"Trifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... head and saw Major Duplay; the Major was grave, almost solemn, as he raised his hat a trifle in ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... so they patiently endure them (diseases) They have heard, they have seen, they have done so and so They have not one more invention left wherewith to amuse us They have not the courage to suffer themselves to be corrected They have yet touched nothing of that which is mine They juggle and trifle in all their discourses at our expense They must be very hard to please, if they are not contented They must become insensible and invisible to satisfy us They neither instruct us to think well nor to do well They ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... 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 ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... that the anti-sign issue had been successful in other localities made Mr. Hopkins a trifle uneasy, and he decided to return home and keep the fight going until after election, whether young Forbes came out of ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... of Mr. Martel put an end to the discussion of the Bartletts. Bitter as was his animosity toward the old lady, he would permit no disrespect to be shown her or hers in his presence. In the garish light of day he looked a trifle less imposing than he had on New Year's eve in the firelight. His long white hair hung straight and dry about his face; baggy wrinkles sagged under his eyes and under his chin. The shoulders that once proudly carried Mark Antony's shining armor now supported a faded velvet breakfast jacket that ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... umbrella. They do not consider a hat or a stuff gown necessary, for they are not in the least ashamed of being servants. Some years ago they made no attempt to dress like ladies when they went out for themselves, and even now what they do in this way is a trifle compared to the extravagant get-up of an English cook or parlour-maid on a Sunday afternoon. A German girl in service is always saving with might and main to buy her Aussteuer, and as she gets very low wages it takes her a long time. She needs about L30, so husbands are not ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... smart fight, I reckon," he said, a trifle uneasily. "Believe me, yer ain't goin' ter find thet fellar no spring chicken. He 's ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... money is my own; I may use it as I please?" Hark! God thunders, "Thy gold and thy silver is mine." Will you trifle with Jehovah's voice, and incur his righteous wrath? Hear the terrible denunciations of James: "Go to, now, ye rich men, weep, and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... liked Lucy for a good many things—one was her independence, another was her determination to have her own way. Then, again, she was never so pretty as when she was a trifle angry; her color came and went so deliciously and her eyes snapped so charmingly. Lucy saw the shrug and caught the satisfied look in his face. She didn't want to offend him and yet she didn't intend that he should go without a parting word from her—tender or otherwise, as circumstances might ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... these two articles from a merchant who had picked them up in the street at Mecca,' said the pedlar. 'I do not know what they may contain, but as they are of no use to me, you are welcome to have them for a trifle.' ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... man, but in him it becomes a public shame, for in the eyes of the world it is the nation that tumbles in its Prime Minister. The Secretary of State's place may be dependent on the President, but the dignity of it belongs to the country, and neither of them has any right to trifle with it. Mr. Seward might stand on his head in front of what Jenkins calls his "park gate," at Auburn, and we should be the last to question his perfect right as a private citizen to amuse himself in his own way, but in a great officer of the government ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... was shown into the bishop's room, and that the bishop was there,—and the bishop only,—his mind was relieved. It would have been better that the bishop should have written himself, or that the chaplain should have written in his lordship's name; that, however, was a trifle. ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... Rosalind threw herself on her knees before her father, and begged his blessing. It seemed so wonderful to all present that she should so suddenly appear, that it might well have passed for magic; but Rosalind would no longer trifle with her father, and told him the story of her banishment, and of her dwelling in the forest as a shepherd-boy, her cousin Celia passing as ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... The conversation seemed to her useless. She saw no reason for arguing the matter, and she half suspected that he was simply teasing her. Besides, she could not but feel that to sit here in his coat and discuss egotism was a trifle ridiculous. He was merely trying to establish a friendship in talk which she did not care to ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... at the top of which little Massay went through the regular routine of posturings. After years spent in this work, my aged friend became so used to his job that he did it automatically, and scarcely gave a thought to the boy at the top. One warm day, however, he carried his indifference a trifle too far, and dropped into a quiet nap, from which he woke only to find that the pole was falling and had already gone too far to be recovered, but the agility of the boy saved him from injury. As my knowledge of Japanese is limited to the more polite forms, I ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... the Commission of Indemnity for Political Criminals, in favour of this family. But under the Restoration, Debraux underwent a very slight sentence, which gives but a small claim to his widow. From that quarter I therefore obtained only a trifle. ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... dear, it seems such a trifle, such a trifle; one day spent together on a river. Is that anything for you ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... from the waist upwards, and snatching up the rope he began to lay on and Don Quixote to count the lashes. He might have given himself six or eight when he began to think the joke no trifle, and its price very low; and holding his hand for a moment, he told his master that he cried off on the score of a blind bargain, for each of those lashes ought to be paid for at the rate of half a ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... standard petal a trifle longer than the wings; borne in slender racemes. Stem: 3 to 10 ft. tall, branching. Leaves: Rather distant, petioled, compounded of 3 oblong, saw-edged leaflets; ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... her fortune. I trifle with him; and he complains. My looks, he says, are cold upon him. He ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... strychnine. In the Middle Ages, however, the pursuit of the scapegoat ran a vast deal further. When any great one died—a Black Prince or a Dauphin—it was always assumed on all hands that he must have been poisoned. True, poisoning may then have been a trifle more frequent; certainly the means of detecting it were far less advanced than in the days of Tidy and Lauder Brunton. Still, people must often have died natural deaths even in the Middle Ages—though nobody believed it. All the world began to speculate ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... my lord, is a very feeble pledge to offer, when one so quickly forgets one's signature: have you not some trifle to add to it, to make me a little easier than I ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Though the only carriage available in the neighbourhood was ill-suited for royalty, the King and Queen, good naturedly, made little of that. They were too delighted with the unmistakable warmth of their welcome to mind such a trifle. Again the "Cavalry" were in attendance and escorted the party to ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... poor man, astounded at perceiving the nature of his customers, assured them he kept but little money in the house, but proceeded instantly to open his private drawers, and empty their contents, amounting, in fact, to a trifle of some few hundred dollars. Finding that he had indeed no more to give them they prepared to depart, when the monk said, "We must kill him, or he will recognise us." "No," said the officers, "leave him and come along. There is no danger." "Go on," said the monk, "I follow;" and, turning ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... woman to the sidewalk, he placed her upon her feet, then went back, picked up her parcels and placed them in her basket. Without waiting to hear her thanks, he lifted his hat and was turning away as if all had been a trifle, when he was confronted by the enraged expressman pouring forth volleys of vituperation. With a chivalric impulse the girl drew nearer the stranger, who looked the bully steadily in the eyes while he kept his hands in his pockets. The man made a gesture as if to strike. Instantly the young fellow's ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... spinsters of uncertain age Are clamoring now for "all the rage" To give a dash of color To their complexions, which appear To be the hue they hold so dear— Except a trifle duller. ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... Mrs. Stone, hastily, for she had touched upon a point which she knew to be a very sensitive one with her principal, and wished to smooth matters down a trifle. "I do not mean punishment in the generally accepted term, but do you think it wholly wise to let the girls feel that they can do such things and, in a measure, find ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... subsisting between the two metals, as it had long been fixed.(43) The common monetary unit was the piece of ten -asses- (which were no longer of a pound, but reduced to the third of a pound), the -denarius-, which weighed in copper 3 1/3 and in silver 1/72, of a Roman pound, a trifle more than the Attic —drachma—. At first copper money still predominated in the coinage; and it is probable that the earliest silver -denarius- was coined chiefly for Lower Italy and for intercourse with other lands. As the victory of the Romans over Pyrrhus and Tarentum and the Roman embassy to ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... become State property they will be offered to the tenants at the time being at cost price, payable in long terms with moderate interest. The annual compounded sum will be only a trifle more than ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... were a considerable drawback to the pleasure so long anticipated of having a companion of her own age. Just now her eye fell at once on her ransacked bookcase all in confusion, with the books scattered about the room. It was a trifle, but trifles are magnified when the temper is already discomposed; and throwing down her gloves and Bible, she hastily proceeded to rearrange them, feeling rather ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... their Roguery together with the other Kids of the later Jonathan, when they are free, may work Day-Labour, or else rent a small Plantation for a Trifle almost; or else turn Overseers, if they are expert, industrious, and careful, or follow their Trade, if they have been brought up to any; especially Smiths, Carpenters, Taylors, Sawyers, Coopers, Bricklayers, &c. The Plenty of the Country, ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... spoke the victim of the accident, opening his eyes suddenly. Ruth saw that they were kind, brown eyes, with a deal of patience in their glance. He was not the sort of chap to make much of a trifle. ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... sudden he broke out in a great flame of anger, stamping with his foot, brandishing the cane, and carrying on (as the maid described it) like a madman. The old gentleman took a step back, with the air of one very much surprised and a trifle hurt; and at that Mr. Hyde broke out of all bounds and clubbed him to the earth. And next moment, with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under foot and hailing down a storm of blows, under which the ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... for any more reasonable occupation, partly by the thundery oppressiveness of the air, partly by a vague, dull feeling of dread that made me restless, and which was yet one of those phases of feeling in which, if life depended on an energetic movement, one must trifle. In this mood, when the foreclouded mind instinctively shrinks from its own great troubles, little things assume an extraordinary distinctness. I trode carefully in the patterns of the terrace pavement, counted the ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... heart as weaknesses in times of war, of which it was not for him to set the example, and therefore necessary to suppress; or finally, that he anticipated much greater misfortunes, compared with which the present was a mere trifle. ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... 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 a serious ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... of any subject man and wife must not talk together upon, which is yet a daily ingredient of comfort and display, itself disarranges their economy and finally becomes the chronic intruder of their household; and, when it is a trifle, it seems the more an obstacle, because there is no reasoning ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... shipboard intimacy with her, and discovers her to be at once an exacting tyrant and a jolly chum, when the maid is possessed of a strange and exciting history, and congenial tastes, when she is not unaware of her own excellence, and, at times, not disinclined to coquet a trifle before a young, virile male—then, the romantic young man's blood experiences a permanent rise in temperature, and there are moments when his heart lodges uncomfortably in his throat, and moments when it beats a devil's own ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... me, my son? I may trust thee? Remember that thine own father's welfare may be imperilled by the veriest trifle should men suspect him of striving to ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... to-day, but now, sire, I claim one, and I beg you to grant it." "With all my heart; ask your boon, and it shall be yours willingly." "Then, I pray you, grant me the lives of these good yeomen." "Madam, you might have had half my kingdom, and you ask a worthless trifle." "Sire, it seems not worthless to me; I beg you to keep your promise." "Madam, it vexes me that you have asked so little; yet since you will have these three outlaws, take them." The queen rejoiced greatly. ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... "Just a small trifle. Something useful for the bottom drawer!" murmured Arthur modestly, and the next moment the parcel fell on the table with a crash, while every one shrieked in chorus. Something had gone off with a bang, something fell out of its wrappings and clattered wood against wood. A mouse-trap! A little, ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... answered by Huldricksson himself, who must have risen just as I left the cabin. The Norseman had slipped on a pair of pajamas and, giant torso naked under the sun, he strode out upon us. We all of us looked at him a trifle anxiously. But Olaf's madness had left him. In his eyes was much sorrow, but the berserk ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... driven along the hard, smooth sand of a Florida sea beach, covering a mile in 25-2/5 seconds. And it continued for a second mile at the same tremendous speed. These were the fastest two miles ever made by man. They were at the rate of a trifle over 140 miles an hour. As this record was not equaled in the three years that followed, it may be regarded as approaching the maximum speed of which automobiles are capable. And as another automobile, in endeavoring to reach such a speed, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... girl, a trifle puzzled by the intensity of his quiet tone, and stressing their relationship ever so lightly. ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... a good idea. Robustiano will not venture to come to Orbajosa, because he owes me a trifle. You can tell him that I forgive him the six dollars and a half. These poor people who sacrifice themselves with so little. Is it not so, Senor ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... up very far?" asked Mr. Nestor of Tom, and the young inventor thought that Mary's father was a trifle nervous. He had not made many flights, and then only a little way above the ...
— Tom Swift and his Wizard Camera - or, Thrilling Adventures while taking Moving Pictures • Victor Appleton
... would not trifle with winter, thus, if they knew him in his northern moods. But the only voluntary concession they make to his severity is the scaldino, and this is made chiefly by the yielding sex, who are denied the warmth of the ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... sincerely. You will excuse me? I am going in to talk to the captain for a few minutes. There are a few matters concerning my personal comfort which need his attention. I find the purser," he added, dropping his voice, "an excellent fellow, no doubt, but just a trifle unsympathetic, eh?" ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... humanizing influence. The doctor, with his habit of sceptical, bitter speech, had no other means of showing his profound respect for the character of the woman who was known in the country as the English Senora. He presented this tribute very seriously indeed; it was no trifle for a man of his habits. Mrs. Gould felt that, too, perfectly. She would never have thought of imposing upon him this marked show ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... us in a private sitting-room, long, oak-beamed, spotlessly clean, and a trifle musty, with that faint but unmistakable mustiness which hangs about old rooms and old furniture. Tea was set out on one half of the oak dining-table. The china was of the old-fashioned white and gold order, the cups very wide at the brim and cramped at the handle, and possessing a dear ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... at this point in the examination; now it didn't seem to be too funny. If Moss had been a mealy-mouthed quack like the last Doc he had seen, okay. But Moss wasn't. Moss was obviously not impressed by the old man sitting across the desk from him, a fact which made Dan Fowler just a trifle uneasy. And Moss ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... the reference to the heavens is a trifle over-rhetorical. Santos-Dumont differed from all aviators (or pilots of airplanes) and most navigators of dirigibles in always advocating the strategy of staying near the ground. In his flights he barely ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... you like it?" said Carlisle, trailing forward, her eyes shining. "Then you won't scold, will you, if my watch was a trifle slow! And I should have been ready hours ago, even at that, but for Flora's over-staying at her uncle's. Tell Mr. Canning, Flora, wasn't ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the fresh laddie gude," quoth Tom, a trifle abashed but ready to stand by his guns, "I'm thenkin' he's one of them what feels they owns the airth, an' is bound to step on all worms of the dust whut comes in thur wy. But Jim, mon, we better be steppin' on, fer tomorra's the Sawbeth ya ken, an' it wuddent be gude for our souls if the parson ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... replied Bolton, "his nose is too red for that; and if a little abstinence should make it a trifle paler, Pen won't need to ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... Irving with Chief Factor Camsell's dogs brought to Fort Simpson a load of nine hundred pounds. The greatest load hauled by four dogs that I know of was brought to Fort Good Hope by Gaudet. When it arrived it weighed a trifle over one thousand pounds. But Factor Gaudet is one of the best dog-drivers in the country." Then, re-settling himself more comfortably before ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... friends walked with slow steps, cigars in their mouths, in evening dress and overcoats on their arms, with a flower in their buttonholes, and their hats a trifle on one side, as men will carelessly wear them sometimes, after they have dined well and ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... lascivious Moor,— If this be known to you, and your allowance, We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs; But if you know not this, my manners tell me We have your wrong rebuke. Do not believe That, from the sense of all civility, I thus would play and trifle with your reverence: Your daughter,—if you have not given her leave,— I say again, hath made a gross revolt; Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes In an extravagant and wheeling stranger Of here ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare
... great hopes that you will do me a little favour. I have temporary need of a trifle of pecuniary aid—some slight debts which have grown upon me abroad," he added carelessly, with a short cough—"and, knowing your good heart, I have resolved to apply to you. If you can oblige me with a couple of hundred pounds or so, I'll give you my acknowledgment, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... will soothe my chagrin. Had it arisen from any other cause, not a moment would I have deferred the communication you ask;-but as it is, I would, were it possible, not only conceal it from all the world, but endeavour to disbelieve it myself. Yet since I must tell you, why trifle with ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... alone. To tell the truth, the excitement of the morning had been rather trying for them, but if it left them a trifle nervous they soon forgot their apprehension in making the last of the transfer. There was now another reason for abandoning the car. With headquarters established in the corral they would be near the balloon and its equipment, and if Jellup should permit his ill will to develop into ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... "magic and sorcery do seem a trifle out of date, don't they? Could any one look out of the window at what is going on in the streets below, and at the same time believe in fairies and hobgoblins? Still the book made a bit of an impression on me, so that I'm ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... put some lumps of coal upon the fire with the tongs, and said, "I presume you mean what you say, and that you do not wish to trifle with the subject." ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... of Ralph, the man's face softened a trifle and his keen eyes became a little less keen. The boy's picture was before him upon his chiffonier. Ralph was twenty-three now and would finish in a few weeks at a famous medical school—Doctor Dexter's own alma ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... to trouble herself about such a trifle—to him she was beautiful as the day in whatever attire she happened to be. And then they ate their supper with a good appetite, though it seemed strange to the Princess to be quite without attendants, sitting alone at table with ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... seemed hard to him and made him shed fresh tears. He pleaded the vows he had made to the Queen, and defied his counsellors to find a Princess more beautiful and better fashioned than was she, thinking this to be impossible. But the Council treated the promise as a trifle, and said that it mattered little about beauty if the Queen were but virtuous and fruitful. For the State needed Princes for its peace and prosperity, and though, in truth, the Princess, his daughter, had all the qualities requisite for making a great Queen, ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... looked at her, and observed her age and her dress, the latter old-fashioned. She said, quietly, "Will mademoiselle do me the honor to stand before me? I will sing her a trifle my mother ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... on a small table near Fanny. Godwin looked at the younger girl; it seemed to him that there was an excess of colour in her cheeks. Had a glance from Sidwell rebuked her? With his usual rapidity of observation and inference he made much of this trifle. ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... said Nan a trifle impatiently. For several days her nerves had been under a considerable strain and the effort to think and act for Bess as well as herself was beginning to tell on her. "It wouldn't have done ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... a trifle—that coarse speech of a thoughtless old woman—a mere trifle; but it overwhelmed her, coming, as it did, after all that had gone before. It was but the last feather, you know, only a single feather laid on the pack that broke the camel's back. It ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... is of impure practices, that uses harsh and cruel words, that is a thief, that cherishes malice towards his preceptors and other seniors, those persons that are endued with little energy, strength, life, and honour, that are distressed at every trifle, and that always indulge in wrath. I never reside with these that think in one strain and act in a different one.[28] I never reside also with him who never desires any acquisition for himself, of him who is so blinded as to rest content with the lot in which he finds ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... or innocent human objects. The stick is meant partly to hold a man up, partly to knock a man down; partly to point with like a finger-post, partly to balance with like a balancing pole, partly to trifle with like a cigarette, partly to kill with like a club of a giant; it is a crutch and a cudgel; an elongated finger and an extra leg. The case is the same, of course, with the fire; about which the strangest modern views have arisen. A queer fancy seems to be current ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... generals wrote very plainly in explaining the situation to their superiors at home. To be sure, Gage was a trifle disingenuous in reviewing the past. While admitting that the recent trials at arms proved the rebels "not the despicable rabble too many have supposed them to be," he ignored his original boast concerning lions and ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... fat would in any case have prevented him from sinking. Yes, even if he had turned head over heels in an effort to dive, the water would persistently have borne him up; and the same if, say, a couple of men had jumped on his back—the only result would have been that he would have become a trifle deeper submerged, and forced to draw breath by spouting bubbles through his nose. No, the cause of his agitation was lest the net should break, and the fish escape: wherefore he was urging some additional peasants who were standing on the bank ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... think of myself, of all that I am. Myself, my home, my hours; the past, and the future,—it was going to be like the past! And at that moment I feel, weeping within me and dragging itself from some little bygone trifle, a new and tragical sorrow in dying, a hunger to be warm once more in the rain and the cold: to enclose myself in myself in spite of space, to hold myself back, to live. I called for help, and then lay ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... than half have been used by snipers, or in some other direct fashion have brought themselves within the laws of warfare. But it cannot be said that these others have done so. The cost of the average farmhouse is a mere trifle. A hundred pounds would build a small one, and 300l. a large. If we take the intermediate figure, then the expenditure of 50,000l. would compensate for those cases where military policy and international law may have been at variance ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... before. Now I had, I confess, little hope of moving Mr Stoddart in the matter; but if I should succeed, I thought it would do himself more good to mingle with his humble fellows in the attempt to do them a trifle of good, than the opening of any number of intellectual windows towards the ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... gentlemen were generally desirous of tea, I take it for granted they would have it, but their slighting is one inconvenience to such as desire it, not knowing when it is provided, conversation may carry them beyond the time, and then if they do trifle over the coffee it will certainly be cold. There is a want of attention in this, which the ladies should remedy, if they will not break the old custom and send to the gentlemen, which is what they ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... speak in earnest, I believe it adds a charm To spice the good a trifle with a little dust of harm— For I find an extra flavor in Memory's mellow wine That makes me drink the deeper to ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... to-night," suggested the lad, "We shall want to make an early start in the morning, anyway. I think it will be safer there, too. That pair won't dare come fooling around our camp, knowing they can't trifle with us," added the lad, with a note of pride in ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... are against you, sir," said I, a trifle warmly, for the man's composure was irritating. "A disappearance would be more likely to do you credit ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... "A trifle," he answered, and indeed he did, for he knew better than Christine could, how strange this coming interview would appear to Mrs. Almar after the conversation before lunch. He consoled himself, however, by the thought that train-time was drawing near, "and then, please heaven," ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... nourished. A great outcry has arisen and a number of perfectly conventional men like Lorimer suffer an undeserved humiliation. We say it is a "moral awakening." That is another dodge by which we pretend that we were always wise and just, though a trifle sleepy. In reality we are witnessing a change of conscience, initiated by cranks and fanatics, sustained for a long time by minorities, which has at last infected ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... the only vehicle possible over these mountain-roads. It is the volante of the Franconia range, and rides over everything from a bowlder to a wind-slash. This particular example differed only in being a trifle more rickety and mud-bespattered than any I had seen; and the mare had evidently been foaled to draw it—a fur-coated, moth-eaten, wisp-tailed beast, tied to the shafts with clothes-lines and scraps of deerhide—a quadruped that ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... written immediately after the appearance of "The Peacock at Home," but from various circumstances was laid aside. "In the opinion of the publishers," the Preface goes on to say, "it is so nearly allied in point of merit to that celebrated trifle that it is introduced at this ...
— The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast • Mr. Roscoe
... the "culture" (using this word in the strictly English sense) of Streatham Hill may perhaps be a trifle thinner than that of certain other suburbs, and, keeping this well in mind, I must try to believe that Candytuft—I mean Veronica (HUTCHINSON) is meant for romantic comedy and is not a one-Act farce hastily expanded by its author into three-hundred-page fiction form. The plot turns on a not very ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... (such was the negro's name), I loudly expressed my despair at my obscurity and the uselessness of my life, and I exclaimed: 'I would give ten years of my life to be placed in the first rank of our authors.' 'Ten years,' he coldly replied to me, 'are a great deal; it's paying dearly for a trifle; but that's nothing, I accept your ten years. I take them now; remember your promises: I shall keep mine!' I cannot depict to you my surprise at hearing him speak in this way. I thought years had weakened his reason; I smiled, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... live and die in; and I felt a momentary desire to pass the remainder of my existence within its ever-blooming orange, rose, and jasmine bowers. I believe it might belong to the British government for a trifle, having been offered by the Sultan to Mr. Stratford Canning, who refused it, from very honourable motives, as he considered it possible he might be suspected of pressing the government to purchase it, with a view to ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... those decorated pillars, alternating with the clustered columns of the interior, and I do not suppose I ever shall: the spiral furrows, the zigzag and lozenge figures chiselled in their surfaces, weakened them to the eye and seemed to trifle with their proud bulk. ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... begin with very little, sir. If the ball don't go to the top of the cliff I shall put a trifle more into the gun next time; it's better to make a mistake on ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... the way he had gone for the Chief Weasel and sent him flying across the table with one blow of his stick. But he bustled about, and so did the Rat, and soon they found some guava jelly in a glass dish, and a cold chicken, a tongue that had hardly been touched, some trifle, and quite a lot of lobster salad; and in the pantry they came upon a basketful of French rolls and any quantity of cheese, butter, and celery. They were just about to sit down when the Mole clambered in through the window, chuckling, with ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... was dusk and Jed could not see his face plainly, but he fancied that he noticed a resemblance to his sister in the way he walked and the carriage of his head. The two went into the little house together and Jed returned to his lonely supper. He was a trifle blue that evening, although he probably would not have confessed it. Least of all would he have confessed the reason, which was that he was just a little jealous. He did not grudge his tenant her happiness in her brother's return, ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... But he rode and wrathed and still rode, up to where the canyon dwindled—rough land and a hard ride. As we neared the great flat mountain, the feeble cry of the pack was heard again from the south, then toward the high Butte's side, and just a trifle louder now. We reined in on a hillock and scanned the snow. A moving speck appeared, then others, not bunched, but in a straggling train, and at times there was a far faint cry. They were headed ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... make it rather more substantial, then, by accepting this trifle, which may be useful under the present circumstances," said the gentleman, ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... negatives may be made with almost exactly the same density in each quarter, and by cutting out slightly less than one-quarter of the mat the four images will be separated by black lines in the print; by cutting out a trifle more than the exact quarter, they will be separated by white lines ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... been a trifle embarrassing for you, Miss Parker," Farrel remarked, as they proceeded down the street. "I shall not recognize any more of them. I've greeted them all in general, and some day next week I'll come to town and greet them in detail. ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... of the girls were having a great struggle over some trifle he had snatched from her hand, and the rest stood about laughing to see her desperate attempts to recover it. This was a familiar form of courtship in Kesota, and an evening filled with such romping was considered a "cracking good ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... you tamper and trifle with strong drink? Do you say you can drink or let it alone? I admit you can drink but are you sure you can let it alone? If you can now, are you sure you can two years hence? I saw a giant oak tree lying in the track of the wind. It had been called "the monarch of ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... flag. But I looked in wane for any, the werry slightest, simptom of the County Counsel of London having put in a appearance. Poor Fellers, what with plenty of dull, dry hard work, and not a partikle of rashnal injoyment, no not ewen such a trifle as a bit of free wittles or a drop of free drink, what will they be looking like at the end of their second year of hoffis? Why it's my beleef as their werry best frends won' kno 'em. No wunder as they all wants to get free admissions ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 29, 1890 • Various
... the little trifle, not least because I suspected that the "one familiar friend" was myself. Everyone likes to ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... any rate as much, to an appearance, as the good people who had, in the night of time, unanimously invented them, and who still, in the prolonged afternoon of their good faith, unanimously, even if a trifle automatically, practised them; yet, with it all, he had never so much as during such sojourns the trick of a certain detached, the amusement of a certain inward critical, life; the determined need, which apparently all participant, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... a trifle premature, considering that there doesn't seem the remotest prospect of my ever getting a chance ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... county," the man proceeded, "wish the horse was led by some other officer. For my part, if I could only be covered by a troop now and then, I could do many an important piece of service to the cause, to which this capture of the peddler would be a trifle." ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... And when he realized that people might not be aware of his happiness, he pitied them with his whole heart and felt a desire somehow to explain to them that all that occupied them was a mere frivolous trifle unworthy of attention. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... A trifle that he would not have heeded at another time, but which now sent a thrill of hope through him, for it told of light and liberty, and help for the sufferer lying in that ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... perhaps a trifle chagrined at the profusion, as Nina gave a cursory glance at the cards that Celeste had affixed to each opened box. But with a curious little smile—one that had real sweetness in it—Nina picked up a particular bunch of violets, and looked at Derby over ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... women which can do a great deal, and Lois was determined that Mr. Dillwyn should not be ashamed of her. By the time it was needful for her to rise she did rise, and faced her visitor with a very quiet and perfectly composed manner. Only, if anything, it was a trifle too quiet; but her manner was ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... me give light] There is scarcely any word with which Shakespeare delights to trifle as with ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... mean Shigalov when I said it was rot," Verhovensky mumbled. "You see, gentlemen,"—he raised his eyes a trifle—"to my mind all these books, Fourier, Cabet, all this talk about the right to work, and Shigalov's theories—are all like novels of which one can write a hundred thousand—an aesthetic entertainment. I can understand ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... demand, or ask from a newly-made brother, something of a metallic kind, not so much on account of its intrinsic value, but that it may be deposited in the archives of the Lodge, as a memorial that you was herein made a Mason; a small trifle will be sufficient—anything of a metallic kind will do; if you have no money, anything of a metallic nature will be sufficient; even a button will do." [The candidate says he has nothing about him; it is known he has nothing.] "Search yourself," ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... then, out of his own mouth shall he be confuted. In the fourth epistle of his Essay on Man, a specimen selected purely at random from his works, and extending altogether to three hundred and ninety-eight lines, there are no less than twenty-seven (that is, a trifle more than one out of every fifteen,) made up entirely of monosyllables: and over and above these, there are one hundred and fifteen which have in them only one word of greater length; and yet there are few dull creepers among the lines ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various
... no "steeple-clock'd hose." While we breakfasted, one of the villagers fed my horse with some fresh-mowed hay, and it was with some difficulty I could prevail upon him to be paid for it, because the trifle I offered was much more than his Court of Conscience informed him it was worth. I could moralize here a little; but I will only ask you, in which state think you man is best; the untaught man, in that of nature, or ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... a bit of trouble, sir. It was a matter of a sovereign or going to gaol. He's only a youngster, and the prison smell sticks. Trust folk for nosing it out. He's got a chance now, and will be sending his mother a trifle presently." ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... a trifle guilty and ashamed at hearing this, but knowing they were all afraid of him he burst out ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... denied the soft impeachment of literary power. Nevertheless, he shows it, as he showed military power, unexpectedly, almost miraculously. All the conditions here, then, are favorable to supposing a case of "genius." Yet who would trifle with that great heir of fame, that plain, grand, manly soul, by speaking of "genius" and him together? Who calls Washington a genius? or Franklin, or Bismarck, or Cavour, or Columbus, or Luther, or Darwin, or Lincoln? Were these men second-rate in their way? ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... her clothes, she lay with eyes shut, breathing heavily, holding the gold in her hand. I pulled open her legs, with scarcely any resistance, and saw a mere trifle of hair on the cunt; the novelty so pleased me, that I kissed it; then for the first time in my life I licked a cunt, the spittle from my mouth ran on to it, I pulled open the lips, it looked different from the cunts I ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... don't try to do anything of the sort, Myra," counselled Lady Fermanagh. "Don Carlos is very much a man of the world, and you would be playing with fire. I should judge that he knows women better than most men. And in any case, my dear, it isn't safe to trifle with a Spaniard." ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... stopped for noon on the left, every man, as usual, soaking wet. A little rain fell but not enough to consider. After dinner four more rapids were put behind; we ran all but one at which we made a let-down. Our record for this day was eleven rapids in a trifle less than seven miles, and we were camped at the head of another rapid which was to form our eye-opener in the morning. The walls receded from the river three-fourths of a mile and now, though still very high, had more ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... that the path that led to success was wide open: the competition was negligible. There was no jostling. In fact, travel on it was just a trifle lonely. One's fellow-travellers were excellent company, but they were few! It was one of Edward Bok's greatest surprises, but it was also one of his greatest stimulants. To go where others could not go, or were loath to go, where at least they were not, had a tang that ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... single man. Each is, in fact, a fiend, and not a human being. It was thus only that Bracciolini could show us in its true light the Church of Rome as it acted in his day. In the language of Wickliffe it was the "Synagogue of Satan." A mere trifle was it that reprobates in the form of bishops and priests ordained, consecrated and sacrificed. See the Church at an Oecumenical Council; then it capped the climax of cruelty and crime; it resorted to demoniacal subterfuge to condemn good men as heretics and burn them alive, believing that death ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... that there is a strangeness in his manner, but refrain from questioning him about it. He seems in one of his moods, when they know it is not safe to intrude upon, or trifle with him. In his belt he carries a "Colt," which more than once has silenced ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... "It is not a trifle," he said; "and now to the other points. I dare say I have been careless about consulting Martha. But she has always been a sort of oracle in our family, and we all look up to her, and she is so much older than you. Then as to the secrets. Martha comes to my office to help me look ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... he resumed, when the host was gone. "I stand thus: I have lost to you to-day a sum of money which, though some might account considerable, is in itself no more than a trifle. ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... with a sort of luxury. Dinah, handsome and nicely dressed, was careful to anticipate her dear Etienne's wishes, and he felt himself the king of his home, where everything, even the baby, was subject to his selfishness. Dinah's affection was to be seen in every trifle, Lousteau could not possibly cease the entrancing deceptions ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... I was that flustered I done forgot my manners altogether," said Ware apologetically. "I hev got a drap of apple that they say is right good for this region, and a trifle of corn that ain't nothing to brag on, though it does ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... 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, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... he says, "with so unchristian a soul that, for a trifle, he would perpetuate the trespass of a possessor, which would inevitably be the result if he did not consent to abandon his right?" By the Eternal! I am that man. Though a million proprietors should burn for it in hell, I lay the blame on them for depriving ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... a trifle entangled. It distressed him. Revelations and scenes might bring upon him the wrath of the owner of the saloon, who insisted upon respectability of an ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... running east and west lay just beyond the small blue-green lake in which we saw the ducks towards evening. About seven miles beyond the ridge to the north was a short range of high, barren mountains that were perhaps a trifle lower than the Kipling Mountains. Upon ascending the ridge we heard the rushing of water on the other side, which sound proved to come from a small fall on a stream expanding and stretching out, to the eastward in long, narrow lakes. Apparently these ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... sacrifice I would not make rather than capitulate to those Huns, those Vandals," said a grocer to me, with a most sand-the-sugar face, this morning, as he pocketed about ten times the value of a trifle—candles, in fact, which have risen twenty-five per cent. in the last two days—and folding his arms, scowled from under his kepi into futurity, with stern but ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... soberly, "there ought to be somebody a trifle more interested in you than the janitor to look after your food and your medicine and all that. I'm going to ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... 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 of blood. We can in this manner best convince them that we are their friends, not ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... never to trifle with questions of propriety. Could there possibly be a better illustration of what I have so often said—that in self-defence we are bound to keep ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... I! it repents me I have let it so reasonable. I might so well have had after threescore as such a trifle; For, seeing they were distressed, they would have given largely. I was a right sot; but I'll be overseen no ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... accuse Mr. RONALD JEANS of originality in the design of his musical trifle at the Comedy. The idea of a company of women that bans the society of men is at least as old as the Attic stage. But it is to his credit that though the theme invited suggestiveness he at least avoided the licence of The Lysistrata. Indeed there were moments when his restraint ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... his ragged hat, and smiling with as confident an air as if he had done us some very particular service, and were certain of being paid for it, as from contract. It was so very funny, so impudent, so utterly absurd, that I could not help giving him a trifle; but the man got nothing,—a fact that gives me a twinge or two, for he looked sickly and miserable. But where everybody begs, everybody, as a general rule, must be denied; and, besides, they act their misery so well that you are never sure of ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... snippet; snick^, snack, snatch, slip, scrag^; chip, chipping; shiver, sliver, driblet, clipping, paring, shaving, hair. nutshell; thimbleful, spoonful, handful, capful, mouthful; fragment; fraction &c (part) 51; drop in the ocean. animalcule &c 193. trifle &c (unimportant thing) 643; mere nothing, next to nothing; hardly anything; just enough to swear by; the shadow of a shade. finiteness, finite quantity. V. be small &c adj.; lie in a nutshell. diminish &c (decrease) 36; (contract) 195. Adj. small, little; diminutive &c (small in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and happy to call you brother. Now, then, decide to try again. Clara shall not refuse you; she does not wish to do so; on the contrary, she loves you; but some of her oddness was in the ascendant to-night, and so it happened as it did. At any rate I can no longer trifle with my own safety, and have no authority or means to prevent Don Carlos from exercising unlimited power over my sister's actions. Good-night, senor, you can strike the gong when you wish for a servant and a light. I shall have your answer ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... was the oldest of four, and the other three were lasses, that knew not in the morning where the day's providing was to come from, except by trust in Him who sent the ravens to Elijah. By allowing Tammie a trifle for board-wages, I was enabled to add my mite to the comforts of the family; for he was kind, frugal, and dutiful, and would willingly share with them to the last morsel. In the course of a few years he became ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... exception of a few ballads and some of Allan Ramsay's songs, was the first poetry he made acquaintance with. It must often have been with anxiety, and sometimes not without a struggle, that his mother—solicitous about every trifle which affected the training of her child—decided on the books which she was to place in his hands. She wished him to develop his intellectual faculties, but not at the expense of his spiritual; and romantic frivolity and mental dissipation ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... she said, turning from me with a puzzled face, "I don't like animals, and I can't pretend to, for they always find me out; but can't you let that dog know that I shall feel eternally grateful to him for saving not only our property for that is a trifle but my darling daughter from fright and annoyance, and a possible injury or loss ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... to be a trifle in the big sum of time Advantage to live where nothing was required of her but truth All humour in him had a strain of the sardonic Bad turns good sometimes, when you know the how Don't be too honest Every shot that kills ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... right. Don't 'pol'gize, 's all right. Zere was somepin' 'n you're looksh made me shink p'raps yu's feeling trifle in'sposed. I am, an' didn't know but what you might be same way. You may've noticed 't I'm jush trifle—er, well, some people ud shay zhrunk, Toffski—rude 'n' dish'gree'ble people dshay zhrunk. P'raps zere 'bout half right, Woffski, but it's zhrude ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... "A mere trifle for the boy," said the fairy godmother, laying the parcel down on the table. "It is a very common gift to come from my hands, but I trust it ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... something of the sensation of a wholesale bumping of one's crazy bone. If she had been anything but a stupid little flirt, she would have realized that here was a specimen of the virile male with which she could not trifle. She glanced up at him now, smiling faintly. "My, I was scared!" She stepped away from him ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... Guess and Uncertainty is a Trifle, to the vast Discoveries of these Explicatory Optick-Glasses; for here are seen the Nature and Consequences of Secret Mysteries: Here are read strange Mysteries relating to Predestination, Eternal Decrees, and the like: Here 'tis plainly ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... forward a trifle and, posed in lithe, nervous attitudes, were watching him like cats. The captain remained unmoved. At the youth's question he merely nodded ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... trifle with any lady's affections, sir," was my reply. We said no more. I sighed, thinking of what I fully believed had blighted my existence. My father sighed, thinking, I know, of his own vain wish to see me happily married. ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... girl's lip curled and her clean-cut chin lifted a trifle. "You don't seem to have overlooked anything. No, I don't think I care to have anything ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... for which he that has it is not accountable. Nor does previous knowledge establish true liberty, for a will may be preceded by the knowledge of divers objects, and yet have no real election or choice. Nor is deliberation or the being in suspense any more than a vain trifle, if I deliberate between two counsels when I am under an actual impotency to follow the one and under an actual necessity to pursue the other. In short, there is no serious and true choice between two objects, ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... the Antiquary, "I would bet a trifle there was not a kolb kerl, or bondsman, or peasant, ascriptus glebae, died upon the monks' territories down here, but John of the Girnel saw them ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... nothing. If he have brains, the way to success is open there, while it is practically barred to anything short of genius for men of his class in Europe. Our Australian colonies, where unskilled labor can earn 7s. 6d. a day, and live for a trifle, are, indeed, a paradise for the mere wage-earner, who can scarcely help becoming also a wage-saver; but America is the country which, with wage conditions such as I have attempted to portray, still offers the best possible opportunities of success, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... like the wind, and a merry chase brought us to the Lumberville depot in time to flag the train. We arrived at Lamington at half past twelve, a trifle late for dinner, rather tired and hungry, but with a glowing and I fear somewhat exaggerated account of our adventure for the credulous ears of ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... always strong on the music-hall stage. The acrobatic troupe is always a "Family": Pa, Ma, eight brothers and sisters, and the baby. A more affectionate family one rarely sees. Pa and Ma are a trifle stout, but still active. Baby, dear little fellow, is full of humour. Ladies do not care to go on the music-hall stage unless they can take their sister with them. I have seen a performance given by eleven sisters, all ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... interrupted Mr. Le Mesurier hurriedly, 'there's no reason that I know of why you shouldn't have asked him, except that it's surely a trifle unusual, isn't it? You ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... mind. He who thus grieves will excite no sympathy; he who thus praises will confer no honour." Now this is blunt, positive speech, and no one would mind it much if it were left alone by ignorant persons; but it is a trifle exasperating when Johnson's authority is brought forward at second hand in order to convince us that a poem in which many people delight is disgusting. Again, the dictator said that a passage in Congreve's ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... power, without infringing the laws of justice and honour, to withdraw herself from a confederacy which she could no longer support, and treat for peace on her own bottom, then was she not an associate but a slave to the alliance. The earl of Godolphin affirmed, that the trade to Spain was such a trifle as deserved no consideration; and that it would continually diminish until it should be entirely engrossed by the French merchants. Notwithstanding these remonstrances against the plan of peace, the majority agreed to an address, in which they thanked the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Him alms as to a poor man, and puts Himself—so to speak—at our mercy. He will take nothing that is not cheerfully given, and the veriest trifle is precious in His Divine Eyes. He stretches forth His Hand to receive a little love, that in the radiant day of the Judgment He may speak to us those ineffably sweet words: "Come, ye blessed of My Father, ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... he pays me first, otherwise he would be punting with my money. Of course it's a mere trifle, and I hope he won't trouble himself in the least or put himself to any ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... know all that," said her husband, conciliatingly, a trifle easier now that the sunbonnet was for the moment turned aside. "That's all true, mighty true. But what kin ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... banish me before I leave him in adversity. What a heart must I have to rejoice in prosperity with him whose offers I have accepted, and then, when poverty comes, haggard as it may be, for me to trifle with the oracles of Heaven, and change with every fluctuation that may interrupt our happiness—like the politician who runs the political gantlet for office one day, and the next day, because the horizon ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... I thought you would be pleased, though it is only a trifle. But that is not all. Widow Drayton was sitting with me last afternoon, when all at once she puts up her finger and says, "Hark! Is not that your Kitty's voice?" And so I stole out into the passage to listen. And ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... a show of himself before the people for the sake of gaining popularity. When invited to attend the annual exhibition of the Maryland Agricultural Society, shortly after his inauguration, he declined, and wrote in his Diary: "To gratify this wish I must give four days of my time, no trifle of expense, and set a precedent for being claimed as an article of exhibition at all the cattle-shows throughout the Union." Other gatherings would prefer equally reasonable demands, in responding to which "some duty must be neglected." ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse |
