"Trifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they found a huge egg, almost as big as a little house. So they began to knock it about with large stones, but, after all, they couldn't crack the shell. Then the lad came up with his sword to see what all the noise was about, and when he saw the egg, he thought it a trifle to crack it; so he gave it one blow and the egg split, and out came a chicken as big as ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... wish to see the prize?" he said, in hopes of a trifle for himself; "make way there for ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... welcome was cordial enough, though a trifle flustered. Whatever thrifty, hard-working farmer folk might think of gay, Bohemian Blair Stanley in his absence, in his presence even they liked him, by the grace of some winsome, lovable quality in the soul ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... possible that its philosophy concerning the inhalation of gold, at the same time both enigmatical and lucid, might not have been to the taste of the sheriffs, the provost-marshals, and other big-wigs of the law. English legislation did not trifle in those days. It did not take much to make a man a felon. The magistrates were ferocious by tradition, and cruelty was a matter of routine. The judges of assize increased and multiplied. Jeffreys had ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... his head. "I'm just a trifle that er-way, and it bothers me quite a bit sometimes, 'specially in ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... Stroke he quickened to thirty-four (In the first half-minute struck seventeen) Some clocks returned it a trifle more, Which wasn't so good as it might ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... Ashby, coming in just as the merriment over the Minstrel's little joke had died away. Ashby's voice—quick, sharp and decisive was that of a man accustomed to ordering men, but his manner was suave, if a trifle gruff. Moreover, he was a man of whom it could be said, paradoxical as it may seem, that he was never known to be drunk nor ever known to be sober. It was plain from his appearance that he had been ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... assembled, they should set an example, which would do them infinite honour, and probably be followed throughout the kingdom, of making a little collection among themselves to buy a piece of plate, or a gold snuff-box, or some other trifle, to be presented in their name. He added, "that though he could ill-spare the money (having just laid out six guineas upon a new pair of buckles), he would contribute a guinea to so excellent a purpose, and that Masters Mash and ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... remarked:—"The bill under consideration included a confiscation of the property, and a disfranchisement of the members of the East India Company; all the several articles of whose effects were transferred by violence to strangers. Imagination was at a loss to guess at the most insignificant trifle that had escaped the harpy jaws of a ravenous coalition. The power was pretended, indeed, to be given in trust for the benefit of the proprietors; but, in case of the grossest abuses of trust, to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... morocco case, where these happy jewels lived when they were at home, Van Twiller thoughtfully placed his card, on the back of which he had written a line begging Mademoiselle Olympe Zabriski to accept the accompanying trifle from one who had witnessed her graceful performances with interest and pleasure. This was not done inconsiderately. "Of course, I must inclose my card, as I would to any lady," Van Twiller had said ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... glad I thought of that!" she ejaculated, seating herself in the train as the noon whistles shrilled all over the city. A moment later she was a trifle disconcerted to find the orphanage ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... you to make reflections on gentlemen. We've put up with your ugly mug altogether too long, and I for one ain't going to do it no longer. What do you say, gentlemen?" he continued, turning to his companions, "shall we trifle with our luck, and lower our self-respect any longer by tolerating the company of that there disreputable, low-down, miserable coyote? I go for boycotting him. Let him work his own claim and sleep in his own cabin if he wants to, but don't let him intrude himself into ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... trouble, but for prayers he had never been asked before, and, was entirely destitute of them. He felt relieved when one of his customers—a leaden-visaged man, with bulbous nose and a bad temper—advanced toward the wounded man, raised one hand, threw his head back a trifle, and exclaimed: ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... already served as a seal,—for the wax is cooling and no time must be lost,—grasps the first that comes to hand, too absorbed in the main issue to give a thought to what would pass as an insignificant subsidiary trifle. No rascal is sharp enough to guard every point,—a general fact that illustrates over and over again, in the experience of man, the seminal truth that in a mercenary and physical as well as in ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... reputation as a cook by making a much appreciated Bengal curry, and an English "roly-poly" pudding, and when I offered my services, Mrs. S. kindly accepted them, and she and I, with the Chinese cook and a Chinese prisoner to assist us, have been cooking for a day and a half. I wanted to make a gigantic trifle, a dish not known here, and we hunted every store, hoping to find almonds and raspberry jam among the "assorted notions," but in vain; however, grated cocoa-nut supplied the place of the first, and a kind friend sent a pot of the last. The Chinamen were very diverting. The cook looked on, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... knuckled they were, according to ancient experience. Head-knuckling is no trifle; "Molly" Fairburn of the old days could ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... passionate mother, who played the piano and the mandolin so wonderfully, and to whom everything was quite immaterial, married anew after the lapse of a year, this time a musician, a virtuoso with an Italian name whom she followed to far-away lands. Tonio Kroeger found this a trifle unprincipled; but was he called upon to prevent her? He who wrote verses and could not even answer the question what in all the world he intended ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... Instead of plumply answering that he was not going at all, and had not even had the intention, poor Tartarin, on the first of them mentioning the journey to him, observed with a neat little evasive air, "Aha! maybe I shall—but I do not say as much." The second time; a trifle more familiarised with the idea, he replied, "Very likely;" and the ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... Pat. Thankee," said the ex-washerwoman. "What a nice little boy your friend is, Bob Lumpy! I'm so glad you thought of bringin' him. He quite puts me in mind of what my boy Fred was at his age—on'y a trifle broader, an' ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... care to him; he altered much. McLean surmised that she didn't like to see him, while she was in this state; for, though he used to surround her with every luxury, and was always hunting out new appliances, and raising the heavens for a trifle, he kept himself carefully out of her sight during the greater part of the winter. I don't know whether she became insufferably lonely, or whether the melancholy wore off, or she conquered it, and decided that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... go this time," she laughed a trifle awkwardly. "And as for not drinking anything. . . . Look out or you'll spill what Papa ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... capital-lettered building with a contemptuous flick of his whip as we passed. "Ef you're kalkilatin' we'll get our partin' drink there you're mistaken. That's wot they call a TEMPERANCE HOUSE—wot means a place where the licker ye get underhand is only a trifle worse than the hash ye get above-board. I suppose it's part o' one o' the mysteries o' Providence that wharever you find a dusty hole like this—that's naturally THIRSTY—ye run agin a 'temperance' house. But never YOU mind! I shouldn't ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... noise for nothing!' I cried, though rather uneasy myself. 'What a trifle scares you! It's surely no great cause of alarm that Heathcliff should take a moonlight saunter on the moors, or even lie too sulky to speak to us in the hay-loft. I'll engage he's lurking there. See if I ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... Human nature is, we admit, so capricious that there may be a single, sensitive point, in a conscience which everywhere else is callous. A man without truth or humanity may have some strange scruples about a trifle. There was one devout warrior in the royal camp whose piety bore a great resemblance to that which is ascribed to the King. We mean Colonel Turner. That gallant Cavalier was hanged, after the Restoration, for a flagitious burglary. At the gallows he told the crowd that his ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... face clouded a trifle, and he hesitated before he said, "I am not questioning your judgment, Captain, but you and I have camped out enough to know that a good camp-mate is about the scarcest article to be found. If we take in a stranger ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... sell thy precious soul for short continuance in thy sins and pleasures. If that man drives but an ill trade, who, to gain the world, should lose his soul (Matt 16:26), then, certainly, thou art far worse that sells thy soul for a very trifle. O it is pity that so precious a thing should be parted withal, to be made a prey for the devouring lion, for that which is worse than nothing! If they were branded for desperate wretches that caused their children to pass through the fire to Moloch, surely thou much more that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... containing a moth-eaten bonnet from my mother's happier days! And I laugh not only from amusement but also from lightness of heart. For I have succeeded in reducing our catastrophe to its simplest terms, and I find that it is only a trifle, and no matter of ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... would ever have a rising in his favour in Norway. Now when the messenger saw that Bjorn's inclinations were turned towards the money, he threw down two thick gold rings, and said, "Take the money at once, Bjorn, and swear the oaths to King Canute; for I can promise thee that this money is but a trifle, compared to what thou wilt receive if ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... was turning over some sleeve-links, Chris was examining a case of silver and gold cigarette-cases and the like. She picked up a cigar-case at length and asked the price. At the mention of fifty guineas she dropped the trifle with a ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... good young lady! God will reward you!" exclaimed the mother Lemballeuse, as she turned over the shoes and found they were not only excellent and strong, but almost new. "I will cut them a trifle on the top, to make them a little larger—Tiennette, why do you ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... Parry, sir I said Miss Palliser, sir. Wanted to know 'ow you was; I said you was a trifle better, sir." ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... trifle of rain this morning, let me tell you, Mary. You'll get drenched to the skin. Now ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... with horror. Miss Leroy told a male person once, and told him to his face, that if she loved him and he loved her, and they agreed to sign one another's foreheads with a cross as a ceremony, it would be as good to her as marriage. This may seem a trifle, but nobody now can imagine what was thought of it at the time it was spoken. My mother repeated it every now and then for fifty years. It may be conjectured how easily any other girls of our acquaintance would have been classified, and justly ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... keenly under the street lamp of the next crossing, and saw that his face was a trifle grim and that he ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... entered on the journals of the House.[413] The subject was then dropped until the 8th of June, when Madison, who had been elected to Congress in spite of Patrick Henry, and who had good reason to know how dangerous it would be for Congress to trifle with the popular demand for amendments, succeeded, against much opposition, in getting the House to devote that day to a preliminary discussion of the business. It was again laid aside for nearly six weeks, and again got a slight hearing on the 21st ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... right before the world. It would be known to all men—to all clergymen in the diocese, that the sheriff's officers had been in charge of Framley parsonage, and he could never again hold up his head in the close of Barchester. "My dear fellow, if we were all to make ourselves miserable for such a trifle as this,—" said Lord Lufton, putting his arm affectionately on ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... expressed as "want of confidence" in the chief of the Ordnance Department of the army on the part of committees of Congress. From this it resulted that no appropriations were made for several years for any new armament, and hence none for fortifications. Thus by a trifle were the wheels of a great government blocked for a long time! Yet that government still survives! Finally, in the year 1888 an act was passed creating a Board of Ordnance and Fortifications, of which the commanding general ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... was like crystal, and with the sun hot, but not to discomfort, and a soft breeze blowing, the great vessel glided gently eastward. It was a trifle monotonous, but this troubled Mark in only small degree, for there was always something fresh to take his attention. Sea-birds were seen; then some fish or another reared itself out of the limpid sea, and fell back with a splash. Then a shoal of some smaller kind ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... Guise was in a hurry, and, "Be kind enough," he said to M. de Morfontaines, "to send word to M. de Saint-Prix [first groom of the chamber to Henry III.], that I beg him to let me have a few damsons or a little preserve of roses, or some trifle of the king's." Four Brignolles plums were brought him; and he ate one. His uneasiness continued; the eye close to his scar became moist; according to M. de Thou, he bled at the nose. He felt in his pocket for a handkerchief to use, but could not find one. "My people," said ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... at her, then, rising, staggered off with a ruffled and uppish air, due partly to their indignation and partly to the fact that the wind blew their feathers straight up, and a trifle forward ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... and seemed possessed with what might be almost termed a nervous activity. She had been the most indefatigable climber of the party, and on their return had often diverged from the path to gather a fern or some other sylvan trifle. At one point the ascending path formed an angle with a ledge of rock that made a little platform. At the further end of this she saw a flower, and she went to get it. A moment or two later Burt and Amy heard her scream, and the sound ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... thou subjectest to their husbands in chaste and faithful obedience, not for the satisfaction of lust, but for the propagation of offspring, and participation in the affairs of the family. Thou settest husbands over their spouses, not that they may trifle with the weaker sex, but in accordance with the laws of true affection. Thou subjectest sons to their parents in a kind of free servitude, and settest parents over their sons in a benignant rule.... Thou joinest together, not merely in society, but in a kind of fraternity, citizens with citizens, ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... his Body, and pulling some little Bones out of his Mouth, acquaints the Patient, That these very Bones came out of his Body; that he ought to pluck up a good heart, in regard that his Distemper is but a Trifle; and in fine, that in order to accelerate the Cure, 't will be convenient to send his own and his Relations Slaves to shoot Elks, Deer, &c., to the end they may all eat of that sort of Meat, upon which his ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... Pudding Fruit Pies Oyster Pie Beef Steak Pie Indian Pudding Batter Pudding Bread Pudding Rice Pudding Boston Pudding Fritters Fine Custards Plain Custards Rice Custard Cold Custards Curds and Whey A Trifle Whipt Cream Floating Island Ice Cream Calf's Feet ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... said the professor, a trifle sharply. 'You don't suppose I am afraid of anyone coming to steal my ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... nothing on him but a footman's tooth, which I observed him to examine with great curiosity, and found he had a fancy for it. He received it with abundance of thanks, more than such a trifle could deserve. It was drawn by an unskillful surgeon in a mistake, from one of Glumdalclitch's men, who was afflicted with the toothache, but it was as sound as any in his head. I got it cleaned, and put it in my cabinet. It was about ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... think I hear you say—Very easy, certainly! But, perhaps, you will be kind enough to give us a trifle more grounds for admitting your hypothesis than you have yet vouchsafed. Likewise a little explanation of what you exactly mean might be of use, if you seriously hope to reconcile us to this most ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... propitiate the foe thus, Robinson lost no more time, but went upstairs and asked Mr. Miles for the trifle due to him as wages. Mr. Miles was very sorry, but he had been cleaned out at his friend Yates's—had not a shilling left and no hopes of any for a ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... thing for Peter to do, and an act that any gentleman might be proud of, but he was amazed at her when she told him to mind his own business, and she would attend to her own petticoat, and she marched off just a trifle mad. ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... Elizabeth, a trifle wistfully, perhaps, as she thought of that dear dream of her girlhood days. "I soon came to the conclusion that poets are born and not made. But Esther has been quite successful in writing short stories for magazines, and she lays it all to the summer we spent with Aunt Nancy ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... what happened at all. Instead, she just went limp in his arms, and the sobs that shook her seemed to be meeting no resistance whatever. It wasn't like her to work herself up in that way over trifles, either; yet, surely a trifle was all this could be called—a laughable mistake he couldn't help loving her for, or a touching demonstration of affection that he couldn't help smiling at. Either way you took it, it was nothing to make ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Osborne, at all events, if he has not practised upon her affections," said William; "that is, granting that the suspicion, be just. But the truth is, I don't think Osborne has any thing to do with her feelings. It is merely some imaginary trifle that she has got into her foolish little head, poor girl. Don't distress yourself, father—you know she was always over-scrupulous. Even the most harmless fib that ever was told, is a crime in her eyes. I wish, for my part, she had a little wholesome wickedness about—I don't mean that ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... point in this trifling episode, though it may appear a trifle obscure at first. There is, to be sure, nothing especially interesting or edifying in the fact of a young man's drinking himself into insensibility to dull a faceache; the thing has been known before. Neither ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... at first glance they all looked alike, and as they all said, "Oh, ISN'T this nice!" in the same tone of determined liveliness. To the eye, the men were less similar: Littlefield, a hedge-scholar, tall and horse-faced; Chum Frink, a trifle of a man with soft and mouse-like hair, advertising his profession as poet by a silk cord on his eye-glasses; Vergil Gunch, broad, with coarse black hair en brosse; Eddie Swanson, a bald and bouncing young man who showed his taste for elegance by an evening waistcoat of figured black silk ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... He had approached a trifle too near, when all at once the bear whipped an arm about him, took him to his embrace, and "went through" his pockets in a hurry. The terrified face of the struggling and screaming fop, and the good-natured, businesslike expression ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... at Putnam Hall Military Academy was at an end, and the school days of the three Rover boys at that institution were now a thing of the past. Each had graduated with honors, yet all were a trifle sad to think that there would be no going back to a place where they had made ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... 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 mater. He had not been at home since he entered ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... felt a trifle uneasy in the sudden constraint, "I hae little skill in the ordering o' girl bairns. The Almighty thought them beyond my guiding, and I must say they are a great charge, a great charge; and, wi' all my infirmities and simplicity,—anent women,—one ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... happy, except when her mother, a severe Pomona, with enormous earrings and splendid fazzoletto of crimson and orange dyes, pounced down upon her for some supposed infraction of good manners—creanza, as they vividly express it here. Only Luigi looked a trifle bored. But Luigi has been a soldier, and has now attained the supercilious superiority of young-manhood, which smokes its cigar of an evening in the piazza and knows the merits of the different cafes. The great business of the evening ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... not the slightest idea what Quade might be about; the one thought that broke through his fear and anger was that the man was mad, and had better be humored. He trembled, and a tight sensation came to his throat at sight of the steady gun trained on his daughter. He dared not trifle. ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... like a child, but, broken arm and all, he turned out the least craven of the lot as it seems, and, actually, mustered enough pluck to run an errand to the engine-room. No trifle, it must be owned in fairness to him. Jim told me he darted desperate looks like a cornered man, gave one low wail, and dashed off. He was back instantly clambering, hammer in hand, and without a pause flung himself at the bolt. The others gave up Jim at once and ran off to assist. He heard ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... death; my servants let us come without springs to the chaise, and we are wore threadbare: to add to our disasters, I have sprained my ancle, and have brought it along, laid upon a little box of baubles that I have bought for presents in England. Perhaps I may pick you out some little trifle there, but don't depend upon it; you are a disagreeable creature, and may be I shall not care for you. Though I am so tired in this devil of a place, yet I have taken it into my head, that it is like ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... Strachan indignantly, "before I tendered my assistance to a forlorn angel in distress, even though she possessed no deeper claims on my sympathy? I thought, Frederick, you had more chivalry in your nature. You need not be uneasy about that trifle;—I shall be in funds some time ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... her a fan. And as you're doubtful about the likeness, let it be done so as to cover her face—at least the lower half of it; that will be just as they carry it. You can hide that nose, which is a trifle too snub for your fiancee. ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... guests were leaving. He heard Dona Anna's arch accents—arch even to Colonel Pendleton's monotonous baritone!—Milly's high, rapid utterances, the suave falsetto of Don Caesar, and HER voice, he thought a trifle wearied,—the sound of retiring footsteps, and all was ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... a mere piece of obstinacy. Pilate knew that he had prostituted his office in condemning Jesus, and he revenged himself for weak compliance by ill-timed mulishness. A cool-headed governor would have humoured his difficult subjects in such a trifle, as a just one would have been inflexible in a matter of life and death. But this man's facile yielding and his stiff-necked obstinacy were both misplaced. 'So I will, so I command. Let my will suffice for a reason,' was what he meant. He had written his gibe, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... a trifle dashed. Abner presently came to further knowledge of him—his wealth, position, influence, activity—and hardened his heart against him the more. He commented openly on the selfishness and greed of the Money Power in pungent phrases that did not all fall short ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... be this as it may, I perceived very soon that the relations between my host and hostess had become exceedingly strained. Mrs. Oke, indeed, had never paid much attention to her husband, and seemed merely a trifle more indifferent to his presence than she had been before. But Oke himself, although he affected to address her at meals from a desire to conceal his feeling, and a fear of making the position disagreeable to me, very clearly could scarcely bear ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... have been conceived; the jot or yod, and the tittle, were small literary marks in the Hebrew script; for present purposes we may regard them as equivalent to the dot of an "i" or the cross of a "t"; with the first, the jot, our English word "iota," signifying a trifle, is related. Not even the least commandment could be violated without penalty; but the disciples were admonished to take heed that their keeping of the commandments was not after the manner of the scribes and Pharisees, whose observance was that of ceremonial externalism, lacking ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... tossed it up? I do not like to pay a parson for teaching me, while I have 'God's own Word' to teach me; but if any parson will tell me how big came upon little, I do not know that I shall grudge him a trifle. And if he cannot tell me this; if he say, All that we have to do is to admire and adore; then I tell him, that I can admire and adore without his aid, and that I will keep my money in my pocket." That ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... in a way to miss the Colonel's dinner. The dishes which the Bengali cook turned out were excellent, but the host himself was a trifle dictatorial and too fond of the sound of his own voice, while certain of the inevitable guests were still worse. Mrs. Gradinger's letter came as a relief; indeed the Marchesa had been wondering why she had ever consented to go and pretend ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... Bergstrom's share. I don't give a damn where the doctor comes in. If he marries the gal he'll git her twenty shares, ennyway. Though he ain't married her yet. And I ain't through with Simms yet," he added, with an emphasis that was a trifle grim, Rainey thought. ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... had a great loss in not seeing Coleridge. He is a wonderful man. His conversation teems with soul, mind, and spirit. Then he is so benevolent, so good tempered and cheerful, and, like William, interests himself so much about every little trifle. At first I thought him very plain, that is, for about three minutes; he is pale, thin, has a wide mouth, thick lips, and not very good teeth, longish loose-growing half- curling rough black hair. ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... the author may use novel words without the fear of being called provincial; so that understandable, evidentiary, desiderate, leisured, and inamoveability stalk at large within his pages. As a controversialist, he is a trifle sharp, but never actually discourteous; and it is pleasant to see that his chivalry makes him gentlest in dealing with the humblest, while his lance rings against the formidable shield of a Cambridge Professor or a Master of Trinity as did that of the disguised Ivanhoe upon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... Countess as usual, and found her in her morning-room awaiting him. He bent over her hand, but as he took it he thought it was a trifle colder than usual. It might have been imagination, but he fancied her whole manner was less cordial than before. And he said to himself, "She has heard I am going, and she is annoyed, and is not glad ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... of the whole affair combined to make the sudden appearance and vanishment of the great shadowy shapes the more inexplicable, not to say alarming. Small wonder was it that the inquiring faces that turned toward each other were a trifle whiter ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... cried, delighted. "Better Seneca for you than sensuality; Virgilius than venery. When you are as ripe as I, you may trifle awhile if you like with lightness." Here I, listening, sniggered, for it was blown about the city that Messer Brunetto had his passions or fancies or vagaries, call them what you will, and humored them out of school hours. "For the present," he went on, "read deep and ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... hasn't he?" asked Gideon Vetch. "If you want a clean street to walk on, you must hire somebody to shovel away the slush. It is true that we put Gershom to shovelling slush—and you complain of his methods! Well, I admit that he may have been a trifle too zealous about it; he may have spattered things a bit more than was necessary, but after all, he got some of the mud out of the way, didn't he? There are people," he added, "who believe that the wind he raised swept ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... prostitutes of the streets are about on the same level. They are not dependent on proxenetism, but only on their protector and proprietor, which is a trifle less degrading. What degrades them most of all is police inscription, obligatory medical inspection, and the miserable system of solicitation on the pavement. It is necessary to have lost all feeling of modesty, and to possess a cynical ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... this," muttered he, uneasily, "I foresaw it. That's the worst of it! Some wretched trifle like this might spoil it all. Yes, this hat is certainly too remarkable; it looks so ridiculous. I must get a cap to suit my rags; any old thing would be better than this horror. Hats like these are not worn; this one would be noticeable a verst* off; it would be remembered; people ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... goods the captain of the "Great Christopher" had for sale. Cohen was among the latter; but he had too much intelligence to interfere with a family party, especially as he heard Joris say to the crowd with a polite authority, "Make way, friends, make way. When a man is off a three-years' cruise, for a trifle he ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... like Stead meant infinitely more than the soothing-syrup idealism dispensed by some of the visiting prophets to this country. Stead did not mean that in establishing independence of the United States, Canada should cut the painter from the Great British Commonwealth. But he was a trifle cynical about the young nation, just as Disraeli was fifty years ago when he said that "these colonies would yet be a millstone about Britain's neck". Neither of them was more cynical about us than we usually are about ourselves, never in theory, ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... rose-trees, and a soul-full of comforts. If they had bought my greens I should have been able to buy the last number of Punch, and go through the toll-gate of Waterloo Bridge, and give the blind clarionet-player a trifle, and all without changing my gold. If they had taken to my books, my father and mother would have been proud of this and the other 'favourable critique,' and—at least so folks hold—I should have to pay Mr. Moxon less by a ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... upon his perch the driver mechanically steered a reasonably straight course. The passenger leaning back in the depths of the cab confessed to himself he was a trifle weary and more than a trifle sleepy. At thirty-seven one does not dance and play children's games alternately for six hours on a stretch without paying for the exertion in a sensation of let-downness. His head ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... in thy power; to-morrow it will be too late. Never was freedom more cheaply purchased. Thou canst easily and unmissed leave home: less than half an hour will suffice for thine absence. And for such a trifle wilt thou ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... and romance with a vengeance! ready made, too, at one's threshold, without having to seek it out in hall or bower. 'Tis a trifle low to be sure; had it been a shepherd and shepherdess it might do, but a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... There was not a sneaky bone in the major's body—he walked as he thought and as he talked, in straight lines; but before he turned the corner he glanced up and down the empty sidewalk in a quick, furtive fashion, and after he had swung into the side street a trifle of the steam seemed gone from his stiff-spined, hard-heeled gait. It ceased to be a strut; it ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... great folks but our own family; perhaps you will think all great folks little enough to leave off us, in our present situation. I do not hate the world, but I laugh at it; for none but fools can be in earnest about a trifle."[1] ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... with Kettleness beyond, now all pink and red in the golden light of late afternoon. This scene is more suggestive of the Mediterranean than Yorkshire, for the blueness of the sea seems almost unnatural, and the golden greens of the pretty little gardens among the houses seem perhaps a trifle theatrical; but the fisher-folk play their parts too well, and there is nothing make-believe about the delicious bread-and-butter and the newly-baked cakes which accompany the tea awaiting us in a spotlessly ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... Hugo Luttrell's eyes glowed when she spoke a kind word to him, or his brow grew black as thunder if she neglected him for someone else? It never occurred to her to question whether it was wise to trifle with passions which might be of truly Southern vehemence ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... there, drawn this way and that by many reflections, he worked his way through the press, selling here and there a trifle from his baskets, and at length came to a halt in front ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... desist. But he was ignorant, shiftless, and incompetent, and after carrying on his enterprise for "three quarters of a year, with at most only ninety subscribers," he sold out his failure to Franklin and Meredith "for a trifle." To them, or rather to Franklin, "it prov'd in a few years extremely profitable." Its original name, "The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences, and Pennsylvania Gazette," was reduced by the amputation of the first clause, and, relieved ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... animal that he has reared; it would seem to him to commit a crime. He uses the fowls, however (which are a trifle smaller than those in Europe) as a means of exchange for tobacco, rice and other articles but he would never eat one himself unless reduced to ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... for 1886, the lowest average wage is reported as found in the making of wearing apparel; but the average for the State was found to be a trifle ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... knitting, like the work of a copying clerk, it gradually neutralises and sets to sleep the serious activity of the mind. We can think of this or that, lightly and laughingly, as a child thinks, or as we think in a morning doze; we can make puns or puzzle out acrostics, and trifle in a thousand ways with words and rhymes; but when it comes to honest work, when we come to gather ourselves together for an effort, we may sound the trumpet as loud and long as we please; the great barons of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as he had departed, and picked up the can. Johnny dropped a half dollar into it, whereat the Mexican's eyes opened a trifle wider. ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... to be a signal for other ladies of the Onwards and Upwards Society to do the same, Mrs. Ballard being their president. It occurred to me that these ladies were grimly bent on showing the Klondike woman that they could trifle quite as gracefully as she with the lesser vices of Bohemia; or perhaps they wished to demonstrate to the younger dancing men in her train that the North Side set was not desolately austere in its recreation. The Honourable George, I regret to say, produced ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... but so far he had failed to follow her example (an ignoring of the subtle hint that her interest might yet be caught, which seemed to annoy her a trifle), "I should not even have suggested such a possibility had I not seen a way of introducing you there without risk to your position or mine. Among the boxes piled upon Mrs. Doolittle's table—boxes of finished work, most of them addressed and ready for delivery—was ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... a trifle more mildly, "but you'll be missin' some'n out o' the general run, if I'm any judge. Thar may have been sech a thing sence the flood as a married woman callin' out all hands to solemnize her first husband's demise while she's still wearin' the weddin'-clothes ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben |
