"Trifling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for half an hour. When he returned his suit-case was closed. He thought nothing of a matter so trifling till he looked inside, and then he underwent a feeling as if it had been rifled. But nothing was gone, so far as he could see. Then he noticed the folding-pocket, for its fastening cord was undone. How well he remembered placing there the letter from Ailsa, months ago! ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... out of sight of the two sentries so long as they stayed at their posts; but, as anyone who knows Myddelton Hall, which is little altered since that time, will understand, a very trifling extension of his beat would bring one of them into a position to command the carriagedrive which Jack had to cross to get from the shrubbery to the house. However, the boy sauntered off, looking as aimless as a piece of floating thistledown, and gained the house unperceived. Directly he was past ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... time the election was held, and Mayor Hull became Governor Hull by a satisfactory majority for so evenly divided a State. He had spent—in contributions to the machine campaign fund—upwards of one hundred thousand dollars. But that seemed a trifling sacrifice to make for reform principles and for keeping the voice of the people the voice of God. He would have been elected if he had not spent a cent, for the Democratic machine, bent on reorganizing back to a sound basis with all real reformers or reformers tainted with ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... man of morbid tastes, and affects a particular kind of dainty favourite, he may go as far as a thousand. Curly-haired pages and amusing dwarfs are generally dear. It is the business of the house-steward to see that each slave receives his daily or monthly rations of corn, a trifling sum of money for other needs, and perhaps an allowance of thin wine. Many a slave also received a considerable number of "tips" from guests, as well as perquisites and presents from his master. With economy he ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... reading verses, neither she nor her son was able to produce any. Now hearing, from her friend the governess, that there was a poet in the house, she had taken the liberty to send for him, to do some trifling work. What she wanted was an address of filial love, as touching and affectionate as possible; this she would send to her son, and her dear son would return it to her, signed by his own name. She hoped it could be ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... heard her father moan; then she heard groans. At last, unable to endure his sufferings, he called out to his daughter. The marquise went to him. But now her face showed signs of the liveliest anxiety, and it was for M. d'Aubray to try to reassure her about himself! He thought it was only a trifling indisposition, and was not willing that a doctor should be disturbed. But then he was seized by a frightful vomiting, followed by such unendurable pain that he yielded to his daughter's entreaty that she should send for help. A doctor arrived at about eight o'clock in the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... of Spain would lend an ear to these grievances, and move in the matter of attempting to depose Alexander; but an event more important than any other in the whole history of Spain—or of Europe, for that matter—was at the moment claiming its full attention, and the trifling affairs of the King of Naples—trifling by comparison—went all unheeded. For this was the year in which the Genoese navigator, Cristofero Colombo, returned to tell of the new and marvellous world he had discovered beyond the seas, and Ferdinand and Isabella ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... "Blackwood's Magazine," Cooper was a vulgar man, who from having been bred to the sea had been enabled to give some striking descriptions of sea-affairs, and in consequence had unluckily imagined himself a universal genius. It went on to add, that on the strength of the trifling reputation he had acquired by stories descriptive of American life, he had come to Europe, and had since been partly traveling on the Continent to pick up materials for novels, and partly residing in England, actively employed in the effort to introduce himself into society. In ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... times when a sort of exaltation of sacrifice kept her head high, when the thing she was forced to give up seemed trifling compared with the men and boys who, some determinedly, some sheepishly, left the crowd around the borrowed car from which she spoke, and went into the recruiting station. There was sacrifice and sacrifice, and there was some comfort in the thought that both she and Clayton ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that she was "the redeeming genius of her family." Mr. Hawkins, however, was an antiquary of considerable learning, research, and industry; but his temper was sour and jealous, and, throughout his whole and long literary career, from 1782 to 1814, he appears to have been embroiled in trifling disputes and immaterial vindications of his ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... told, is an excellent man and a good tenant; the son had been a miserable scapegrace, and now for some crime—I forget what—had at last been brought to justice. The evidence against him was perfect and the offence was not trifling—there was not the most remote chance of a pardon, but it seemed the poor wretch had been building up his dependence upon that hope and was resting on it; and consequently was altogether indisposed and unfit to ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... him, their cheeks aglow and their eyes dancing. They appeared so full of life, so very gay, that he turned to glance back at them. He found the eyes of the prettier one upon him; she had turned to look at him. It was long since even so trifling an intrigue as this had ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... which under Alberoni had already gained a degree of military power astounding to those who had known her weakness during the last war. She was not yet ready to fight, for only half of the five years asked by the cardinal had passed; but still less was she ready to forego her ambitions. A trifling incident precipitated an outbreak. A high Spanish official, travelling from Rome to Spain by land, and so passing through the Italian States of the emperor, was arrested as a rebellious subject by order of the latter, who still ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... the shade of Miss Merton's dress as the coarser material could copy it; and with all the embarrassment of a novice in such matters, I signified my wish to take it, when the door swung open to admit Annie Bray herself, who had come to make some trifling purchase for her mother. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... she was received and listened to; and to mark the animation and delight with which she seemed to hear again the music in which she had formerly been a distinguished performer. The poor old woman had been in the habit of coming to me annually for a trifling present; and she told me on that occasion that nothing but the severest distress should have compelled her so to expose herself, which after all, did not answer to its end, as she was not paid according to her agreement. She died ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... such a thing," cried Alan, with a start. "There may be a trifling matter of an inch or two; I'm no saying I'm just exactly what ye would call a tall man, whatever; and I dare say," he added, his voice tailing off in a laughable manner, "now when I come to think of it, I dare say ye'll be just about right. Ay, it'll be a foot, or near hand; ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not speaking falsely?—you are not trifling with me? If you are, you can hardly know how cruelly you are adding ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... associated in my mind with my earliest religious impressions and experience, and I don't like to see you lift it out of its sacred associations, for such a trifling occasion." ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... Friend,—Herewith I forward, for thy acceptance, two small volumes, as a trifling testimony of the high estimation in which we have long held thy writings. So great was our desire to see thee when my wife and I were, a few springs ago, making a ramble on foot through some parts of your beautiful country, that nothing but the most ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... to glean some scanty memorial of his personal adventures. As often happens, the labors of the lesser author who pursues but a single object may encounter more success on that score than the writer whose view embraces a prodigious range; and many trifling details, too inconsiderable to find place in the pages of the annals of a state, reward the inquiry that confines itself to the elucidation of the conduct ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... victim of ecclesiastical tyranny and cruelty. He knew that the ascetic young monk had been no favourite with his brethren at Chadwater; and if they could bring against him some charge of heresy, however trifling, it was like enough that he might be silently done to death, as others of his calling had been for less fearful offences. Monastic buildings held their dark secrets, as the world was just beginning to know; and only a short while back he had heard a whisper that it was not wise for a monk to be ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... to-day; and I will then ask you, whether upon the testimony of such a man as this, you will convict one of the most suspicious characters that ever was produced in a court of justice; whether you would in any cause, of ever so trifling importance, give the least consideration to it. "I ask your lordship's pardon of my letter of yesterday, and which was written under the supposition of being treated with silent contempt;" so that this gentlemen put ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... her right mind would refuse their son. Roger was willing, Roger's parents were willing, Rita's parents were eager for the match; every person and everything needful were on his side, save one small girl. Roger thought that trifling obstacle would soon yield to the pressure of circumstances, the persuasion of conditions, and the charm of his own personality. He and the conditions had been warring upon the small obstacle for many months, and still it was as small as ever—but no smaller. The non-aggressive, feather-bed stubbornness ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... them to bury any one. Sir Moses asked them if persons of other religions were also charged for the privilege of burying their dead; they replied in the affirmative, but said the sum that others paid was very trifling as compared to the charges made ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... wretches, whom I'd scratched, no doubt, Professed to find—but that's a trifling matter. Now, when the flood of noble books was out I raised o'er all that land a joyous shout, Till I was thought as mad ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... with apparent earnestness the purveyors of popular fiction and biography, and even patronise poetry and genteel social philosophy. Amongst them are to be found those to whom the sterner actualities of life are unfamiliar and repugnant, for whom the practice of trifling with books is rather an ornament than an occupation, a mode of killing time rather than using it. They, too, read to be distracted, choosing an emasculate literature which panders to their ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... point. Now, I know there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed. By the way, since you are interested in these little problems, and since you are good enough to chronicle one or two of my trifling experiences, you may be interested in this." He threw over a sheet of thick pink-tinted note paper which had been lying open upon the table. "It came by the last post," said ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... writes Mrs. Piozzi (Synonomy, i. 2l7), 'much delighted in by the upper ranks of society, who upon a trifling embarrassment in his affairs hanged himself behind the stable door, to the astonishment of all who knew him as the liveliest companion and most agreeable converser breathing. "What upon earth," said ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... did not think that this small deliverance was all that Christ meant by these great words: 'Of them which Thou gavest Me have I lost none!' He saw that it was one case, a very trifling one, a merely transitory one, yet ruled by the same principles which are at work in the immensely higher region to which the words properly refer. Of course they have their proper fulfilment in the spiritual realm, and are not fulfilled, in the highest sense, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... the village, after my quiet meal at the Black Bull Inn, which poor Branwell Bronte had so often frequented, I stopped to make some trifling purchases at a stationery store, and casually asked the proprietor—a small, delicate-looking man, with a bright eye and a highly intellectual countenance—if he remembered the Bronte sisters. It was a fortunate question, for he knew them well, and was a personal friend of the authoress of ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... moment combined to sit heavily upon poor Schneidekoupon, and to remove his disturbing influence from the scene, at least until other men should get what they wanted. These were merely the trifling incidents that fell within Mrs. Lee's observation. She felt an atmosphere of bargain and intrigue, but she could only imagine how far it extended. Even Carrington, when she spoke to him about it, only laughed and ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... confined entirely to comparisons between different courses, different kinds of clubs and balls, and different scores. Belleair turns up its nose at Palm Beach. It considers the game of golf as played at Palm Beach a trifling game, and it feels that the winter population of Palm Beach wastes a lot of time talking about clothes and the stock market when it might be discussing cleeks, midirons, and mashies. The woman who thinks ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... work was not apparent, were apt to regard the jealous arrangement of his hours as the mere whim of a self-absorbed dilettante. But that troubled Hugh little, because he realised that his only hope of doing sound and worthy work lay in making a sacrifice of the ordinary and trifling occupations of life, of forming definite habits, for the want of which so many capable and ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Mr. Parsons' peculiar proceedings were beginning to arouse my suspicions. I could not fail to notice that he had twice told me to make trifling purchases, and that, although he had received some pennies in exchange for the first florin, he yet brought out a half-crown for the wax lights. My dawning suspicions grew stronger on the way home on a penny omnibus, when he offered ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... had passed over the figure, leaving it through all peacefully asleep. A daughter of a king, with the Douglas Heart to guard her, she would be too noble in her stony slumber to show that she minded losing her features and a few other trifling accessories which might spoil the looks of less ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... blank (I dare say) Italian simplicities. The charm was, as always in Italy, in the tone and the air and the happy hazard of things, which made any positive pretension or claimed importance a comparatively trifling question. We slid, in the steep little place, more or less down hill; we wished, stomachically, we had rather addressed ourselves to a tea-basket; we suffered importunity from unchidden infants who swarmed about ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... wouldn't see the difference in him. Now she carefully prepared Jimmy to face that difference, and gave him his cue for the part she wished him to play. Jimmy felt very important as he listened to her explanations, trifling seriously with his ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... generality. By the strength of her feelings, and the activity of her affections, time was made more comprehensive, and circumstance more weighty than to others. A day would produce changes in her which the impressions of a week would not effect in less passionate natures; and what were trifling incidents to the minds about her, were great ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... and therefore things to be forearmed against in some degree, were serious matters. Dr. Grimstone was a quick-tempered man, with a copious flow of words and a taste for indulging it. He was also strongly prejudiced against many breaches of discipline which others might have considered trifling, and whenever he had discovered any such breach he could not rest until by all the means in his power he had ascertained exactly how many were implicated in the ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... alone, to read a sermon into her happy hours of high summer sunshine. Beauty was his dream; he possessed natural taste, and had cultivated the same without judgment. His intricate disposition and extreme sensitiveness frightened him away from much effort at self-expression; yet not a few trifling scraps and shreds of lyric poetry had fallen from his pen in high moments. These, when the mood changed, he read again, and found dead, and usually destroyed. He was more easily discouraged than a child who sets out ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... feet. This was generally the occasion of much mirth. And this was in all probability a survival of an old Scandinavian custom under which the Norse bride was conducted by her maiden friends to undergo a bath, called the bride's bath, a sort of religious purification. On the marriage day, every trifling circumstance which would have passed without notice at other times was noted and scanned for omens of good or evil. If the morning was clear and shining, this betokened a happy cheerful life; if dull and raining, the contrary result might be anticipated. ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... rendered necessary; and yet, till I was without them, I was in no degree aware of the many pleasurable sensations derived from the little elegancies and refinements enjoyed by the middle classes in Europe. There were many circumstances, too trifling even for my gossiping pages, which pressed themselves daily and hourly upon us, and which forced us to remember painfully that we were not at home. It requires an abler pen than mine to trace the connection which I am persuaded exists between these deficiencies and ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... Marquesan poetry and music was being suffered to die out with a single dispirited generation. The full import is apparent only to one acquainted with other Polynesian races; who knows how the Samoan coins a fresh song for every trifling incident, or who has heard (on Penrhyn, for instance) a band of little stripling maids from eight to twelve keep up their minstrelsy for hours upon a stretch, one song following another without pause. ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... used to ground of all sorts, and was not to be stopped by such trifling impediments as rocks, bushes, ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... Trifling as it may seem, the first measure of the new government pertained to the etiquette to be observed at receptions, dinners, etc., in which there was more pomp and ceremony than at the present time. Washington himself ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... to feed a good pony than it does a bad one, so he now decides to dispose of his hack for a trifling sum, and in its stead to purchase a griffin, which may be a potential winner of the champions. He orders his mafoo to inspect the new season's griffins as they arrive, and arrange with the dealer to bring ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... convincing that differentiation which divides so sharply the sexual activity of the female from that of the male. The serious part in sex belongs to the one who gives life, while in comparison the activity of the male can almost be regarded as trifling. And I believe that this view will be found to be amply supported by facts if we turn now to consider the later and human relation of the sexes. In all cases it is the same, the serious business in sex belongs to the woman. As it was in the beginning, so, it seems to me, ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... Monroe, he appeared much affected, and spoke with some degree of asperity on the subject, which I endeavored to moderate," says Lear, "as I always did on such occasions. On his returning to bed, he appeared to be in perfect health, excepting the cold before mentioned, which he considered as trifling, and had been remarkably ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... The elder aunt, Mrs. Goldbrook, did not share her sister's character as a human rest-cure; most people found her rather disturbing, chiefly, perhaps, from her habit of asking unimportant questions with enormous solemnity. Her manner of enquiring after a trifling ailment gave one the impression that she was more concerned with the fortunes of the malady than with oneself, and when one got rid of a cold one felt that she almost expected to be given its postal address. Probably her manner was merely the defensive outwork ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... not even seasoned with the salt of the philosophers. Neglecting the rules of the Arts and throwing away the standard works of the Makers of the Arts, they catch in their sophisms, as in spiders' webs, the midges of their empty trifling phrases. Philosophy cries out that her garments are rent and torn asunder; she modestly covers her nakedness with certain carefully prepared remnants [but] she is neither consulted by the good man nor does she console the ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... be confessed that the business in hand was nearly always Miss Clegg's business, but since Mrs. Lathrop, in her position of experienced adviser, was deeply interested in Susan's exposition of her own affairs, that trifling circumstance ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... touch of her soft fingers. Then he turned his eyes upon me with a look that seemed an apology for dividing his allegiance, while Grace smiled under lowered lashes, as though she did not wish to meet my gaze. It was a trifling incident, but inwardly I thanked the good horse for it. Later, when we came up out of a roaring ford, through which I carefully led Caesar, with the stream boiling about my waist, into a dim avenue, she looked down ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... angry with me yet! You said you would forgive!" The gentle reproach minimized the crime, and enlarged the punishment. It was Kate's way. The pretty pout on the rosy lips was the same as it used to be when she chided him for some trifling forgetfulness of her wishes. ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... active engagements, like every other natural appetite, may be carried to excess; and men may debauch in amusements, as well as in the use of wine, or other intoxicating liquors. At first, a trifling stake, and the occupation of a moderate passion, may have served to amuse the gamester; but when the drug becomes familiar, it fails to produce its effect: The play is made deep, and the interest increased, to awaken his attention; he is carried on ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... fulfil precisely all the duties of his ministry, down to the humblest. What he would have liked, above all, was to pass his life in studying the Scriptures and meditating on the dogmas—not from a love of trifling with theories, but because he believed such knowledge necessary to whoever gave forth the Word of God. Most of the priests of that age arrived at the priesthood without any previous study. They had to improvise, as quick as they could, a ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... express, which Paul—unhurried yet singularly efficient—did not fail to secure. That done, Honor was confided to the care of an assiduous guard, and was supplied with fruit, chocolate, and more newspapers than she could possibly digest;—trifling services which the girl, in her great loneliness, rated ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... immediate influence on the man; the eventual effect on the race remains to be considered. Now, if the first result be anything, the second must in the end be everything. For however trifling it be in the individual instance, it goes on accumulating with each successive generation, like compound interest. The choosing of a wife by family suffrage is not simply an exponent of the impersonal state of things, it is a power toward bringing ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... her father, hoarsely, and he suddenly caught her to him and kissed her, and bade her run away to her Aunt Ruth with some trifling message or other. I could see her childish question tortured him, by the strained look of his face, as he approached the window. He had not known I was there, but when he saw me he said almost irritably, only it was the irritability of ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... our friend's Christian name very well, but he did not choose to have it appear that his august memory had been laden with a thing so trifling. ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... somewhat afraid," said the baroness, anxiously. "He was of late so nervous and irritable, you know, that the most trifling occurrence caused him to tremble and covered his brow with perspiration. I am afraid these stirring communications may make too powerful an ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... will write 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. If, however, the reader is distressed, because these illustrations ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... beaten by a trifling body of men, but fatigue and want of time prevent me from giving you any of the details, until I have the happiness of seeing you at Mount Vernon, which I now most earnestly wish for, since we are driven in thus far. A feeble state of health obliges me to halt ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... parish nurse, wearing for the first time her new uniform, followed in his wake. And still the treble shrieks continued—the terrible, childish shrieks. The women in the audience shivered and turned pale. Master Jack! And only a moment before he had been playing at sickness. It was ill-work trifling with serious things. The pretty lamb! What could ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... rightly to come foremost in the provident study of the facts that precede marriage—a subject which craven fear and ignorance combine to keep out of sight, yet which must now see the light of day. For the writer would be false to his task, and guilty of a mere amateur trifling with the subject, who should spend page after page in discussing the choice of marriage, the best age for marriage, and so forth, without declaring that as an absolutely essential preliminary it is necessary that the girl who mates shall at least, whatever else be or be not possible, ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... those who were perfect: but he would not. He determined to know nothing among them but Jesus Christ, and him crucified; and he told them, You disputers of this world, while you are deceiving simple souls with enticing words of man's wisdom and philosophy, falsely so called, you are trifling away your own souls and your hearers' into hell. What you need, and what they need, is not philosophy, but a new heart and a right spirit. Sin is your disease; and you know that it is so, in the depth of your hearts. Then ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... rectory parlour, a few minutes later, Uniacke and Sir Graham discussed this apparently trifling incident. A feeling of unreasonable alarm besieged Uniacke's soul, but he strove to fight ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... of bread and butter, what am I to do? (I was obliged this morning to borrow fifty dollars from Theodore, who remembered gleefully that he has been owing me a trifling sum for the past four years, and in fact has preserved a note to this effect.) Within the last week I have hatched a desperate plan: I have made up my mind to take a wife—a rich one, bien entendu. Why not accept the goods of the gods? It is not ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... into particulars, so that you may comprehend it; and, at the same time, in this trifling digression from the thread of my narrative, I hope, young friends, to teach you a lesson of political wisdom that may benefit both you and your country when you are old enough ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... this duty, and one by one the men were told off into the other boats. They then examined everything that was in the boats; a few trifling articles were suggested as likely to prove useful; we searched for them, and then took our places in the skiff. As we pulled round under the bows, we could see, through the clear water, the immense hole which ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... is strong. I have well thought of that. It drops as fiercely down on us as if We were to be its prey. I've seen a gull That hovered with beak pointing and eyes fixt Where, underneath its swaying flight, some fish Was trifling, fooling in the waves: then, souse! And the gull has fed. And love on us ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... up our slightest human affairs with an exactitude which at the least is amazing. Twenty-five years ago I did a great wrong to a human creature who was innocent, and who absolutely trusted me. There is no crime worse than this, yet it seemed to me quite a trifling affair,—an amusement—a nothing! I was perfectly aware that by some excessively straightlaced people it might be termed a sin; but my ideas of sin were as easy and condoning as yours are. I never repented ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... She required a regular amount of time given to music study each day. I am so grateful that she was strict with me, for my knowledge of piano and its literature is the greatest joy to me now. To my thinking all children should have piano lessons; the cost is trifling compared to the benefits they receive. They should be made to study, whether they wish to or not. They are not prepared to judge what is good for them, and if they are given this advantage they will be glad ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... and coal that followed it, the car had so protected him that he was not seriously hurt. Had his mule started forward the heavily loaded car must have run over and killed him. Fortunately Harry was too experienced a miner to allow such a trifling thing as a blast to disturb his equanimity, especially as the two false starts already made had placed him at some little distance from it. To be sure, he had shaken his head at the flying bits of coal, and had even kicked out viciously at one large piece that fell ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... intended for transport service ought, as their first duty, to be summoned to attend such a course. If these educational courses were held in the autumn in the training camps of the troops, they would entail little extra cost, and an inestimable advantage would be gained with a very trifling outlay. ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... dread of Napoleon's re-appearance at the head of a fresh one, but also by his plighted faith; for every thing is of a mixed character in the moral as well as the physical world, and even in the most trifling of our actions there is a variety of different motives. But, finally, his good faith yielded to necessity, and his dread to a greater dread. He saw himself, it was said, threatened with a species of forfeiture by his people and ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... her fever and misery. A chilling consolation fell from them upon her, like a cold dew. She felt herself shrink to imperceptible proportions. What did they matter, the struggles of the maggots who crawled about the folds of the globe, itself the most trifling and insignificant of all the countless worlds which people the aimless disorder of the universe? What difference did it make? Anything they did was so soon indistinguishable from anything else. The easiest way . . . to yield to whatever had the strongest present force . . . that was as ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... to one, and attempt to get ahead in this way, taking turns; but at the close of a day of hard toil for themselves and their cattle, they would find themselves a quarter or a half a mile from the place they left in the morning. The heavy rains raised all the watercourses; the most trifling streams were impassable. Wood, fit for bridging, was often not to be had, and in such cases the only resource was to halt for the freshets to subside—a matter in the case of the headwaters of the Chariton, for instance, of over three ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... sufficient in this case, to be learned, since he who would have a collection worthy of the name of a library must of all things have a thorough knowledge of books, that he may distinguish such as are valuable from the trifling. He must likewise understand the price of Books, otherwise he may purchase some at too high a rate, and undervalue others: all which requires no small ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... in this regard. Details seemingly of trifling moment but which may prove important are likely to escape one's memory. Her habit was to note every point of progress in a case and often review every point from the beginning, fitting them into their proper places and giving each its due importance. A digest of such ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... do not recognise your love, or that your love is but a trifling consideration with me, you will not believe. What else should impel me to die if not my devotion to you and to Germany, and the need of proving this devotion to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is apt to want the skirt a little wider and the hem a half-inch deeper than the regular uniform. And she asks to have more buttonholes, which means more buttons, and an extra ruffle on the waist. But she begs me so politely and appears so thankful, if I grant these trifling favors, that I find myself indulging her too frequently. She does the extra work herself, cheerfully and neatly, if not speedily, but closely watched by others. She has learned as if by intuition that variety is the spice of life, but she seems unconscious of ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... Akakievitch. They decided to make a collection for him on the spot, but the officials had already spent a great deal in subscribing for the director's portrait, and for some book, at the suggestion of the head of that division, who was a friend of the author; and so the sum was trifling. ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... circumstances gave him consequence, drew on him general ridicule. Yet against so poor an orator, all the eloquence of the philosophical Girondists, all the terrible powers of his associate Danton, employed in a popular assembly, could not enable them to make an effectual resistance. It may seem trifling to mention, that in a nation where a good deal of prepossession is excited by amiable manners and beauty of external appearance, the person who ascended to the highest power was not only ill-looking, but singularly mean in person, awkward and constrained in his address, ignorant ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... flagging purpose is in want of a stimulant, the most trifling change in the circumstances of the moment often applies the animating influence. Even such a small interruption as the appearance of his cat rendered this service to Ovid. To use the common and expressive phrase, it had ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... strain, weakened, attenuated, diluted as it were in a bucket of water—and I refrained from finishing my speech. I had intended to say: "Crack this brute's head for him." I still felt the conclusion to be sound. But it is no trifling responsibility to counsel parricide to any ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... pick some flaws—very well—but I do it unwillingly. I notice one thing—which one may notice also in my books, and in all books whether written by man or God: trifling carelessness of statement or Expression. If I think that you meant that she took the lizard from the water which she had drawn from the well, it is evidence—it is almost proof—that your words were not as clear as they should have been. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... went to an Island to catch fish, and a disagreement taking place between two of the natives, about some trifling affair, the particulars of which I did not learn, one of them took a spear belonging to the other, and after breaking it across his knee, with one half of it killed his antagonist, and left him. The parents of the man killed, being present, laid him out on some ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... would be comparatively powerless to preserve the streams of justice from pollution. The fee-system poisoned the morality of the law-courts. From the highest judge to the lowest usher, every person connected with a court of justice was educated to receive small sums of money for trifling services, to be always looking out for paltry dues or gratuities, to multiply occasions for demanding, and reasons for pocketing petty coins, to invent devices for legitimate peculation. In time the system produced such complications of custom, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... "this child is a beginner. Is it right for us to refuse so trifling an encouragement? Who knows to what useful ends it may lead? You remember how difficult it was for me to procure the plants, and how keenly you felt my trouble. Will you inflict a keener one on this child, whose heart seems bent on doing something for herself, and on whom disappointment ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... announces that not less than one thousand five hundred yards of the aeroplane linen which is being disposed of to the public will be sold to one purchaser. In the event of the purchaser deciding to use it as a pocket-handkerchief he can have it hemstitched for a trifling sum. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... his daughter answered him. "A trifling affair 'twixt M. la Boulaye and me, with which I ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... gone, than away went her Highness to Madame de Moeurs, "a marvellous wise and well-spoken gentlewoman and a grave," and informed her and the Count, with some trifling exaggeration, that the vile Englishman, secretary to the odious Leicester, had just been there, abusing and calumniating the Countess in most lewd and abominable fashion. He had also, she protested, used "very evil speeches of all the ladies in the country." For her ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... acted two or three parts, Mortimer, Shylock, and some of those little, trifling characters [laughter], with comparative success. But shortly after, and wisely, I went into the ranks to study my profession—not to commence at the top and go to the bottom [laughter]—but to begin at the bottom and go to the top, if possible. As a young man, I sought for pastures ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... young company till midnight; and the thickets of the garden seem to be contrived to all advantages of gallantry; after they have been refreshed with the collation, which is here seldom omitted, at a certain cabaret, in the middle of this paradise, where the forbidden fruits are certain trifling tarts, neats' tongues, salacious meats, and bad Rhenish; for which the gallants pay sauce, as indeed they do at all ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... these matters when the door opened and a handsome young gentleman, arrayed in the height of the fashion, entered the room. I rose to my feet and began to apologize for my intrusion and to explain that I had been brought there by a beggar to whom I had rendered some trifling service in the street. The young gentleman listened, with a smiling face, and then, extending ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... almost certainly be spoilt for them. He realised, with an odd mixture of pleasure and annoyance, that, for the first time in his life, he was so dependent upon another person that his happiness was in her keeping. The days were completely wasted upon trifling, immaterial things, for after three weeks of such intimacy and intensity all the usual occupations were unbearably flat and beside the point. The least intolerable occupation was to talk to St. John about ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... for the dogs, Henri?" asked Jean. "It's only a trifling sprain of the wrist, which Iowaka can cure with ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... of correspondence was a rich store-house for historical as for all other research, and the most faithful mirror of an epoch in which so much of the worth of past times and so much spirit, cleverness, and talent were evaporated and dissipated in trifling. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... It was with no trifling sense of relief that I found the place really picturesque, when we arrived. We had, it is true, to put up with a comfortless drive of three or four miles in a primitive, jolting, yellow omnibus, which crawled at stated hours of the ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... delivered at a certain place and time, against a certain force, will crush it; but does it not require infinite skill and power to select the place and time with certainty? A broken bridge, swollen stream, or even the most trifling incident, which no man can foresee or overrule, may disarrange and render futile the best-laid plans, and lead to defeat and disaster. After a battle we can easily look back and see where mistakes have been made; but it is more difficult, if not impossible, to look ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... bubbles, by the town drawn in, Suffered at first some trifling stakes to win: But what unequal hazards do they run! Each time they write they venture all they've won: The Squire that's buttered still, is sure to be undone. This author, heretofore, has found your favour, But pleads ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... an hour later as he went downstairs to meet her. He had finished his line of figures sedately when the man looked in to say that she was below; and had sat yet a moment longer, trying to remember mechanically what it was he had determined to tell her. Bah! it was trifling and unimportant; words did not affect the question; all the wrecked convents in the world could not touch the one fact that lay in fire at his heart. He would say ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... men and women to have for each other—mysterious, inexplicable, yet real as Nature. It was as it should be. These thoughts passed through Disston's mind swiftly. Up there on top of the world, in the moonlight, any consideration which interfered seemed trifling and indefensible. ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... physical enfeeblement, but that it also impairs the usual activity and energy of the brain. In other words, a high temperature is invariably accompanied by a certain loss of mental power. In most persons this loss is comparatively trifling, and has hardly any perceptible effect on their mode of life and conduct; in others, it assumes more serious proportions. In some who are susceptible to cosmical influences, and for one reason or another are already on the borderland of crime, the decrease ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... I have been inconsiderate in urging you so vigorously," continued her grandmother. "I thought I had observed a tendency to fritter. I wished you to stop trifling with Grant Arkwright—or, rather, to stop his trifling with you. Come, now, my dear, let me put an end to this engagement. And you will marry Grant, and your future ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... people generally, in that region, who did not come under the direct influence of the Johnsons. The inhabitants deposed Alexander White, the Sheriff of Tryon county, who had, from the first, made himself obnoxious. The first shot, in the war west of the Hudson, was fired by Alexander White. On some trifling pretext he arrested a patriot by the name of John Fonda, and committed him to prison. His friends, to the number of fifty, went to the jail and released him; and from the prison they proceeded to the sheriff's lodgings ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... Sarah Fosdick. The rest, with the exception of Jay Fosdick and Wm. H. Eddy, were young, unmarried men, as, for instance, Stanton, Smith, Spitzer, Elliott, Antoine, John Baptiste, and the two Indians. It was comparatively a trifling effort, but it seemed to have the effect of utterly depressing the hopes of several of these men. With no one in the camps dependent upon them, without any ties of relationship, or bonds of affection, ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... curious class of miners known as 'gambusinos' rove through the valleys of the Sierra Madre armed with pick and pan, passing their lives in hunting mines, as pigs hunt truffles. If they come upon a mine, they never try to work it, but sell the secret for a trifling sum, and, drinking out the money, start on again to find the mines worked by the Aztecs, till an Apache bullet or arrow stops them, their El Dorado still ahead, or they are found beside their pick and ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... witches become exposed to contempt. Bunyan never believed that the great and unchangeable principles which the Creator has ordained to govern nature could be disturbed by the freaks of poor old crazy women, for purposes trifling and insignificant. No, such a man could never have circulated a report that a woman was turned into a bay mare, and her chemise into a horse-cloth and saddle! Unbridled sectarian feeling perverted some ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... whose encumbrances were so trifling, sacrifice prospects that were so glorious? Could he not part with a portion of the estate,—with the reversion of half of it, so that the house of Newton, Newton Priory, with its grouse and paddocks and adjacent farms, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... bespeak the existence of a climate at times much more severe than a latitude of 16 degrees 6 minutes south, would lead one to anticipate. The remains of small fires, a well greased bark pillow, a head ornament of seabird's feathers, together with several other trifling articles, strewn upon the floors of these wigwams, proved that they had ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... Catfish of our rivers has been described as a new species not less than twenty-five times, on account of differences real or imaginary, but comparatively trifling in value."[21] ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... of the dread hour—reaches a point beyond which human nature has no power to endure. If he could share his burden with his friend Horatio,—but Marcellus thrusts himself forward, and he checks the half-uttered confidence, and struggles to put aside their curiosity with trifling words. Anything, to be alone and free to think on what he has heard and what he has to do. And then,—as he is swearing them to secrecy before escaping from them,—there, from under their feet and out of the solid earth, comes the voice whose adieu is yet ringing in his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... of this trifling blemish, the writer cannot say that after five hours of such solid music, a Parisian prefers a bit of ribbon to a musical masterpiece. You heard how the work was applauded; it will go through five hundred performances! If the ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... left Port Jackson on the 22nd of December, with a fresh northerly breeze, which continued until the evening of the 24th, when we were abreast of Cape Howe. After this a heavy gale of wind from South-West obliged us to run into Twofold Bay for shelter, and to repair some trifling damage which we had ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... his compassion. He wrote a speech for that unhappy man, when called up to receive judgment of death; besides two petitions, one to the king, and another to the queen; and a sermon to be preached by Dodd to the convicts in Newgate. It may appear trifling to add, that, about the same time, he wrote a prologue to the comedy of a Word to the Wise, written by Hugh Kelly. The play, some years before, had been damned by a party on the first night. It was revived ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... in the tents appeared rather shy, but after accepting of some trifling presents, they became quite communicative, and gave us some of their toys in exchange; then walking round us, surveyed us narrowly, as if we were a new species of animals. Most of them had never before seen an European. Uttakiyok's ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch
... a stone-mason of a humble kind in Alfredston, and as soon as he had found a substitute for himself in his aunt's little business, he offered his services to this man for a trifling wage. Here Jude had the opportunity of learning at least the rudiments of freestone-working. Some time later he went to a church-builder in the same place, and under the architect's direction became handy at restoring the dilapidated masonries of ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... his heart Bunting looked back to this last night with a feeling of shame and self-rebuke. Whatever had made such horrible thoughts and suspicions as had possessed him suddenly come into his head? And just because of a trifling thing like that blood. No doubt Mr. Sleuth's nose had bled—that was what had happened; though, come to think of it, he had mentioned brushing ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... at the head of which stood Frederick IV. of the Palatinate, while a little later a large number of the Catholic princes bound themselves together in the /League/ and accepted Maximilian of Bavaria as their leader (1609). Thus Germany was divided once again into two hostile camps, and only a very trifling incident was required to plunge the country into another civil war. For a time it seemed as if the succession to the Duchy of Cleves was to be the issue that would lead to the catastrophe. Duke John William of Cleves had died without any direct heir, and as the religious issue was still undecided ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... looked about her. With the trifling exception that there was no roof, it was whole. And the roof was not necessary, for the floors of the upper story served instead. There was a narrow passage with a room on either side, and ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to do a trifling service, hung eight pictures of the proper size in the same frames, taking them from among the less valuable pictures ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... do not know why my thoughts should grow more gloomy by reason of the difficulties of mastication. I once read the story of an Englishman who hanged himself because they had brought him his tea without sugar. There are hours in life when the most trifling cross takes the form of a calamity. Our tempers are like an opera-glass, which makes the object small or great according to the end ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... 53: The wolf swims.—Ver. 304. One commentator remarks here, that there was nothing very wonderful in a dead wolf swimming among the sheep without devouring them. Seneca is, however, too severe upon our author in saying that he is trifling here, in troubling himself on so serious an occasion with what sheep and wolves are doing: for he gravely means to say, that the beasts of prey are terrified to that degree that they forget ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... my friend Heraclitus, who had a trifling suit about a petty farm at Rhodes, first showed the judges that his cause was just, and then at the finish cried, "I will not entreat you: nor do I care what sentence you pass. It is you who are on your trial, not I!"—And so he ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus |
