scotland, which had been even within the "memory of the oldest inhabitant," used for the "trial" of witches; and a pool of water in an adjacent stream is still to be seen, where the poor old creatures were dragged to sink or swim; and our informant added, that a very great number had perished on that spot. Indeed, in Scotland, a refinement of cruelty was practised in the persecution of witches; the innocent relations of a suspected criminal were tortured in her presence, in the hope of extorting confession from her, in order to put ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various

... assertion; though I confess there is much domestic plainness at the table of the Governor-General of India (though nothing of meanness; on the contrary, everything is marked with a dignified simplicity). I suspect the informant never was at Lord Hastings's table, or he could have not been guilty of such misrepresentation. Lord Hastings's table costs more in one day than ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... terrible weather on the Kharzan. They had passed, only that morning, two men lying by the roadway, frozen to death. The poor fellows were on their way to Teheran from Menjil, and had lain where they fell for two or three days. "You had far better have remained at Resht," added our informant, unpleasantly recalling to my mind the colonel's prophecy, "You will be sorry ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt

... Thomas Hamon is my informant. He sent up to Sir Francis the message that a lady of the name of Norris had been introduced to him at Rye; because he thought he remembered some stir in the county several years ago about some reconciliations to Rome connected with that name. Of course we knew everything about ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... there's Burrows," said his informant, himself a large coal-owner in the Ferth district; "if Burrows keeps sober, and if somebody doesn't buy him, Burrows will ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... it themselves; and that the censure which has been directed against them by so many of its Rulers has a very grave bearing upon those limits." The Bishop replied in a civil letter, and sent my own letter to his original informant, who wrote to me the letter of a gentleman. It seems that an anxious lady had said something or other which had been misinterpreted, against her real meaning, into the calumny which was circulated, and so the report vanished into thin ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... informant," said Morley. "This morn, the very morn I arrived in London, I learnt how your matins were now spent. Yes!" he added in a tone of mournful anguish, "I passed the gate of the gardens; I witnessed ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... his informant very freely; "he wouldn't be able to get the young ladies to attend ...
— An International Episode • Henry James

... set out on a search expedition," continued my informant, after a cup of tea and a cigarette to subdue his emotions, "you insist on having the number of the house. Do you get it? Oh yes! and with a safeguard added, 'Inquire of the laundress.' [This was a parody on, "Inquire of the Swiss," or "of the yard-porter."] You ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... Mrs. Smith,—that she had seen better days, but had been married to a ne'er-do-well husband, who had drank himself to death within a year of their marriage, and that she was now going out to the colony, probably,—so the old lady said who was the informant,—in search of a second husband. She was to some extent, the old lady said, in charge of a distant relative, who was then on board, with a respectable husband and children, and who was very much ashamed of her poor connection. So much ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... our cause is nevertheless strongly supported, so that even English newspapers give reports of "pro-Boer" meetings over the whole world. This information we obtain from Europe through a man sent hither by the Deputation, and I have no reason to say or to think that our informant is not trust-worthy. He brought the last letter from the Deputation, and thus certainly enjoys their confidence. This man is acquainted with public feeling in Europe towards the two Republics, and informs us that our cause is daily gaining ground in Europe and even in England. The question ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell

... informed by a person, one of the chief men of the Masuffahs, who dwelt in the country of Koobar, in the Soudan, and who was a favourite with the sultan, that on the death of the latter the people wished to bury my informant's son in the tomb along with those of their own children who had been chosen for the same purpose. He added: 'I remonstrated, saying, "How can ye do this? The lad is not of your faith, neither is he one of your children." Finally, I ransomed him,' he continued, ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... I have, however, received the definite assurance of a very high authority that the force which has surrendered includes nine Generals, over 2,000 officers, and 130,000 men. In spite of the authority of my informant, I am still inclined to await ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... Marcianus of Heraclea Cosmas Indicopleustes Palladius—St. Ambrosius (note) State of Ceylon when Cosmas wrote Its commerce at that period In the hands of Arabs and Persians v4 Ceylon as described by Cosmas Story of his informant Sopater Translation of Cosmas The gems and other productions of Ceylon—"a gaou" (note) Meaning of the term "Hyacinth" (note) The great ruby of Ceylon, its history traced (note) Cosmas corroborated by the Peripius ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... merely staked off. A man who asked his way there was directed to go straight across the prairie to the east, until he came to where grass and sky met. Forgetting that as he advanced the horizon receded, he thanked his informant, and went on his fruitless search; but after wandering many hours, like the boy after the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, he returned ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon

... that at an auction of slaves at this hotel (auctions of slaves were held in New Orleans at different places three times a week) a very fine intelligent young man was sold by auction for 2,100 dollars to a lawyer who was known to be a cruel man. My informant told me that his name was—well, it sounded like Rumo, possibly Roumeaux, as most of the wealthy settlers were of French origin, that he lived in St. James' Ward, and that when he bought slaves and sent them down to his plantations, they each received twenty-five lashes as they entered his gates, ...
— A start in life • C. F. Dowsett

... brig, which, under a press of canvas, came tearing along towards the mouth of the harbour; and as she drew nearer the jets of water issuing from her scuppers showed that his informant was correct in his opinion. She laboured heavily, and it seemed doubtful whether she could be kept afloat long enough ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... cried to the men. "I shall return in a moment, sweetheart. Monsieur, the captain," and I rode forward towards the leader of the governor's troops, "your informant speaks truly. Permit me to introduce myself. I am the Sieur de la Tournoire, the person named in that order." With which I politely handed him the pass that I had forced from La Chatre, which I had for ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens

... Pumps—nothing but howls. But, alas! we may not now call upon the Honorable Fifi Grey for testimony. She is no longer the Honorable Fifi. Quite the reverse. I had her pointed out to me last summer (she is Lady Khorset now), and my informant wriggled with pleasure and said, "Now, ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... eyed his strange informant askance again; but he said nothing. At last he turned away, as if to take leave. He seemed bewildered, however; for instead of going to the door he moved toward the opposite corner of the room. Felix stood and watched him for a moment—almost groping about in the dusk; then he led him to the ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... you. I have been rather anxious to know what sort of neighbours I shall have round me here, so I have been getting a little reliable information on the subject—where from it matters not; and my informant has told me about an old lady whose estate adjoins Riverton Park, and who has a niece living with her who belongs to a class for which I have a special respect, and which I may call 'workers in the shade.' ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson

... One informant interpreted it as the end of the world and the beginning of the final judgment. This was a lady in a San Francisco hotel, who did not think of its being an earthquake till after she had got into the street and some one had explained it to her. ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... a many," said his informant with an approving chuckle, "So would a many! But that's not ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... queried, turning to my informant and anxious to learn what misdeeds could be laid to the charge of such ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... word the lawyer's informant could furnish, as Joe ascertained ten minutes later, was that the boat was painted a drab tint and had a "smoke-stack" ventilator. When last seen the boat was heading out nearly due east from ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock

... this warrant authorises the Canadian militia—a royal force, by the way— to wear the same uniform as His Majesty's "Royal Regiments." Hence it is that the characteristic features of the royal livery has been assumed by the artillery and the other arms of the service. My informant, who had served in 1812, also stated that it was owing to an accident that silver was assumed in 1862, the contractor in London, who supplied, in great haste, uniforms for the militia at the time of the Trent affair, assuming that "militia" ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... deposeth, that one William Barwick, who lately married this informant's wife's sister,came to this informant's house, about the fourteenth instant, and told this informant, he had carried his wife to one Richard Harrison's house in Selby, who was uncle to him, and would take care of her; and this ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey

... evidently did not like, for she tore out of the paper that covered the bottom of her cage a piece as large as one's hand and wove it into the wires so as to make a screen against her inquisitive neighbors. My informant evidently believed this story. It was agreeable to her fancies and feelings. But see the difficulties in the way. How could the bird with its beak tear out a broad piece of paper? then, how could it weave it into the wires of its cage? Furthermore, ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs

... many of us have not seen holly growing in the wild is that it seems to prefer the roughest and most inaccessible locations. Years ago I was told that I might see plenty of holly growing freely in the Pennsylvania county of my home. "But," my informant added, "you will need to wear heavy leather trousers to get to it!" The nurserymen are removing this difficulty by growing plants of all the hollies—American, Japanese, English and Himalayan—so that they may easily be set ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland

... while Hawthorne was in Rome, he became acquainted with a sculptor named Mosier, who gave him a most disparaging account of Margaret Fuller's marriage to Count D'Ossoli. This informant said that the D'Ossoli family, though pretending to be noble, actually lived like peasants; that the count's brother had for some years been a servant to a gentleman he knew of; that the count himself was an exceedingly handsome man, but ignorant and clownish; that he could not ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns

... Adams ... happened to join the same party ... trembling and in great agitation.... The informant heard the said Samuel Adams then say ... 'If you are men, behave like men. Let us take up arms immediately, and be free, and seize all the king's officers. We shall have thirty thousand men to join us from the country.' ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... extracted curious Hints to assist Welsted in his new Satire against Pope, which was once (he told me) to have been christen'd Labeo. 'Tis yet an Embrio, and there are divers Opinions about the Birth of it" (pp. 5-6). He seems clearly to have been Pope's informant about the unpublished Labeo. See Richard Savage, An Author To be Lett, ed. James Sutherland, The Augustan Reprint Society, Number 84 (Los Angeles, 1960), p. ii. For ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted

... thrown up a breastwork there, and they went out to fight for Spain and Visaya. They fired two rounds without disconcerting the Tagalogs very much, and then, having no more ammunition, they "all ran home again," as my informant naively described it. The Tagalogs took possession of the town, and the Visayans lived in fear and trembling. Nearly all women, both wives and young girls, carried daggers in fear of assault from Tagalog soldiers. Some declared to me that they would have used the daggers upon an assailant, ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... two tribes outside the Dieri nation where the same relation is asserted to exist, and certain cases regarded by Dr Howitt, wrongly in all probability, as on the same level as the pirrauru custom. In the Kurnandaburi, according to an informant of Dr Howitt's, a group of men who are own or tribal brothers and a group of women who are own or tribal sisters, are united, apparently without any ceremony, in group marriage, whenever the tribe assembles or this Dippa-malli group meets ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas

... day, when Bessie Fairfax's happiness primed her with courage to resist my lady's imperious will, that Harry Musgrave learnt for a certainty he had a rival. The rector was his informant. Mr. Wiley overtook Harry sauntering in the Forest, and asked him how he did, adding that he regretted to hear from his mother that there was a doubt of his being able to continue his law-studies in London, and reminding him of his own unheeded warnings against ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... assured that the genuineness of the following anecdote is unquestionable, as my informant received it from the person to whom it occurred. A popular Anglican Nonconformist minister was residing with a family in Glasgow while on a visit to that city, whither he had gone on a deputation from the ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... reflected, it would have occurred to him that his informant had been, as they say, "very quick in the uptake." The truth was that less than a week ago Miss Valerie French had recognized Patch and had asked the same girl for the ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... parties, who were fiercely attacked by Washington's detachments, and almost always purchased their supplies with blood. But Howe never made an attack on Washington's camp. Doctor Franklin, when he heard in Paris that General Howe had taken Philadelphia, corrected his informant very justly. "Say, rather," said the acute philosopher, "that Philadelphia has taken General Howe." The capture of Philadelphia, as we have already taken occasion to remark, was perfectly useless—in fact, worse than useless—to the British arms. It only provided ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... streets were clattering with feet. At that time Thrums had its piper and drummer (the bellman of a later and more degenerate age); and on this occasion they marched together through the narrow wynds, firing the blood of haggard men and summoning them to the square. According to my informant's father, the gathering of these angry and startled weavers, when he thrust his blue bonnet on his head and rushed out to join them, was an impressive and solemn spectacle. That bloodshed was meant there can be no doubt; for starving men do not see the ludicrous ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie

... nest in which you were reared, and that he has been there, and found that you have not yet returned; but probably he still imagines that you will do so, and has accordingly engaged your sister-in-law as a kind of informant. Madame has said that her sister-in-law bore her no extreme good-will; and the defamatory story he has got the start of us in spreading, will not tend to increase the favour in which your sister-in-law holds you. No doubt the assassin was retracing his steps when we met ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... you not disclose yourself to your friends? They would come into your measures. I see very well you know more of the matter than the person who thinks himself your informant." I vow I was terribly ashamed of my indiscretion. I squeezed him by the hand and winked at MM. de Beaufort and de La Mothe. At length two other Presidents came over to my opinion, being thoroughly convinced that succours from Spain at this time were a remedy absolutely ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... with her, the dress she wore, which was commonly of black velvet, and the diamonds which glittered on her hands and arms and bosom impressed themselves far more forcibly on my memory than her face, which I have since been told was Beautiful. My informant bears witness that her eyes were Blue, and of an exceeding brightness, sometimes quite terrible to look upon, although tempered at most times by a Sweet Mildness; yet there were seasons when this brightness, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... wrecked on the north-east side of O Wahi. Tradition is not unanimous in the account of what became of the crews. According to some, they were lost in the wreck, but others say they were murdered by the natives. My informant, Karemaku, mentioned only one ship, which was seen at a distance; and although the iron anchors found at O Wahi and at Muwe prove that they must have been there, he could give no account of them. It is very probable that the Spaniards, who often made a mystery of their discoveries in the South ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... referred to intervention from the German war-ships. He meant, he said, to put a stop to head-hunting; his men had taken two that day, he added, but he had not suffered them to bring them in, and they had been left in Tanungamanono. Thither my informant rode, was attracted by the sound of wailing, and saw in a house the two heads washed and combed, and the sister of one of the dead lamenting in the island fashion and kissing the cold face. Soon after, a small grave was dug, the heads were buried in a beef box, and the pastor read ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... it is none of my business; but I thought Sir Francis was as poor as a church mouse. Mrs. Challoner was my informant; and she always led ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... back to Sweden," said Janice's informant, nodding over her sewing. "Yes. They had a stroke of luck. Mrs. Johnson told me herself in her broken talk. Near's I could find out her grandfather had died and left her a bit of property, and she and her family were going back to the place ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long



Words linked to "Informant" :   inform, whistleblower, squealer, verbaliser, blabber, leaker, utterer, rat, whistle blower, informer, passive source, attestant, whistle-blower, communicator, witnesser, attester, source, talker



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