"Trifling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with the same Pope Boniface VIII who had held the great jubilee of 1300. Philip's soldiers, forcing their way into the little town of Anagni, to which the Pope had withdrawn, laid violent hands upon his holiness. If measured by numbers, the whole affair was trifling. So few were the French soldiers that in a few days the handful of towns-folk in Anagni were able to rise against them, expel them from the place and rescue the aged Pope. He had been struck—beaten, say not wholly reliable authorities—and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Christie should not put her hand to work beyond her strength. But probably her mother would have felt that a child might become weary, even to disgust, of a never-ending, never-changing routine of trifling duties, that brought no pleasant excitement in their train, that could scarcely be named or numbered when the day was done, yet whose performance required time and strength and patience beyond her power to give. But if her aunt ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... which would only become unanswerable if it could be proved that Van Torp was suspected unjustly. But to this objection, again, the Greek would have replied that he had been brought up in Constantinople, where they did things in that way; and that, except for the trifling obstacle of the law, there was no particular reason for not strangling Mr. Feist with the English equivalent for a bowstring, since he had printed a disagreeable story about Miss Donne, and was, besides, a very offensive sort ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... patronizing smile distinctly irritating. "Madame will recognize—if she will but bring herself to look a little beyond the mere outside—that what I have advanced is not a matter of opinion but of fact. Observe: Here is Monsieur Peloux—to whose trifling leanness and aristocratic baldness the thoughtful give no attention—easily a notary in the very first rank. As we all know, his services are sought in cases ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... the excellences of it too, or he will only prove a blind admirer, not a critic. From hence it comes that so many satires on poets, and censures of their writings, fly abroad. Men of pleasant conversation (at least esteemed so), and endued with a trifling kind of fancy, perhaps helped out with some smattering of Latin, are ambitious to distinguish themselves from the herd of ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... a kind of dream, though he seemed so sensibly observant of trifling things around him,) he failed to notice that the path grew somewhat less distinctly marked, more infringed upon by grass, more shut in by shrubbery; he had deviated into a side track, and, in fact, a certain printed ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the exchange of notes between the Allied statesmen and the German delegates, in a vain endeavor on the part of Germany to secure modification of the terms—efforts resulting in only trifling changes—the treaty was signed by delegates from all the Allied powers (except China) and Germany, June 28, 1919, five years to a day after the assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand at Serajevo. The five years that had intervened ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... proposed several amendments, among them one that no person should be eligible to the office of President for a third term. Time has demonstrated the wisdom of some of these suggestions; but commendable as they now appear after the lapse of more than a century, they were of trifling importance compared to the necessity for a closer, stronger union ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... unreasonable complaints of another, the cunning plots of a third. We see no escape from a threatening danger, we perceive no path out of a labyrinthine maze of evil; when, lo! through some apparently trifling incident, by some slight and insignificant occurrence, the whole order of things is changed, the impending danger vanishes, and we ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... purely impersonal that every capacity of his mind, save the working, slept soundly. By now, he had his department in perfect running order; and his successors have accepted his legacy, with its infinitude of detail, its unvarying practicality, with gratitude and trifling alterations. When Jefferson disposed himself in the Chair of State, in 1801, he appointed Albert Gallatin—the ablest financier, after Hamilton, the country has produced—Secretary of the Treasury, and begged him to sweep the department clean of the corruption amidst which Hamilton ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... chose ratified and sanctified by marriage. Marriage would be entered upon lightly, as a thing easily done and readily undone, a state of things not very far in advance of promiscuity. Between married persons little wounds would fester, trifling sores would be angered into ulcers: any petty strife might lead to a fresh contract, made in haste and repented of with speed: then fond, vain regrets for the former partnership. Affinity would ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... worship of me—all the more strange that she was naturally very proud. There was nothing she would not have borne from me except the slightest suspicion of her entire devotion, or that she could in the most trifling way ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... sigmoid flexure to perform its function as a final normal receptacle; and this in turn upon the rectum, which depends on the sphincter ani. The colon does not appear to possess any digestive powers, though it is capable of absorbing substances. Its function is not only to receive and forward the trifling residue of food which escapes digestion and absorption, but chiefly to excrete, through its own minute glands, the waste of the system coming from ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... more interesting to know that of this vast sum more than three millions went for marble, twenty-one millions for masonry, two and a half millions for the rougher woodwork and a like sum for marquetry. Other additional "trifling" embellishments of Versailles and the Trianon during the same period counted up another six million and ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... Matilda rapid in her ideas, persevering in her pursuits, but prone to resentment on every trifling occasion, and still subject to finding herself cause for repentance. On these occasions Miss Campbell conducted herself with composure and dignity, as if she considered a petulant child below the notice of a sensible woman: by this ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... caused her much perplexed cogitation. If he had only been fair-haired, she would at once have set him down as an Englishman, for he talked like one. But he had dark hair, a thick black moustache, and a nice little figure. His fingers were remarkably long, and he had a peculiar way of trifling with his bread ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... an apparently trifling circumstance often causes the loss of such a vocation. A day of amusement, a discouraging word, even from a friend, an unmortified passion, or a conversation, especially with a person of the opposite sex, often suffices to bring to naught ...
— Vocations Explained - Matrimony, Virginity, The Religious State and The Priesthood • Anonymous
... lively sensibility, but his humanity was shocked at the thought of killing a man for a trifling theft. Trying a prisoner at the Old Baily on the charge of stealing in a dwelling-house to the value of 40s.—when this was a capital offence—he advised the jury to find a gold trinket, the subject of the indictment, to be of less value. The prosecutor exclaimed ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... a letter to "The Atlantic," to say that these are very trifling uses. The communication of useful information is never trifling. It is as important to save a nice child from mortification on examination-day, as it is to tell Mr. Fremont that he is not elected President. ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... this? Let us consider this same artistic temperament and its results," continued the judge, making a wry face. "Once or twice it has been my bad fortune to meet it. One trifling scamp I have in mind, painted. A house, a fence, a barn, even a sign-board? Not at all, but messes he called 'The Sea,' one doesn't know why, save that the things slightly resembled raw oysters. However, the women raved over him. ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... neglected to make allowance for a certain portion of the inhabitants whose innocence was not of the quality that allowed them to miss anything, no matter who was host. They would shoot the glass out of every window in a house, if the owner of the house should be in their bad books for any trifling slight, and would proceed to "clean out" any establishment where their own peculiar set ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... she uses perfumes too freely. Stop that laugh of yours! It's a trifling thing, but it is an indication. I don't ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... afternoon," said Fosbrook, with his eyes upon Mr. Mardale. It might have been a mere accident, it was in any case a trifling thing, the mere shaking of a hand, the spilling of a spoonful of salt upon the table, but trifling things have their suggestions. He remembered that Resilda, when she had waked up on the night of December the 11th to find herself alone, had sought out her ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... fellow, this is a thing that positively must be done you know, you'll have to put your hand in your pocket to some purpose." So saying he sat down beside the damsel, took her hand, held her by the arm, toyed with her fichu, and took other silly and trifling liberties which the girl resented with great self-respect, whilst the father grew a little uneasy in ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... to account for the repetition of the phenomenon exhibited by the larger rivers, in every tributary, small or great, from the glaciers to the sea? They are all as like as pea to pea in principle, though of course varying in detail. Yet every trifling watercourse, as it emerges from mountainous to level ground, presents the same phenomenon, namely, a large gully, far too large for the water which could ever have come down it, gradually widening out, and then ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... a tone of tolerant surprise that any one should think he would toy with a thing of such trifling importance. "Me? Oh no!—that is, not directly you understand. But I am deeply interested in the development of the country. Let me show you a little of what we are doing here. It's amazing how the world outside fails utterly to grasp the magnitude of the enterprise. Even the ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... These circumstances, trifling to the reader, were of deep influence to the Prince of India. While he stands there rigid as a figure marbleized in mid action, he is saying ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... opinion, can be more improbable; and Mr. Payne Knight, opposed as he is to the Wolfian hypothesis, admits this no less than Wolf himself. The traces of writing in Greece, even in the seventh century before the Christian aera, are exceedingly trifling. We have no remaining inscription earlier than the fortieth Olympiad, and the early inscriptions are rude and unskilfully executed; nor can we even assure ourselves whether Archilochus, Simonides of Amorgus, Kallinus Tyrtaeus, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... on Dora's part it was only vanity and flirtation—Ethel grew more and more uneasy. She almost wished for some trifling overt act which would give her an excuse for warning Dora; and one day, after three weeks of such philandering, the ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... there was little conversation beyond the ordinary courtesies of the table, and such trifling jests as were suggested by occurrences of the moment. Yet still in the few words that passed from time to time, Paullus continued often to convey his sentiments to Lucia in words of double meaning; keenly marked, it is true, but seemingly unobserved by the wily ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... The nightmare illusion of middle age, the bear's hug of custom gradually squeezing the life out of a man's soul, had not yet begun for these happy-starred young Belgians. They still knew that the interest they took in their business was a trifling affair compared to their spontaneous, long-suffering affection for nautical sports. To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive. Such a man may be generous; ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... arduous or more irksome than that of hearing confessions. If I may make a revelation of my own life, I deferred receiving Holy Orders for two years, from a sense of the dread responsibility connected with the confessional. It is no trifling task to sit for six or eight consecutive hours on a hot summer day, listening to stories of sin and sorrow and misery. It is only the consciousness of the immense good he is doing that sustains the confessor in the sacred tribunal. He is one "who can have compassion on the ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... the inmates yet lived,—he pitied them still more if they only existed to realize their peril, to await in an anguish of fear their ultimate doom. Perhaps—he felt he was but trifling with ...
— The Christmas Miracle - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... minds, bubbling with spontaneity, or arrogant with the consciousness of power, the discipline is hard, and the restraint excessive; and that the men whom their colleges are most proud to remember, have handled them severely. Bacon inveighs against the scholastic trifling of his day; Milton talks of the waste of time on litigious brawling; Locke mocks at the logic of the schools; Cowley complains of being taught words, not things; Gibbon rejoices over his escape from the port and prejudice of Magdalen; ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... took place in June between the British and Americans in the Dismal Swamp region, and in one of them Gregory was repulsed and driven from his position. But in July he wrote to Colonel Blount reporting that his losses were trifling, and that he had regained his old post from the enemy. In August, 1781, a letter from General Gregory conveyed the joyful tidings that the enemy had evacuated Portsmouth. As his troops were no longer needed to guard against ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... another man's—is the only standard to measure it by, and his grief for it makes it large and great and fine, and is worthy of our reverence in all cases. We should carefully remember that. There are sixteen hundred million people in the world. Of these there is but a trifling number—in fact, only thirty-eight millions—who can understand why a person should have an ambition to belong to the French army; and why, belonging to it, he should be proud of that; and why, having got down that far, he should want to go ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... others were anxious to send him to a distance, from the terror inspired by his cruel and ferocious conduct, and his passionate temper, owing to which he used often to put people to death on the most trifling offences or the slightest suspicions. But all the leaders in the army disguised their real sentiments on this occasion, pretending that the importance of the affair required the talents and experience of Carvajal to bring it ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... satisfaction, I told all the guards I passed that I came to bring joyful tidings to the prisoner. I desired them to lay aside their fears, for the petition had passed the House in their favour. I then gave them some money to drink to the lords and his Majesty, though it was but trifling; for I thought that if I were too liberal on the occasion they might suspect my designs, and that giving them something would gain their good humour and services for the next day, which was the eve of the execution. The next morning I could ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... Heathen Preussen, of uncertain miscellaneous breed, contrived to support existence in a substantial manner; they figure to us as an inarticulate, heavy-footed, rather iracund people. Their knowledge of Christianity was trifling, their aversion to knowing ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... "this is the time to correct the native vices of the mind. In childhood the influence of pain and mortification is comparatively trifling. What then can be more judicious than to accumulate upon this period, what must otherwise fall with tenfold mischief upon the age of maturity?" In answer to this reasoning, let it be first considered, ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... from the narrow bridge into the narrow saloon. He was clad in yellow pajamas, his bare feet in native sandals, and held a well pipeclayed topee in one hand. Impatient he was at the delay of the passage-junk coming down from up-river, with her possible trifling cargo, and possible trifling deck-passengers, of which the ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... was willing to force the issue to trial by arms if it could be helped; and there was a certain pointlessness about the struggle, inasmuch as the differences between the contending parties were really so trifling. The North Carolinians kept protesting that they would be delighted to see Franklin set up as an independent state, as soon as her territory contained enough people; and the Franklin leaders in return were loud in their assurances ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... that the secrets thereof could only be learned from Madame, after a series of sittings with her—sittings for which Madame would only require a fee of fifty guineas: a most moderate, in fact quite trifling, sum, considering the ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... at work, she tried to shake off her disappointment at Harney's non-appearing. Some trifling incident had probably kept him from joining them at midday; but she was sure he must be eager to see her again, and that he would not want to wait till they met at supper, between Mr. Royall and Verena. She was wondering what his first words would be, and trying to devise a way of ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... been an humble follower of the meek and lowly Jesus, and his religion diffused its divine light over the most trifling incidents of her life. She ever looked upon the fashions of this world as passing away, and never conformed to them, or the manners of the world; but taking the holy word of God for her example, endeavored to imbibe ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... blessing of comparison that England will not enjoy. The moment the struggle begins, it ends. They talk of Mr. Hume's euthanasia of the British Constitution gently expiring, without a groan, in the paternal arms of a mere monarchy. In a monarchy!—fine trifling indeed!—there is no such ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... mean time, these intestine tumults produced weakness within the state, and confidence in the enemy abroad. The wars with the AE'qui and the Vol'sci still continued; and, as each year some trifling advantage was obtained over the Romans, they, at last, advanced so far, as to make their incursions to the ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... members of the firm, or whether we try to excuse our individual actions by laying blame on our tempers, or whether we adopt the modern slang, and talk about circumstances and heredity and the like, as being reasons for the diminution or the extinction of the notion of guilt, it is sophistical trifling; and down at the bottom most of us know that we alone are responsible for the volition which leads to our act. We could have helped it if we had liked. Nobody compelled us to keep in the partnership of evil, or to yield to the tempter. Pilate was not forced ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... remember to have heard in my life was that at Will's coffeehouse, where the wits (as they were called) used formerly to assemble; that is to say, five or six men, who had writ plays, or at least prologues, or had share in a miscellany, came thither, and entertained one another with their trifling composures, in so important an air, as if they had been the noblest efforts of human nature, or that the fate of kingdoms depended on them; and they were usually attended with an humble audience of young students from the inns of court, or the universities, who, ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... was excellent, and consisted of many more articles than I had ordered. After dinner, as I sat "trifling" with my cold brandy and water, an individual entered, a short thick dumpy man about thirty, with brown clothes and a broad hat, and holding in his hand a large leather bag. He gave me a familiar ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... retinue, she bolted and barred all the gates and doors of the castle, and returned to the banquet to complain of the breach of faith. General Alva told her that such was the custom of war, adding that such trifling disorders were not to be heeded. "That we shall presently see," said Catherine; "my poor subjects must have their own again, or, as God lives, prince's blood for oxen's blood!" The doors were opened, and armed men took the place of the waiters ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... man could recollect individually each part of the service of that bright Christmas morning, and the trifling occurrences which took place as its minutes slowly drew along; the duties of that day dividing themselves by a complete line from the services of other times. The tunes they that morning essayed remained with him for years, ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... was Mark Winnington about? It was all very well to sit there trifling with the pages of the Quarterly Review! In her moments of solitude by night or day, during the five days she had already spent at Maumsey, Madeleine had never really given her mind to anything else ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... worry or annoy her. He kissed her tenderly, and then, after he had closed the door, he came back and kissed her again; and there were days coming in which it was some comfort to him to remember this trifling kindness. ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... are twelve in number; nine of which, with the above introduction, are extracted, with some trifling abridgment, from the Specimens of early English Metrical Romances, by George Ellis, Esq.; the two in verse from Way's Fabliaux; and the other from the notes to Sir Tristrem, ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... are the Songs and Ballads, which are about 150 in number, and the whole of which are contained in this volume (with the exception of one or two of the former, which have been, on consideration, left out by me owing to their trifling and uninteresting nature). The same may be said of the Odes, Sonnets, ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... and fitful way. Qualities, both good and bad, are dropped as well as acquired, and the process ends sometimes in the degradation of the type, and the survival of the unfit rather than the fittest. The most trifling and fantastic tricks of inheritance are quoted in support of the transmutation theory; but little is said of the sudden apparition of powerful original qualities, which almost always rise like pure creations, and are gone with their ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... his studies, devoted himself to the bar; but this was not the stage on which his abilities were to be displayed. He followed the occupation of a lawyer for some time, without taste and without success. A trifling circumstance discovered to the world and to himself a different genius. A young man who was in love with a girl of the same town, having solicited him to be his companion in one of those secret visits which he paid to the lady, it happened that the stranger pleased infinitely more ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... my doome, and this shall come to passe, For what are pleasures but still vading joyes? Fading as flowers, brittle as a glasse, Or potters clay, crost with the least annoyes? All things in this life are but trifling toyes, But Fame and Vertue never shall decay, For Fame is toomblesse, Vertue ...
— The Affectionate Shepherd • Richard Barnfield
... cast up, they hardly amounted to seven or eight pounds per year since the time we had left Bath. Nothing but bankruptcy had all the while been running through my silly head, when looking at the sums of my weekly accounts, and knowing they could be but trifling in comparison with what had been and had yet to be paid in town. I will only add, that from this time the utmost activity prevailed to forward ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... by any means the only one of its family. There is another, equally diffused, of wholly different parentage. In its inception this second myth is due to the itinerant parson, bookmaker, and bookseller, Mason Weems. He wrote a brief biography of Washington, of trifling historical value, yet with sufficient literary skill to make it widely popular. It neither appealed to nor was read by the cultivated and instructed few, but it reached the homes of the masses of the people. It found its way to the bench of the mechanic, to the house of the farmer, to the log ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... things from her mother's cupboard, such as cake and raisins; but a piece of money of the most trifling value she had never thought of ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... in question pictures the tragedy of a woman who remained unhappy the rest of her life because the Hebrew bill of divorce which she had obtained from her husband was declared void on account of a trifling ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... any body wants TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS, they are requested to call on JOHN RUSSELL, who will, for a trifling consideration, put them in a way to realize that, or another sum of less magnitude, in the course of September next, when the rich Wheels of Hatfield Bridge Lottery will ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 1: Curiosities of the Old Lottery • Henry M. Brooks
... unbounded, as he proved by his many excellent schemes for his poor parishioners, when in after years he held the living of Hitcham. My intimacy with such a man ought to have been, and I hope was, an inestimable benefit. I cannot resist mentioning a trifling incident, which showed his kind consideration. Whilst examining some pollen-grains on a damp surface, I saw the tubes exserted, and instantly rushed off to communicate my surprising discovery to him. Now I do not suppose any other professor ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... nothing is in its nature so dignified as religion. This he illustrates by many examples from Milton, who when he raises his voice to heaven, and speaks the language of the divinity, then does he reach the true sublime; but when he descends to the more trifling consideration of human things, his wing is necessarily depressed, and his strains are less transporting. We shall now take a view of Mr. Dennis, in that part of his life and writings, in which he makes a less considerable figure, by exposing himself to the resentment of one so ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... quite well past the corner before he ventured to tell the men, whom he held back on some trifling pretext, that there was a man among the plants. The information might have caused a small panic had not his coolness dominated the nerves of ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... Some trifling assistance was offered to Rene by Strasburg and other foes to Burgundy, but it was wholly insufficient to rescue him from his difficulties, and he was finally obliged to order the capitulation of Nancy on November 19th. The magistrates desired to hold out, but were ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... to-day. We have Dr. Berger here, from New York. He is going to the congress at Halifax. You have heard of him, of course. He is coming to see some patients of mine this morning, and I should like him to see you too. Indeed, I feel I must urge you, Mr. McRae. You are trifling with your health, perhaps your life," he went on, puzzled by Roderick's indifference. "It is imperative that something be done at once. How about coming with me now? It leaves plenty ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... glorious Red. And finding the Experiment not to be inconsiderable, and very defectively set down, it will not be amiss to acquaint you with what some Tryals have inform'd us, in reference to this Experiment, which both by our Italian Author, and by divers of his Countrymen, is look'd upon as no trifling Secret. ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... least, which has borne itself so well from the day that it was raised, there will be neither grumbling nor discontent; but that you will suffer any hardship or privation that may come in your way as trifling incidents in the great work that you have undertaken: to defend, at the cost of your lives if need be, your country from the invader. The regiment is dismissed drill ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... every one else must have seen; partly, no doubt, because of that old troth between Theobald and me which I thought my grandparents held to be binding. I ought to have mentioned in its proper place that there had been no cause for Theobald's weeks of silence, or but a trifling one, and that his letters came as of old and were very full of gay doings. I noticed that he did not talk now so much of coming back as he had done at first; but at first he had been very lonely for Aghadoe ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... the prisoners, are able to control both court and jury. It has been the practice, and is now, in some of the Southern States, to pronounce long sentences upon able-bodied young Colored men, whose offences, in a Northern court, could not be visited with more than a few months' confinement and a trifling fine. The object in giving Negro men a long term of years, is to make sure the tenure of the soulless corporations upon the convicts whose unhappy lot it is to fall into their iron grasp. In some of the Southern States a strong and healthy Negro convict brings thirty-seven cents a day ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... much more therefore in the circumstances in which the army of Spain is placed. In war everything depends on opinion—opinion as to the enemy, opinion as to one's own soldiers. When a battle is lost, the difference between the conquered and the conqueror is but trifling; yet opinion makes it immeasurable, because two or three squadrons are then sufficient to produce a great effect. Nothing has been done to give confidence to the French; there is not a soldier but sees that timidity ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... sparrows, bolder than the rest, came to drink and to bathe in a little brook which flowed from the fountain; the stone margin was covered with green moss, and here and there from the interstices rose some tufts of green herbs, which the frost had spared. This description of the prison basin may seem trifling, but Fleur-de-Marie lost not one of these details; with her eyes fixed sadly on the clouds as they broke the azure of the sky, or reflected the golden rays of the sun, she thought, with a sigh, of the magnificence of nature, which she much loved, admired poetically, and ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... fete given for his friends on board the Parisian steamer was a trifling matter to the descendant of the magnificent Magyars; but still there was a certain charm about the affair, and it was a pleasure for the Prince to see upon the garden-like deck the amusing, frivolous, elegant society, which was the one he mingled with, but which he towered above from the height ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... then exhibit! Cast an eye upon the future and behold the gildings, the bronzes, the magnificent crystal chandeliers, lamps, reflectors and candelabras, which will glitter in the spacious stores, compared with which the splendor of the present day will appear trifling and insignificant. ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... too fond adherences of the things of this world, their indulgence and easiness of government, their wilder joys and freer meals, their loss of time and their too forward and apt compliances, their trifling arrests and little peevishnesses, the mixtures of the world with the thing of the Spirit, and all the incidences of humanity he will bring forth and aggravate them by circumstances of ingratitude, and the breach of promise, and the evacuating all their holy purposes, and breaking ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... a trifling cut. Turner fetched some court-plaster, and his lip was patched up. For all that, it bled quite a little. He was very embarrassed; he kept his handkerchief to his mouth and told them repeatedly to go on with their lunch and not to ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... contained in the following Memoir of Collins, the author is indebted to the researches of others, as his own, which were very extensive, were rewarded by trifling discoveries. Dr. Johnson's Life is well known; but the praise of collecting every particular which industry and zeal could glean belongs to the Rev. Alexander Dyce, the result of whose inquiries may be found in his notes to Johnson's Memoir, prefixed to an edition of Collins's works which ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... the speech and dealings of every day, /2/ and say that, if its absence would make the subject-matter a different thing, its presence is essential to the existence of the agreement. But the parties may agree that anything, however trifling, shall be essential, as well [331] as that anything, however important, shall not be; and if that essential is part of the contract description of a specific thing which is also identified by reference ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... sometimes as much as from eight to nine hundred feet. I am inclined to believe that it is attributable less to inaccuracy of observation than to the very imperfect instrument made use of by Rivero. Maclean's observations, with some trifling exceptions, correspond with mine. He used one of Fortin's barometers, and I one of Lefevre's, which, prior to my departure from Europe, had, during several weeks, been regulated at the observatory in Paris. Unluckily, this excellent instrument was injured by a fall from my ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... than myself, but he knew the world, and I was flattered by these uncommon remarks, because he talked to no one else on the ship in the same way. He never sought to make friends, had a thorough contempt for social trifling, and shrugged his shoulders at the "swagger" of some of the other officers. I think he longed for a different kind of sea-life, so accustomed had he been to adventurous and hardy ways. He had entered the Occidental service because he had fallen in love with a pretty girl, and thought it his duty ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... fashion, energetic or desultory, till after two o'clock. The dinner hour varies from three to half-past five. Post-prandial labor is generally declined; wisely, too, for few American digestions will bear trifling with; though Nature must have gifted some of my acquaintance with a marvellous internal mechanism. How, otherwise, could they stand a long unbroken course of free living, with such infinitesimal correctives of exercise? ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... Wynn beside the Yankee woman's portly presence! How trifling her low voice in answer to the shrill questioning! Linda cast herself into the breach (metaphorically), and directed the catechism upon herself. As for the young lady Almeria, she was quite satisfied to sit and stare with unwinking black eyes, occasionally hitching ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... author began to dip into that fertile inkpot, where there was a brain-fluid, concocted by virtues from on high in a talismanic fashion. From one cup there came serious things, which wrote themselves in brown ink; and from the other trifling things, which merely gave a roseate hue to the pages of the manuscript. The poor author has often, from carelessness, mixed the inks, now here, now there; but as soon as the heavy sentences, difficult to smooth, polish, and ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... subjected. It is revealing no secret to tell you that the teacher's work is not held in the highest regard by the vast majority of men and women in other walks of life. I shall not stop to inquire why this is so, but the fact cannot be doubted, and every now and again some incident of life, trifling perhaps in itself, will bring it to your notice; but most of all, perhaps you will be vexed and incensed by the very thing that is meant to put you at your ease—the patronizing attitude which your friends in other walks of life will assume ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... Canton, I believe, with which trifling matters like the choice of a president and the Mexican question can not be permitted to interfere. You must take time to spend a day or two at the convention in Baltimore on your way.... Report to our friend Fine, who will look after your comfort there. The experience ought ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... cheerful, airy, and beautiful, but they know not why. The first exclamation, on entering John's parlors, was so often "How beautiful!" that it became rather a byword in the family. Estimated by their mere money value, the articles in the rooms were of very trifling worth; but, as they stood arranged and combined, they had all the effect of a lovely picture. Although the statuary was only plaster, and the photographs and lithographs such as were all within the compass of limited means, yet every one of them was a good thing of its own kind, or ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... seriously at work. There were no more jokes or laughter; and it was whispered in the evening that the strange Highlander had made astonishing progress during the day. By the middle of Thursday he had made up for his two days' trifling, and was abreast of the other workmen; before night he was far ahead of them; and ere the evening of Friday, when they had still a full day's work on each of their columns, David's was completed in a style that defied criticism; and, his tartan coat again buttoned around him, he sat resting ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... perforce obliged to look into the affairs of her neighbors. Then, to prove that she is well informed, she feels compelled to repeat what she has seen or heard, more or less accurately. From gossiping to meddling is but a trifling step. To back up a bit of gossip, one often meddles. Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene was naturally a daughter of Eve; she was more than a gossip, she was a prophetess. She foretold scandal. She would move Heaven and earth, so the saying goes, to prove her gossip infallible. And when some prophecy ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... would not hearken. It was the sun of her week, through whose heavy clouds flickered the pale stars of distractions for which she was beginning to care little. One of life's compensations is that there is always something ahead, some trifling event of interest or pleasure upon which one may fix one's eye and endeavour to forget the dreary tissue of monotony and commonplace between. Betty found herself acquiring the habit of casting her eye over the day as soon ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... important projects. Innocent III, therefore, at the great Lateran Council limited the episcopal power to the grant of an indulgence for one year at the consecration of a church and for forty days at the anniversary. Unfortunately this did not mean the suppression of trifling reasons for the multiplication of indulgence. The whole system was a convenient method of adding to the revenues of Rome, and no occasion seemed too small for the exercise of the papal power of dispensation. Urban IV granted an indulgence to all who should listen to the same sermon ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... nevertheless, to get to the bottom of it, he wandered aimlessly about the streets. His brain was seething with irritation; and he tried to adjust his ideas a little and to discover, among the chaotic facts, some trifling detail, unperceived by all, unsuspected by Lupin himself, that might lead ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... of this chapter is made up of matter so trifling. Was it worth recording? The chronicler might plead again as excuse his temptation to linger over the pleasant hours it tells of, the utter freedom of its actors from care, and his reluctance to ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... sixteen sous; his food cost him twenty sous a day; which made three hundred and sixty-five francs a year. Add the thirty francs for rent, and the thirty-six francs to the old woman, plus a few trifling expenses; for four hundred and fifty francs, Marius was fed, lodged, and waited on. His clothing cost him a hundred francs, his linen fifty francs, his washing fifty francs; the whole did not exceed six hundred and ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... and who, being preserved, would send my letters to some one of my friends.[76] But do thou, for thou art, as thou seemest, of no ignoble birth, and knowest Mycenae and the persons I wish, do thou, I say,[77] be saved, receiving no dishonorable reward, your safety for the sake of trifling letters. But let this man, since the city compels it, be a sacrifice to the Goddess, apart ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... his way home to England, had only bad news for us. The reindeer to the north of Yakutsk were so scarce and so weak that he had only just managed to struggle back there from Bulun, on the delta, a trifling trip compared to the journey we were about to undertake. Moreover, the mountain passes south of Verkhoyansk were blocked with snow, and, even if deer were obtainable, we might be detained on the wrong side of the range for days, or even weeks. All things considered, ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... the task of responding to the pope as their duty prompted; so that they resolved, after some deliberation on the subject, to lay the brief before Frederic, and to square their reply according to his remarks. These were a tissue of the most contemptible subterfuges and trifling,—as for example, "that he had issued no edict against his clergy passing into Italy as pilgrims, and all others that wished to go thither, on reasonable grounds, attested by their bishops, could still ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... for writing and telling me how pleased his son had been by my giving him a ride one day in a Headquarters car. I mention this so that people will realize how much the men had given up when they considered such a trifling ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... are going on rather fast, and will get to be too trifling. I can't seem to make up my mind just what is right. Foster thinks we have ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... it is not less excellent. By the simple process of removing the handle, taking out the dasher, and unshipping the legs—the work, as you perceive, of but a moment—the process of transformation is complete. As to the trifling orifice that the removal of the handle leaves in the lid, it becomes, when the wash-boiler side of this Protean vessel is uppermost, a positive benefit. It is an effective safety-valve. Without it, I am not prepared to say that the boiler would ...
— Our Pirate Hoard - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... or be certainly slain. For these lords knew nothing of the adventure of the king in the forest,—all those in the conspiracy having been slain,—and thought that Ranier had either rendered some trifling service to the king, or in some way had pleased the sovereign's fancy. So when the king and some of the great lords of the court were engaged in talking of the battle that was soon to be fought, one of the conspirators, named Dyvorer, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... so much resembling bellicose and conquering Prussia, the sharp eye of Ardant du Picq had recognized clearly the danger which immediately threatened us and which his deluded and trifling fellow citizens did not even suspect. The morning after Sadowa, not a single statesman or publicist had yet divined what the Colonel of the 10th Regiment of the Line had, at first sight, understood. Written before ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... impossible for them to pay the taxes demanded. It seems to me that a poll-tax is, of all others, the worst, since it takes into no account the differences of station and wealth—to the rich the impost is trifling, to the poor it is crushing. It seems to me too that it is not only wrong, but stupid, to maintain serfdom. The men and their families must be fed, and a small money payment would not add greatly to the cost of their services, ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... was a King who was so morose and disagreeable that he was feared by all his subjects, and with good reason, as for the most trifling offences he would have their heads cut off. This King Grumpy, as he was called, had one son, who was as different from his father as he could possibly be. No prince equalled him in cleverness and kindness of heart, but unfortunately he was most terribly ugly. He had crooked legs and squinting ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... in a most fatal hour inform'd me I was a lover. Thus was it with my heart in those blest days of innocence; thus it was won and lost; nor can all my stars in heav'n prevent, I doubt, prevent my ruin. Now you are sure of the fatal conquest, you scorn the trifling glory, you are silent now; oh I am inevitably lost, or with you, or without you: and I find by this little silence and absence of yours, that 'tis most certain I must ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... me humorously for the news. She saw that I was not reading my paper, and my frowning brow and firm lips proved my problem was not of a trifling nature. She suspected nothing more, however, than that I was thinking of taking rooms in some better locality, and she was wondering how I could do it, for she knew that my income now left but a small surplus ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... Town. Yet let me not reproach you with unkindness, though I feel much, very much, at this moment. Mr. Rippingille spent last evening with us and took his final leave. He goes off for Bristol this afternoon. I have sent your silk handkerchief, with another for you, my dear Clare, as a trifling remembrance of your very sincere and ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... in this criticism I fear Thou really hast been too severe: Cosway paints miniatures with decent spirit, And Mrs. Cosway boasts some trifling merit.' ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook |
