"Trifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Manila to Terrenate are three hundred leguas, or a trifle more or less; and those from Manila to Malaca a ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... cast away my confidence in Christ. I have life in him, and no life but as I have it from him. Thou seest how it is with me. Thou art my reconciled Father in Christ, but thou hast shut me out from thy presence. I do not enjoy thee; my poor heart is tossed from trifle to trifle. It has been my way through life to destroy myself, and thy way to deliver me. Thou hast been very gracious to me in my old age. I have enjoyed much of thy presence in thy sanctuary and in my private hours; and although sin has dwelt and does dwell ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... he said, "is a different sort of handwriting from that on the paper. The red-ink note about the avenger of the tortoise is in a crude, large, clumsy, untaught style of writing. This is small, neat, and well formed—except that it is a trifle shaky, probably because of ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... the hereditary hatred which stood between the two lovers of the play was a mere trifle in comparison with the loathing with which the Comte de Grandchamp contemplates the son ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... he crowed offensively, boldly looking up into the other's face. "It seems you are yourself reluctant." And he laughed a trifle stridently, and looked about him for ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... must be admitted that Jerry displayed pride in himself, his gait being a trifle stiff-legged, the cocking of his head back over his shoulder at the whining wild-dog having all the articulateness of: "Well, I guess I gave you enough this time. You'll keep out of my way ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... daughter! It is not on his head that I wish these to descend, but on hers. You look surprised. You wonder why? I will not tell you—not now, at least. It is not because she is passionate and disagreeable; that is a trifle, and besides she has changed from that; it is not because she ever injured me—she never injured me; she loves me; but"—and Hilda's brow grew dark, and her eyes flashed as she spoke—"there are other reasons, deeper than all this—reasons which I will not divulge even to you, but which ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... testily, "Sick? No, nor never was in my life. Nothin' but blind an' that's a trifle compared to sickness. What you askin' for? Didn't I ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... threaded the still formless disc of aluminium over a bit of rounded wood, and rubs it with the file. As he applies himself to the job, two wrinkles of mighty meditation deepen upon his forehead. Anon he stops, straightens himself, and looks tenderly at the trifle, as though she also were ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... have three meals [per day]: breakfast, dinner, and supper. These three meals consist of rice boiled in water but dry like the rice cooked in the Valencian style, or like the Turkish pilao. In addition they eat a trifle of fresh or salt fish, some sort of meat stew, camotes, etc.; but rarely do they have more than two different dishes, unless it is the occasion of a banquet. In the dearest provinces, the [expense of] common food cannot be estimated at more ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... shall we do with our cart and pony? they are of no use to us now. Stay on the roads I will not, both for my oath's sake and my own. If we had a trifle of money, we were thinking of going to Bristol, where I might get up a little business, but we have none; our last three farthings we spent about ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... stern-sheets which was locked, and on David prising it open with his clasp knife, it was found to contain some fishing-line and hooks. A small cask, or breaker, was also locked in the bow of the boat, and this was found to contain water, a trifle impregnated by the sea, and slightly brackish, but still quite drinkable. It need hardly be mentioned what a great boon this was to them, as they had begun to be afflicted with thirst as the sun's heat grew more ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... "I remember your story at the inquest. You will forgive me if, in company, I believe, with the majority who heard it, I find it a trifle improbable." ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his beard through his hand. "The ladies are apt to be a trifle hasty. I believe Mrs. Spragg had a letter yesterday instructing her to select a reliable escort for Paul; ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... a trifle weak, since she seemed to bear her husband's loss with great stoicism, awakened suspicions in Lucian's mind as to her truthfulness. However, these were too vague and confused to be put into words, so the young man remained silent until Mrs. Vrain and her father departed. ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... dog is about the size of a rabbit, heavier perhaps, more compact, and with much shorter legs. In appearance, it resembles the ground-hog of the north, although a trifle smaller than that animal. In their habits, the prairie dogs are social, never live alone like other animals, but are always found in villages or large settlements. They are a wild, frolicksome set of fellows when undisturbed, restless, and ever on the move. They seem to take especial delight ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... morning she had said to herself that this day might be her last; that some incautious word, some inconsiderate act, might deprive her of her crown and her life. For Henry's savage and cruel disposition seemed, like his corpulency, to increase daily, and it needed only a trifle to inflame him to the highest pitch of rage, rage which, each time, fell with fatal stroke on him ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... his pipe out noisily and began to refill it. "People have said that she takes after me a trifle," he ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... declared, and consequently some of these clubs are enormously rich; but any member is at liberty to withdraw whenever he likes, and he takes with him his share of all moneys in the hands of the Society at the moment of his retirement. To outsiders, the market rate of interest is charged, or perhaps a trifle less, but loans are only made ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... lumbering predicates and hurled out epithets, foaming and floundering. He had started so many things in a speech that he scarce knew when or how to stop. Commons, both sides, rather liked to hear him struggle with his verbiage. Later he developed the rapier thrust, some snatches of humor, a trifle of contempt. He learned the value of playing with a rhetorical period that he might later leap upon a climax. Frank B. Carvell was periodically egged on to bait the member of Portage. He did it well. I recall once when the member for Carleton was spluttering ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... Chilkoot were identical. "Tenderfeet" were there as tender, and the way as rough, even if a trifle shorter than that over the White Pass. Nor were the tempers of the Chilkoot argonauts better than those ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... number of times, trying to see him." His voice was a note too high, and Randerson wondered whether, without the evidence of his eyes, he would have suspected Masten. He decided that he would, and his smile was a trifle grim. ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... good?" asked the man, a trifle sullenly. "Surely comfort, ease, health are the best a man can offer. Nature did not create you girls for a life of toil. You were made for love, for homage and adoration. Yet when one offers you these you turn to your nameless ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... afternoon, and when he heard what the quarrel was about, he took the shilling from Sharply, and called him a mean-spirited cheat; but he would not let Smyth have it, because he said he deserved to lose it for fighting about such a trifle, and so it was put into ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... corner of the Calles de la Profesa and Espirito Santo, a little group of officers talking together in that half-earnest, half-distrait manner so characteristic of men newly landed in a town, whose interest in every trifle gets the better of the ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... disposition to take this stand. Some of the stockholders were seriously alarmed when our production reached one hundred cars a day. They wanted to do something to stop me from ruining the company, and when I replied to the effect that one hundred cars a day was only a trifle and that I hoped before long to make a thousand a day, they were inexpressibly shocked and I understand seriously contemplated court action. If I had followed the general opinion of my associates I should have ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... overstock'd with riches that will be likely to buy his ransom. There's the piece he calls Killdeer, might count for something, and I understand there's a keg of powder about, which might be a make-weight, sartain; and yet two able bodied men are not to be bought off for a trifle—besides—" ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... moments ago, that you could not understand that message, my lord," said Darby quickly, and looking searchingly at the other man. Garvington grew a trifle confused. "Did I? Well, to tell you the truth, Darby, I'm so mixed up over the business that I can't say what I do know, or what I don't know. You'd better take all I tell you with a grain of salt until I am quite ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... salvation a dented bandbox containing a moth-eaten bonnet from my mother's happier days! And I laugh not only from amusement but also from lightness of heart. For I have succeeded in reducing our catastrophe to its simplest terms, and I find that it is only a trifle, and no matter of life ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... Cromwell would have found himself in complete sympathy. For "the truth of it is, There are wicked and abominable laws which will be in your power to alter," he said to one of his Parliaments on Sept. 17th, 1656. "To hang a man for Six-and-eight-pence, and I know not what; to hang for a trifle and acquit murder,—is in the ministration of the Law, through the ill framing of it. I have known in my experience abominable murders acquitted. And to see men lose their lives for petty matters: this is a thing God will reckon for. And I wish it may not ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... me, so I got in the buggy and we drove off. On arriving home I shut myself up in my dark room and proceeded to develop the first two negatives of the Carroll housestead. They were both excellent, the first one being a trifle the better, so that I decided to finish from it. I intended also to develop the third, but just as I finished the others, a half-dozen city cousins swooped down upon us and I had to put away my paraphernalia, emerge from my dark retreat and fly ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to respect and perhaps to envy. But literature, as we understand it, is no trifling, however elegant. By literature we mean what Milton has called the "seasoned life of man preserved and stored up in books"; and the seasoned life of man is no trifle. We mean something of which the influence—or the effluence—may profoundly determine the quality of our lives, both as they affect others and ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... there peering at the thing, we forgot for the moment that our heads were well above the parapet. We were too fascinated by the movements of the weird-looking object to bother about such a trifle as that! And the Bosche trenches were only two hundred yards away! For the life of me I could not take my eyes off it. The thing—I really don't know how else to describe it—ambled forward, with slow, jerky, uncertain movements. The sight of it was weird enough in all conscience. At ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... Dennis hesitated. It seemed to be impossible that the earnest and careful instructions which he had received could relate to such a trifle as this. At the same time, he was acting under orders which were as positive as tone, manner, and language could make them. Passive obedience appeared to be the one safe course to take—at the risk ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... abundance have been made by government agents and the leaders in the revolutionary movement. We have too many thousand dollars at stake to trifle with public affairs, ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... on to a boot or the last fine shade of meaning into the manner in which he says, "No, thank you, no sugar"? No, it is something more than that. It is the heroism of a man who lived at every turn and trifle for his craft—who seems to have had almost no life outside it. In the temple of his art, he found the very dust of the sanctuary holy. He had the perfect piety of the artist in the least as well as in the ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... Linley was just going out with her two children to buy some Christmas gifts. Nellie was all scarlet and ermine, her sweet, happy face framed in with golden curls, and Master Frank not a whit behind in elegance, though a trifle more haughty, as you could tell by the wide distance he gave ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... that grizzly. Not in the least was he afraid. He walked along the rough places, trotted along the ledges, and here and there he halted to gaze below him. I waited for one of these halts, aimed a trifle high, and fired. The grizzly made a quick, angry movement and then jumped up on a ledge. ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... chiefly falling on the consumers of foreign commodities, and not on the producers or sellers of the exported article. It is no sufficient ground of apprehension to the [American] producers, to find that some other country can sell [wheat] in foreign markets, at some particular time, a trifle cheaper than they can themselves afford to do in the existing state of prices in [the United States]. Suppose them to be temporarily unsold, and their exports diminished; the imports will exceed the exports, there will be a new distribution of the precious metals, prices will fall, and, as all ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... and apostles; the doctrine Christ himself confirmed and commanded to be taught. We are not permitted to employ the teaching dictated by any man's pleasure or fancy. We may not adapt the Word to mere human knowledge and reason. We are not to trifle with the Scriptures, to juggle with the Word of God, as if it would admit of being explained to suit the people; of being twisted, distended and patched to effect peace and agreement among men. Otherwise, there would be no sure, permanent foundation ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... rode, they ate and drank, with no misgivings, mental or moral, no too curious questions as to the essential nature of their so palpable well-being, [74] or the rival standards thereof, of origins and issues. And yet, with all their gaiety, as its last triumphant note in truth, they were ready to trifle with death, welcoming, by way of a foil to the easy character of their days, a certain luxurious sense of danger—the night-alarm, the arquebuse peeping from some quiet farm-building across their way, the rumoured presence in their neighbourhood of this or that great military ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... misgivings, for I felt of a truth uncertain of myself in this new character—and shall I confess it—a trifle ill at ease concerning this bravo, Carne Yvard, the duelist of the iron hand, and the gamester with the luck of the devil. However, I put upon myself a ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... Abingdon Square proper there is only the music-stand, that occupies the middle of the miniature plaza, a hideous wooden structure in which one of the city bands plays on alternate Sunday afternoons during the summer. However, open space counts in the city, and the air circulates a trifle more freely through the square than it does in the side streets—at least, that is the opinion of the neighborhood people, and they flock there on a hot night like seals at a blow-hole. Even the submerged tenth must come up to breathe now and ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... day I stopped one of these pedlars, who had, besides his cutlery, a display of ordinary jewels and female ornaments to sell. I was induced to do so, as I wished to purchase some trifle to give to little Maria as a parting gift. While I was looking over his stores, my eye fell on a brooch which was evidently of English workmanship. It struck me that it would answer my purpose by serving to fasten my young friend's shawl, so ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... though never again so good as the old. We worked again and we saved a trifle. Then you were born to us, John. We had a worse landlord now. He was of the kind that cared nothing for his tenants and nothing for his land, but to get the last penny off it. The rent was raised, and we never could have paid it but for the care and the skill and the hard ...
— Fairies and Folk of Ireland • William Henry Frost
... of discovery and of trade also stimulated the Dutch in making explorations. In the vessel "Half Moon" they sailed up the Hudson, and after building several forts, they finally established themselves in New Netherlands. Peter Minuit for a trifle bought from the Indians the whole of Manhattan Island. In locating on Manhattan Island, the Dutch secretly believed that they had secured the oyster while the English settlements further north and south were the two shells only. The development of almost three centuries and the supremacy ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... A trifle later intelligence came that the Sultan, lingering at Basch-Kegan, supposably because the air along the Bosphorus was better than the air at Adrianople, had effected a treaty by which the Podesta ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... a particularly dignified State even the trees of Belgrave Square seemed at that moment a trifle too conventionally perpendicular. If they would but dance and wave their boughs he would have greeted their greenness more gladly. A good-looking nursemaid wheeled a perambulator beneath their shade, and though she never looked his way, he took ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... and reversed the urchin after the manner of mothers, and swung him to and fro like a pendulum. He came up a trifle red in the face, but laughing as usual, and the ludicrous inappositeness of the great loss, the unconscious cause of it, the baby's wonderful digestion, the assistant's distress, and the surveyor's calm but pallid self-control, made ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... with in any of the cattle-breeding countries eastward of the Andes. A traveller does not here meet that unbounded hospitality which refuses all payment, but yet is so kindly offered that no scruples can be raised in accepting it. Almost every house in Chile will receive you for the night, but a trifle is expected to be given in the morning; even a rich man will accept two or three shillings. The Gaucho, although he may be a cutthroat, is a gentleman; the Guaso is in few respects better, but at the same time a vulgar, ordinary fellow. The two men, although employed much ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... to be. But the lines of her plump figure were still discernible in the cunningly cut gown, and she carried her little self with such mighty dignity that people overlooked the mortifying height of a trifle over five feet. Her features were small and neat, but her large blue eyes were so noticeable and melting that those on whom she turned them ignored the lack of boldness in chin and nose. Her hair was brown and arranged in the latest fashion, while her complexion was so fresh and pink that, if ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... a trifle quicker than usual, and her voice might have had a little quiver in it, but Estelle was too much excited, and too anxious to get within the shelter of the bedroom, to notice anything amiss. She whirled up the bag, threw it over her shoulder, as she had seen the men do with their nets, and danced ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... going half the way; the rest of the distance he judged he could very well manage to walk, albeit slowly. A fluttering sense of happiness, like the scarcely suppressed excitement of a boy going home from school for the holidays, made him feel almost agile on his feet,—if he had only had a trifle more strength he thought he could have run the length of every mile stretching between him and the dear cottage in the coombe, which had now become the central interest of his life. The air was so pure, ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... including the preparatory classes and up to Standard III—beyond which the higher grades of the feeble-minded do not progress as a rule—is 4,917 out of a total of 212,709 children attending school, or a trifle over 2 per cent. In some countries three years' retardation is regarded as prima facie evidence of mental deficiency. Probably New Zealand has much the same proportion of mental defectives as other countries. This is stated ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews
... "that you trifle not. The general is sick, and has many things on his mind; 'twill be ill for you if you disturb ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... equipment charge, which is interest, repairs, and depreciation on the machinery used in the orchard, amounts to more than 61/2 cents a barrel, or $4.65 per acre. Taxes and insurance on the buildings distributed per acre for the farm average $.78 per acre, or a trifle over one cent per barrel. These costs have also increased in ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... wait in the town at which she had arrived. She would have preferred to go back, but the distance was too great; moreover, having left the place for good, and somewhat dramatically, to become a bride, a return, even for so short a space, would have been a trifle humiliating. ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... favorable to granaries, where wheat is to be kept for any time. The best, and indeed the only good granary, is the rick-yard of the farmer, where the corn is preserved in its own straw, sweet, clean, wholesome, free from vermin and from insects, and comparatively at a trifle of expense. This, and the barn, enjoying many of the same advantages, have been the sole granaries of England from the foundation of its agriculture to this day. All this is done at the expense of the undertaker, and at his sole risk. He contributes ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... repenting they have spent so much precious time to so little benefit! How sad is it to see men spend their precious time, in which they should work out their salvation, by labouring, as in the fire, to prove an uncertain and doubtful proposition, and to trifle away their time, in which they should make their calling and election sure, to make sure of an opinion which, when they have done all, they are not infallibly sure whether it be true or no; because all things necessary to salvation and church-communion are plainly laid down in Scripture, in which ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and a little later the party of four set off on horseback, the farmer and Tom carrying the ropes and hooks, and Sam keeping beside Dick, who looked a trifle pale in spite of his efforts to appear all right. The knock-down blow from the flying machine had been harder than the eldest Rover boy was willing ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... of the old owners should be parcelled out and distributed among them in payment, as well as among those who, in England, had furnished funds for the prosecution of the war. Although many soldiers objected to this mode of compensation, some selling for a trifle the land allotted to them and returning to their own country, the great majority was compelled to rest satisfied with the government offer, and so resolved to settle down in Ireland and turn farmers. But ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... big, heavy Brazilian negro, whom they put on the other side. Like me they were suffering from Javary fever and kept moaning all through the afternoon in their pain, but all three of us were too sick to pay any attention to each other. That night my fever abated a trifle and I could hear the big fellow raving in delirium about snakes and lizards, which he imagined he saw. When the sun rose at six the next morning he was dead. The boy expired during ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... afterwards Sir William, Mitchell. I do not doubt that this incident had something to do with Wilson's subsequent invitation to Mackinnon to join him in the "Argus" interest. And here he worked so effectively as to make Wilson just a trifle sensitive as to people thinking that the new hand did even more for the common cause than the old one. But, as the saying has it, "Comparisons are odious." They are, besides, quite unnecessary, for both have proved themselves most worthy men, fighting ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... bare land outside; eye height is a trifle over five feet. At the foot of the mound see where the horizon cuts the shoulder of it to find eye height; walk up to that point, and sight another five feet; so on, till you see over the top. If there is any ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... Margaret. When at last she looked into the eyes of a white-faced woman next them, she slipped a hand to her side and raised her skirt the fraction of an inch, just enough to let the embroidered edge of a petticoat show a trifle. When she saw the look of relief which flooded her mother's face, Elnora knew that forgiveness was in her heart, and that she would ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... "Incur his displeasure—no trifle at any time, Geoffrey—and have Theophilus and Mr. Jones laughing at you. They can tell your uncle what story they please: and which is he most likely to ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... direct translations of the Odyssey, either in prose or verse, though if I were to state the obligations which I have had to one obsolete version,[1] I should run the hazard of depriving myself of the very slender degree of reputation which I could hope to acquire from a trifle like the ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... be inspired by such frenzied fanaticism as exists among the Mormons in Utah. This is the first rebellion which has existed in our Territories, and humanity itself requires that we should put it down in such a manner that it shall be the last. To trifle with it would be to encourage it and to render it formidable. We ought to go there with such an imposing force as to convince these deluded people that resistance would be vain, and thus spare the effusion ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... he now thinks nothing of this, and says I have got well out of it; I wish I could quite agree with him. Baden Powell says he never read anything so conclusive as my statement about the eye!! A stranger writes to me about sexual selection, and regrets that I boggle about such a trifle as the brush of hair on the male turkey, and so on. As L. Jenyns has a really philosophical mind, and as you say you like to see everything, I send an old letter of his. In a later letter to Henslow, which I have seen, he is more candid than any ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... the persons he met just where he did meet them, had not his prankishness hatched in him the vagary which led him to give quizzical replies to their questions; had I not, carried away by my elation at my prosperity and fine prospects, been a trifle too ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... fortem et constantem. The same writer incloses a punning distich: the name of our lord chief-justice was in his day very provocative of the pun, both in Latin and English; Cicero, indeed, had pre-occupied the miserable trifle. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... I do. Wasn't she a tall, between-colours girl, quite young, with a sad face and queer stern mouth—a trifle cruel, the mouth, if I recollect. She used to sit across there by the piano, in a plain black dress, and no colour at all except ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... of my lungs and the fire out of my eyes, and laid me sprawlin on the ground, and every one of the flock went right slap over me, all but one—poor Brindle. She never came home agin. Bear nabbed her, and tore her most ridiculous. He eat what he wanted, which was no trifle, I can tell you, and left the rest till ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the country far and wide, with the appetite of lions; detect hidden grain, purchase open grain; by gentle means or forcible, must and will find grain. A most thankless task; and so difficult, so dangerous,—even if a man did gain some trifle by it! On the 19th August, there is food for one day. (See Bailly, Memoires, ii. 137-409.) Complaints there are that the food is spoiled, and produces an effect on the intestines: not corn but plaster-of-Paris! Which effect on the intestines, as well as that 'smarting ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... I've always adored you," she said, with a repose of manner that disguised a trifle ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... confidential—I have succeeded in convincing Braun and Lowenthal that their enmity is a foolish personal matter which business men shouldn't let stand in the way of business. After all, just what is there between you and them? A mere trifle; a misunderstanding that half an hour's talk over a bottle of wine with a ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... will not be allowed to examine the Holy Coat. Few of them, perhaps, would be inclined to do so. Thev have the faith which removes mountains, and swallowing a coat is but a trifle. Nor would the Church allow a close inspection of this curious relic, any more than it would allow a chemist to examine the bottle in which the blood of St. Januarius annually liquefies. The Holy Coat will be held up by priests at a discreet and convenient distance; the ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... head proudly erect, but a trifle paler than usual perhaps, seemed to be searching for some one in the crowd. When the cart passed slowly in front of the stone cross, he caught sight of the little boy, who had not budged from his excessively uncomfortable and wearisome position, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... cried the old gentleman. "O, that is a trifle; a matter, your Highness, of police; a detail of a purely administrative order. These are simply a selection of the papers seized ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... did not lose; and I never won but one, which I had made against my judgment.' His bets were generally laid in hundreds; and though he did not gamble, he could of course run through a good deal of money in this way. He betted on every possible trifle, but chiefly, it would seem, on political possibilities; the state of the Funds, the result of an election, or the downfall of a ministry. Horse-races do not seem to have possessed any interest for him, and, in fact, he scarcely knew ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... had buried himself in that lofty sarcophagus in Gable Inn, resolved only to claim her, though she was all his own already, when he had reinstated his fortunes by his labour. That was noble also, perhaps, but in her own heart she thought it a trifle foolish—say Quixotic, not to be too severe. She would rather have seen his ardour find a more commonplace expression. She had a general sort of belief that whatever Philip did was bound to be right, and yet this actual experience rather ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... at the bright faces, a trifle heightened in color by their eager recital and the slight rivalry of narration, and looked grave. He was a little shocked at a certain lack of sympathy and tenderness towards their unhappy parent. They seemed to him not only to have caught that dry, curious toleration of helplessness ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... you success in your undertaking, and here's a trifle for a send-off." He held out a silver dollar as he spoke, but Theodore did not ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... and returned it with the comment: 'Utterly crazy.' Tony said: 'Is it not? I am to "Pause before I trifle with a noble heart too long." She is to "have her happiness in the constant prayer for ours"; and she is "warned by one of those intimations never failing her, that he runs a serious danger." It reads like a Wizard's Almanack. And here "Homogeneity of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... has been unkennelled, and, among the lawless mountains, has felt no restraint upon his own lawlessness, however Cyclopean. Doubtless he has met with panthers and wolves, each one of whom will to its dying day retain impressive recollections of the wee monster, from which they fled as a trifle too uncanny even for them. As to his subsistence during these rambles, it would be very difficult to say how he managed that affair, at these, or indeed at any other times; and it may be that the prophetic limitation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... loved scrupulous minds, those, namely, which are troubled and anxious about every trifle. No, indeed, but he desired that God should be loved by all with a vigilant and attentive love, exact, punctual, and faithful in the smallest matters, pictured to us by the rod the Prophet used when watching ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... listened, and it might be noticed that his face seemed to relax a trifle of its grim aspect; when the precious packets of tea were placed before him on the desk he could not refrain from smiling, and thrusting forth his hand, with words of warm welcome that quite tickled the young diplomat, ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... you have observed?" asked the Franciscan, with a loud laugh. Up to this time, he had not uttered a single word, but had given his attention to the dinner. "It was not worth while to squander your fortune for the purpose of learning such a trifle—a thing that every school ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... men were men, who led the van in those days on the outmost lines of our march to the summit of the world. Beverley was not more a hero than any other young, brave, unconquerable patriot of the frontier army. His situation simply tried him a trifle harder than was common. But it must be remembered that he had Love with him, and where Love is there can be ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... persist in grieving for his father instead of marrying Ophelia and making everything comfortable. She was fond of Ophelia and genuinely attached to her son (though willing to see her lover exclude him from the throne); and, no doubt, she considered equality of rank a mere trifle compared with the claims of love. The belief at the bottom of her heart was that the world is a place constructed simply that people may be happy in it in a good-humoured ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... morning. Interesting though it was, Riseholme had at first been a little disappointed about it, for everyone had thought that she would sing Brunnhilde's part or Salome's part through every day, or some trifle of that kind. Instead she would perform an upwards scale in gradual crescendo, and on the highest most magnificent note would enunciate at the top of her voice, "Yawning York!" Then starting soft again she would ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... the guarantee of the immortal being of all who love Him. Anything is possible, rather than that it should be credible that a soul, which has drawn spiritual life from Jesus Christ here upon earth, should ever be rent apart from Him by such a miserable and external trifle as the mere dissolution of the bodily frame. As long as Christ lives our life is secure. If the Head has life, the members 'cannot see corruption,' 'Take me not away in the midst of my days: Thy years are throughout all generations' was the prayer of a saint of old, deeply feeling ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... sliding a trifle closer. "We would sail about, visiting desert islands which lay like jewels in the heart of ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... a long declamation concerning the use of the Latin language in the Mass, in which they absurdly trifle as to how it profits [what a great merit is achieved by] an unlearned hearer to hear in the faith of the Church a Mass which he does not understand. They evidently imagine that the mere work of hearing is a service, that it profits without being ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... This was much in Phemy's favour, and by the new year she was quite well. But, notwithstanding her heartlessness toward Steenie, she was no longer quite like her old self. She was quieter and less foolish; she had had a lesson in folly, and a long ministration of love, and knew now a trifle about both. It is true she wrote nearly as much silly poetry, but it was not so silly as before, partly because her imagination had now something of fact to go upon, and poorest fact is better than mere fancy. So free was her heart, however, that she went of herself to see her aunt ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... be only a small one," replied Mrs. Brown, but as she went out on deck and felt the strong wind and noticed how high the waves were she felt a trifle uneasy. ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Christmas Tree Cove • Laura Lee Hope
... they invariably disembarked at night. The only annoyance they had was from the musquitoes, which rose in clouds as soon as they landed, and were not to be dispersed until they had lighted a very large fire, accompanied with thick smoke; but this was a trifle compared with their joy at the happy deliverance of the prisoners, and success of their expedition. Most grateful, indeed, were they to God for his mercies, and none more so than Mary Percival and Captain Sinclair, ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... has produced more alertness than alarm here; in fact, at present it is a mere trifle—in three days twenty-eight persons. Nothing like the disorders which rage unheeded every year and every day among the lower orders. It is its name, its suddenness, and its frightful symptoms that terrify. The investigations, however, into the condition of the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... let me know, and I will send you the money to pay the expenses of the carriage clear through. Please to let Mr. Mayo know how to direct a box to you, and the best way to send it from Richmond to Philadelphia. You will greatly oblige me by so doing. In this letter I have enclosed a trifle for postage which you will please to keep on account of my letters I hope you wont think hard of me but I simply send it because I know you have done enough, and are now doing more, without imposing in the matter I have done ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... I can keep a secret too. But no, I will not." And the generous impulse burst out, even accompanied by a few childish tears and childish blushes. "She told me he had probably lost money. I wished to say that if such a trifle made him unhappy he might take as much as he liked of ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock) |
