"Trifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... strange beings! We grumble in our Fatherland; every stupid thing, every contrary trifle, vexes us there; like boys, we are always longing to rush forth into the wide world, and, when we finally find ourselves there, we find it too wide, and often yearn in secret for the narrow stupidities and contrarieties of home. Yes, we would fain be again in the old ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... was assured that one day's more walk would bring him near to Stockholm. That was a trifle, the shoemaker said. He had walked as far as that to church every Sunday, when he was young, and lived up in the north, where the snow was not to be sneezed at, and the night lasted almost all day, ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... had been a trifle weak about furniture; and that was one of the reasons why there had been so little room for human beings in their house. The little parlor, indeed, had been filled until it put one in mind of a small furniture-store, with ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... direction she indicated, I saw two young women, who were walking at a rapid pace over the dead leaves. One, who was a trifle taller than the other, wore a gown of rose-coloured silk. She ran rather than walked, and her companion kept just a little behind. Like the poor peasant lad I was, I was seized with a kind of instinctive panic, and ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... is so much wretchedness in the world, that we may safely take the word of any mortal professing to need our assistance; and even should we be deceived, still the good to ourselves resulting from a kind act is worth more than the trifle by which we purchase it. It is desirable, I think, that such persons should be permitted to roam through our land of plenty, scattering the seeds of tenderness and charity, as birds of passage bear the seeds of precious plants from land to land, without even ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... was a dear, good, trustworthy lad too; kindly, generous, practical, and industrious; a trifle slow and reserved, perhaps, but full of common sense,—the kind of sense which, after ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... generally, compositions which would be enjoyed or passed over, according as the taste and humour of the reader might chance to be; provided they contained nothing immoral. In the present age periturae parcere chartae is emphatically an unreasonable demand. The merest trifle he ever sent abroad had tenfold better claims to its ink and paper than all the silly criticisms on it, which proved no more than that the critic was not one of those, for whom the trifle was written; and than all the grave exhortations to a greater ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... will burst into a passion, and, as some trifle affords you a pretext, you will make a scene, in the course of which your anger will make you divulge the secret of your distress. And here comes in the ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... the first mate, with the air of a man who regarded such an event as a mere trifle, that, upon consideration, might almost be considered as rather a pleasant incident than ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... friend, and we will accelerate, with our best interest and influence, the publication of your volume. Let it be dedicated to the Hon. Tom Dashall and his Cousin Bob Tallyho. In the meanwhile, accept this trifle, as a complimentary douceur uniformly given on such occasions; and, amidst the varied scenes of Real Life in London, I shall frequently recur to the present as the most ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... of a distinct disturbing cause. The prolate or lemon-like shape is caused by the gravitative pull of the earth, balanced by the centrifugal whirl. The two forces balance each other as regards motion, but between them they have strained the moon a trifle out of shape. The moon has yielded as if it were perfectly plastic; in all probability it ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... pirates, and Vincent, severely wounded by an arrow, and heavily chained, lay half- stifled in a corner of the hold of the ship, a captive probably for life to the enemies of the faith. It was true that France had scandalized Europe by making peace with the Dey of Tunis, but this was a trifle to the corsairs; and when, after seven days' further cruising, they put into the harbour of Tunis, they drew up an account of their capture, calling it a Spanish vessel, to prevent the French ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Inanimate things have such a terrible power to wound one: though everything which would remind me of Baby has been carefully removed and hidden away by F——'s orders, still now and then I come across some trifle belonging to him, and, ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... a way of speech that I learned in my childhood. An' 'tis lucky for you that I have a knowledge of thim, for any other priest would have driven you out of the parish, you and your stubborn pipes that do naught but play faery music. An' you a man of forty in a trifle of six days, and no wife an' childer to keep you from foolish notions. If ye had, now, you could be livin' in the proper tenant's house for the Wilcox's man, instead of Michael O'Donnell, who has no business livin' up here on the hill so far from his work that he can ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... period were establishing the reputation of the summer girl. She continued to be a summer girl for four seasons without injury to her own peace of mind. At the end of the fourth summer she appeared on close scrutiny to be a little worn, and her innocent air seemed a trifle deliberate. She returned to her home in New Jersey in not quite her usual spirits. In fact she became pensive. She had seen the world, and lo! she found it stuffed with sawdust. She was ready to settle down, but the only man with ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... Edgware Road. Proceeding there in company with my eldest brother-in-law, a plate-layer and surfaceman on the Northern (he being uncertain about the Derby winner for that year), I was told by the person for a trifle of two shillings that I was soon to cross water and to meet many strange adventures. True, later events proved her to have been psychically unsound as to the Derby winner (so that my brother-in-law, who ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... copied these words adds, O tremor et suspiria non cadunt in fortem et constantem. The same writer incloses a punning distich: the name of our lord chief-justice was in his day very provocative of the pun, both in Latin and English; Cicero, indeed, had pre-occupied the miserable trifle. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... up at once, strong in that blessed companionship. Cheerfully he made his preparations for starting, and now he turned Billy's head a trifle to the south, for he decided to stop over ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... perhaps sometimes a trifle too merry," said Captain Ribaut half-apologetically. "But they are splendid, these young Americans of yours who drive ambulances for us. They never know the meaning of fear, and after a great battle they are devotion itself ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... so brave and stout, I stand before your gate; Pray send a trifle hout To me, your pore old Vait; For nothink could be vuss than it's been along vith us In ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... time," she laughed a trifle awkwardly. "And as for not drinking anything. . . . Look out or you'll spill what Papa Marquette ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... the garden with a deluge of champagne. The golden drops sparkled on every rose-petal: the lawn was drenched with it. After playing one round the Bishop was gloriously inflamed. He had to be carried home, roaring the most unseemly ditties. Since then, as I say, he has grown (I fear) a trifle suspicious. But let us ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... He read it again, and smiled as he told himself that the father would certainly be very weak in the hands of his daughter. Then he went to work again at his article with a persistent resolve that so small a trifle as such a note should have no effect upon his daily work. Of course Sir Marmaduke would refuse his consent. Of course it would be for him, Stanbury, to marry the girl he loved in opposition to her father. Her father indeed! If Nora chose to take him,—and as ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... the doctor, who sat at the foot of her table, and the physician merely raised his brows a trifle. He was a rather consequential person, and it was evident to the girl that he resented being summoned by a gesture. She did not think anybody else had noticed Wyllard, and she waited with some curiosity to see what he would do. He made a sign with ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... own people at home, they having their troubles with the wicked, and the chiefs their share in being obliged to keep up their magic and know all that was going on in the world. Yea, for he would be a poor powwow and a necromancer worth nothing who could not foretell such a trifle as the day and hour when an ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... me not to wait for any one, else I 'd lose my chance of a hack; so I gave my check to a man, and there he is with my trunk;" and Polly walked off after her one modest piece of baggage, followed by Tom, who felt a trifle depressed by his own remissness in polite attentions. "She is n't a bit of a young lady, thank goodness! Fan did n't tell me she was pretty. Don't look like city girls, nor act like 'em, neither," he thought, trudging in the rear, and eyeing with favor the ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... my account at the Exeter—and he has lifted his bushy shutters and gazed at me suddenly with his merry Scotch-terrier eyes, I have caught, I must admit, a line of anxiety, or rather of concentrated cautiousness on his face, which for the moment made me think that perhaps he was looking a trifle older than when I last saw him; but all this was scattered to the winds when I met him an hour afterward swinging up Wall Street with that cheery lift of the heels so peculiarly his own, a lift that the occupants of every office window on both sides of the street knew to be ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and scramble—and we are on board, at last. It is some comfort to exchange that wretched little wet tug for the deck of the Asia; though a trifle unsteady even now, she oscillates after the sober and stately fashion befitting a mighty "liner." Half an hour sees the end of the long stream of mail-bags, and the huge bales of newspapers shipped; then the moorings are cast loose; there rises the faintest echo of a cheer—who could be ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... at the corner of the Calles de la Profesa and Espirito Santo, a little group of officers talking together in that half-earnest, half-distrait manner so characteristic of men newly landed in a town, whose interest in every trifle gets the better of ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... of the State and a public school; the Jesuits' library is taken from them altogether, and their dwelling is occupied by other public offices. But the vitality which had survived ages was not to be destroyed by such a trifle as confiscation. Officially both are gone; in actual fact both are more alive than ever. When the Jesuits were finally expelled from their College, they merely moved to the other side of the Dominican Monastery, across the Via del Seminario, and established themselves in the Borromeo palace, still ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... my sojourn with these children of nature, who were always anxious to become possessors of my belongings, was a small prettily fashioned metal match-box, opening with a spring. Remembering that Kua-ko, among others, had looked at this trifle with covetous eyes—the covetous way in which they all looked at it had given it a fictitious value in my own—I tried to bribe him with the offer of it to accompany me to my favourite haunt. The brave young hunter refused again and again; but on each occasion he offered to perform ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... all the tools but two or three sets; he also sold one of the now deserted cabins as old, lumber, together with its domestic wares; and made up his mind that he would buy, provisions with the trifle of money thus gained and continue his work alone. About the middle of the after noon he put on his roughest clothes and went to the tunnel. He lit a candle and groped his way in. Presently he heard ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... very glad to have seen the author's name prefixed to it: however, I am of opinion that it its very nearly related to no less a hand than that which has so often, under borrowed names, employed itself to amuse and trifle mankind, in their own taste, out of their folly ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... the other prisoners, whose feet, however, were not bound. For a moment the three captives stood blinking at the unfamiliar light, unconscious of the situation and their extremity, whilst Hasdrubal for the fortieth time measured the distance. The wind had strengthened a little. Let it strengthen a trifle more and the Bozra would hold her own. Still her people were nearly spent with their toiling, and the keen beak and large complement of the man-of-war made resistance madness if she ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... honour, to withdraw herself from a confederacy which she could no longer support, and treat for peace on her own bottom, then was she not an associate but a slave to the alliance. The earl of Godolphin affirmed, that the trade to Spain was such a trifle as deserved no consideration; and that it would continually diminish until it should be entirely engrossed by the French merchants. Notwithstanding these remonstrances against the plan of peace, the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... than that," said Tom. "I'll use more powder, and try one of the newer shells. I'll elevate the gun a trifle, too." ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... a few moments ago, that you could not understand that message, my lord," said Darby quickly, and looking searchingly at the other man. Garvington grew a trifle confused. "Did I? Well, to tell you the truth, Darby, I'm so mixed up over the business that I can't say what I do know, or what I don't know. You'd better take all I tell you with a grain of salt until ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... Holiness has often examined, showing their mountains, valleys, rivers, towns, and colonies. Let us boldly compare Hispaniola to Italy, formerly the mistress of the universe. In point of size Hispaniola is a trifle smaller than Italy. According to the statements of recent explorers, it extends five hundred and forty miles from east to west. As we have already noticed in our First Decade, the Admiral had exaggerated its length. In certain places the width of Hispaniola extends to three hundred ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... ears polite), loud and leading as a lady-villain. Helgi and Arnora are first cousins (not once removed) to Telrammond the Tedious and Ortrude the Orful. Mr. CELLI as King, a sort of Scandinavian BEAU BRUMMEL, imparts light comedy touch to Opera, which, but for this, might have been a trifle dull. COWEN called, came, congratulated. H. R. H. Prince of WALES, setting the best example, as he always does, to Opera-goers, came at the beginning and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... for that; the wine-glass had no pistol in his hand. Take the old German, then; see now, hold your pistol thus,—no finger on the guard there, these two on the trigger. They are not hair-triggers; drop the muzzle a bit; bend your elbow a trifle more; sight your man outside your arm,—outside, mind,—and take him in the hip, and ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... six thousand feet the yellow pine acquires true tree dignity and begins to mass itself into forests. When seen from a distance its appearance suggests the oak. It seems a trifle rigid, appears ready to meet emergencies, has a look of the heroic, and carries more character than any other tree on the Rockies. Though a slender and small-limbed tree in youth, after forty or fifty years it changes slowly and becomes stocky, strong-limbed, and rounded ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... the music, there is an emphatic falling off in the quality of the words. From the Grande Duchesse to the Petit Duc is a great descent: the former was a genuine play, complete and self-contained—the latter is a careless trifle, a mere outline sketch for the composer to fill up. The story—akin in subject to Mr. Tom Taylor's fine historical drama Clancarty—is pretty, but there is no trace of the true poetry which made the farewell letter of Perichole ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... "the sultan is mistaken, if he thinks by this exorbitant demand to prevent my entertaining thoughts of the princess. I expected greater difficulties, and that he would have set a higher price upon her incomparable charms. I am very well pleased; his demand is but a trifle to what I could have done for her. But while I think of satisfying his request, go and get something for our dinner, and leave the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... at her, spoke coaxingly, merrily, a trifle embarrassed by his own temerity, yet keen to prove his point and acquire possession of this ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Some little trifle later, after being much harassed, the retreating party were offering themselves as prominent marks to the blacks, as they climbed up the outer slope of the old crater, but very soon after they began to reach shelter, and at last they lined the top of the mouldering wall, while the blacks ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... idea was a good one; but he was just a trifle uncertain as to how the blind horse would get along on such uneven ground. However, he said nothing, lest his companions should think he was afraid to make the attempt; and when Ben and Bob proceeded to mark out a ring, he advised them ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... He left at dawn, and alone. Roy, his page, had begged as hard as he dared for pillion or a donkey. He was his master's only friend, but Prosper's temper needed no props. "Roy," said he, "what I do I will do alone, nor will I imperil any man's bread. The bread of my brother Malise may be a trifle over-salt to my taste, but to you it is better than none at all. Season your tongue, Roy, enure it. Drink water, dry your eyes, and forget ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... to a dinner, at which the whole of the dishes placed before them were of gold, set with precious stones, and the room and the twelve couches were ornamented with purple and gold. On his praising the splendour of the sight, as passing anything he had before seen, she said it was a trifle, and begged that he would take the whole of it as a gift from her. The next day he again dined with her, and brought a larger number of his friends and generals, and was of course startled to see a costliness which ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... and a trifle sick, And, face to face with chance, I shrink a little: My hopes are strong, my will is something weak. Here comes the basket? Thank you. I am ready But, gentlemen my porters, life is brittle: You ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... she found the linen cloth they lost three months (before) that day. So the girl went with the cloth to her master, and said, "See what I did to those poor, poor Gipsies that were hung and transported for that trifle (there)!" ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... hand. "As far as Clemency and I and Mrs. Ewing are concerned," he said, "nothing could have been better. Well, we will hope for the best, my boy." He clapped James on the shoulder and smiled, and James went to his room feeling dizzy with happiness and mystery, and a trifle so with the ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... fool! Do you think you can trifle with the might of the German Empire? Ah! I've played a pretty game with you, you dirty English dog! I've watched you squirming and writhing whilst the stupid German told you his pretty little tale and plied ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... while other nations part with their gold and silver, as unwillingly as if one tore out their bowels, those of Utopia would look on their giving in all they possess of those (metals, when there were any use for them) but as the parting with a trifle, or as we would esteem the loss of a penny. They find pearls on their coast; and diamonds and carbuncles on their rocks; they do not look after them, but if they find them by chance, they polish them, and with them they adorn their children, who ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... amazed to see so learned a man as Menage talking seriously on this kind of trifle in ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... said the Old Man with a sympathetic frown. "Thar's no trouble about THET. It's my own house, built every stick on it myself. Don't you be afeard o' her, boys. She MAY cut up a trifle rough,—ez wimmin do,—but she'll come round." Secretly the Old Man trusted to the exaltation of liquor and the power of courageous example to sustain him in such ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... wonderful, and she wanted to be like them. She came to a speedy disillusion: they galled and maddened her, they were petty and mean. After the loose, generous atmosphere of her home, where little things did not count, she was always uneasy in the world, that would snap and bite at every trifle. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... born at Leipsic, March 24, 1884, two years before the death of Franz Liszt. Nine years younger than Josef Hofmann and a trifle more than one-half the age of Paderewski he represents a different decade from that of other pianists included in this work. Bachaus studied for nine years with Alois Reckendorf, a Moravian teacher who was connected with the Leipsic Conservatory for more than thirty ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... Point—for you must know, All this was but the To-and-fro Of MATT and DICK who played with Thought, And lingered longer than they ought (So pleasant 'tis to tap one's Box And trifle round a Paradox!)— There came—but I forgot to say, 'Twas in the Mall, the Month was May— There came a Fellow where they sat, His Elf-locks peeping through his Hat, Who bore a Basket. Straight his Load He set upon the Ground, and showed ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... the Orient, in the summer of 1914, when he was stranded in China by the cancellation of transpacific shipping services and was therefore obliged to cross China and Russia by the Transiberian Railway. This story, however, strains credulity a trifle, as the journey would have brought him closer to the scene of conflict at that time, and he was, in any event, only 17 years old when these events are ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... run after the first idea that offers, sage or gay, just as you see our young beaux in the Foy passage following the steps of some gay nymph, with her saucy mien, face all smiles, eyes all fire, and nose a trifle turned up; then quitting her for another, attacking them all, but attaching themselves to none. My thoughts,—these are the wantons for me. If the weather be too cold or too wet, I take shelter in the Regency coffee-house. There I ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... it was soon time to go home, but before packing up I would eat the provisions I had brought in a small basket. Somehow the slices of bread and jam, prepared by my sisters, looked different; they had seemed so tempting, and now they looked stale and uninviting. Even such a trifle as this made the earth seem sadder, and I realised that only in Heaven will ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... of this bill has been paid, except that trifle of thirty-six dollars for clerkship salary. The Secretary of the Treasury, pursuing me to the last, drew his pen through all the other items, and simply marked in the margin "Not allowed." So, the dread alternative is embraced at last. Repudiation has begun! The ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Scalloway?-No; all that are got here is a mere trifle, and then we buy some in winter and spring ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... I wrote a little piece for the summer theatre, called, "The Bird in the Pear-tree," in which several scenes were acted up in the pear-tree. I had called it a dramatic trifle, in order that no one might expect either a great work or one of a very elaborate character. It was a little sketch, which, after being performed a few times, was received with so much applause, that the directors of the theatre accepted it; nay, even Mrs. Heiberg, the favorite of ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... money he had left. It amounted to nine dollars and some odd cents. Had he followed Henry's advice, a part of this would have been deposited in the bank; but Sam's dreams of wealth led him to look upon it as a mere trifle, hardly worth taking into account. So day by day it melted away till there was ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... having stood their ground for some time, ended at length by being routed: whilst endeavouring to rally them, the English honoured me with a musket ball, which slightly wounded me in the leg,—but it is a trifle, my dearest love; the ball touched neither bone nor nerve, and I have escaped with the obligation of lying on my back for some time, which puts me much out of humour. I hope that you will feel no anxiety; this ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... the journeyman, he is now safe. To his sixteen feet, of which seven are neutralized by the distance of the bed, he has at last added six feet more, which will be short of reaching the ground by perhaps ten feet—a trifle which man or boy may drop without injury. All is safe, therefore, for him: which is more than one can be sure of for miscreant in the parlor. Miscreant, however, takes it coolly enough: the reason being, that, with all his cleverness, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... about four inches across. Stitch this all round, leaving one end open, and stuff it firmly with fine, dry sand. Sew up the open end, and slip the bag into an outer case of bright scarlet flannel, made just a trifle larger than the inner one, so that it may go in easily. Lay the sand-bag over the crack between the two sashes, and on cold nights, when you are asleep, grandmamma will rejoice in the little giver of such a ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... replied the officer, a trifle impatiently. "But we waste time in idle discussion. Will your majesty be so good as to accompany me ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... instead of asking for this amount, I should have gone to see my old friend the queen-mother; the letters from her husband, Signor Mazarini, would have served me as an introduction, and I should have begged this mere trifle of her, saying to her, 'I wish, madame, to have the honor of receiving you at Dampierre. Permit me to put Dampierre in a fit ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... trace of irresolution or fear, and he knew that the moment he stepped out of the way, she would pass on. His loud expostulations and threats soon ceased. What could he do with that laughing woman, who no doubt had been a slave, but was now emancipated a trifle too completely? He might as well try to stop a sluggish tide with his hands. It would ooze away from him inevitably. The instincts of this people are quick. Harrison knew he was defeated, and his only anxiety now was to retreat in a way that ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... such festivals," said Jurgen, modestly—"a little notion of my own. A bit extreme, some persons might consider it, but there is no pleasing everybody. And I like a trifle ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... son, on your new birthday. I wish you health, happiness and God's loving care. May he bless you my son forever. I enclose a trifle for your pleasure. My love to you always, but God bless you ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... Chapman, as he lifted a glass of delicate pearl pink, filled with the pungent and keenly stimulating Ridinda, to his lips. 'Put on your thinking cap, and perforate me with all the puzzles you can think of. I am a trifle rattled myself in this new ranch—have not been here long—but I tell you, Dodd, Mars is first class. It suits me. Never enjoyed living so much, never found it so much a matter of course, and as to livelihood, when I think of those freezing nights ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... Philosophers (a trifle visionary, perhaps) has been speculating as to certain possible (or, perhaps, impossible) results flowing from the practice among publishers of ante-dating their monthly issues. Thus, supposing that the world should be destroyed by fire (and why not? it is bad enough) on ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... an ascending gorge; and across its chasm, upon the brow of the opposite cliff, you catch sight of houses and a spire seemingly perched on the verge, like so many birds'-nests,—the village of Morne Rouge. It is two thousand feet above the sea; and Pele, although looming high over it, looks a trifle less lofty now. ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... the absence of our cook, and we are again left in charge, and we flatter ourselves the dinner was "immense." Stewed-beef, rice, mushrooms, (of which some were rather burnt, others not quite done enough, but that is a trifle), yorkshire pudding (baking-powder making an excellent substitute for eggs), and an apple tart. What more could you want? We are quite ambitious now, and have curries, rissoles, etc. A—— used to say he hoped, we should not expect either him or his friends ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... Garlick herself. The end of the scene, whose details are not sufficiently edifying to be recounted, was that Maria went upstairs to pack her box, and Mrs Garlick personally re-hung the curtain. One's dignity is commonly an expensive trifle, and Mrs Garlick's dignity was expensive. To avoid prolonging the scene she paid Maria a month's wages in lieu of notice—L1, 13s, 4d. Then she showed her the door. Doubtless (Mrs Garlick meditated) the ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... one thing vexed me a trifle,—the question whether I had forgotten confession. I have no complaint to make, but I do ask one favor, and that is that you do not think so ill of me! I am fond of merriment, but, believe me, I can also ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... the coachman. "I don't think he'll try it. I reckon it's a trifle deep for me. Do you want to get ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... street, faced by a large brick dwelling, there came with regular and unhurried tread a tall and dignified figure, crowned with a soft Panama, and tapping with official cane. As it approached the car the driver straightened a trifle on ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... his head. When he spoke again, his manner had somehow changed. It had become at once more official,—a trifle more stilted. ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that the Log, for long long after I first went to sea in the Breeze, and subsequently when removed to the old Kraaken line—of—battle ship, both of which were constantly part of blockading squadrons, could be compared to nothing more fitly than a dish of trifle, anciently called syllabub, with a stray plum here and there scattered at the bottom. But when, after several weary years, I got away in the dear old Torch, on a separate cruise, incidents came fast enough with a vengeance—stem, unyielding, iron events, as I found to my heavy cost, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... you," he began, with no clear purpose save the desire of harsh speech, "to ask me to overlook this trifle, and let ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... at the War Department, and some confusion owing to the loss of a box of papers in transitu from Montgomery. I am not a betting man, but I would wager a trifle that the contents of the box are in the hands of some correspondent of the New York Herald or Tribune. Our careless people think that valor alone will win the day. The Yankees desire, above all things, ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... baby, Chris," she said a trifle impatiently. "It's up to you this time, anyway. What's the use of being young and as pretty as you are if you can't win the man ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... appointment and stated the object of his visit. I looked at the card again. It was printed from script type instead of the usual engraved plate and it bore an address in Kennington Park Road. These were weighty facts and a trifle suspicious. I seemed to scent a traveler from beyond the Atlantic; a traveler ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... did his best to follow out his sister's instructions, and keep Master Jack out of hot water. The latter seemed to have become a trifle more tractable; perhaps, finding other people were interested in him, he was led to take more interest in himself. At all events, his conduct underwent a considerable change for the better, and his name no longer appeared on every page of ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... was calm. "No doubt wind prevailed at the spot, but there was no roaring noise." None of these masses fell within his observation or knowledge. To walk a few fields away and find out more would seem not much to expect from a man of science, but it is one of our superstitions, that such a seeming trifle is just what—by the Spirit of an Era, we'll call it—one is not permitted to do. If those things were not masses of hay, and if Herschel had walked a little and found out, and had reported that he had seen strange objects in the air—that ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... war, for it was not until 27 August 1916 that Italy declared war on Germany, and the number of German divisions on the Italian front was never more than six. Even to Austria Russia was the dangerous foe, and Italian strategy threatened at worst no more than the temporary loss of Trieste, a trifle compared with that of Galicia. For the difficulties of the terrain, jealousy between Italians and Jugo-Slavs, and Italy's lack of the industrial means for equipping a sufficiently formidable army, ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... glass and use it himself. In fact, he was suffering from that impatience which often attacks us all and makes us feel as we watch another's action how much better we could do it ourselves, from the greatest matter down to such a trifle us untying a knot in a piece of string. Meanwhile, with the white sails swelling out above and below, and the double glass to his eye, the skipper's son was slowly sweeping the coast-line, letting nothing escape him, as he ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... no need to tell you again that M. Coue, like yourself, but even more strongly, insists on this point: "that he never performs a miracle or cures anybody, but that he shows people how to cure themselves." I confess that on this point I still remain a trifle incredulous, for if M. Coue does not actually cure people, he is a powerful aid to their recovery, in "giving heart" to the sick, in teaching them never to despair, in uplifting them, in leading them . . . higher than themselves into moral spheres that the majority of humanity, plunged in ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue
... declared, with a wave of his hand, "a trifle, a silly old song that came into my mind unawares, the leaves being so green and the sky so blue. Had you come a little earlier or a little later, you would have heard the ninetieth psalm. Give you good-day madam. I must have ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... a day, everything included, except a trifle for servants. Candles alone were extras, and I did not burn them very much, for I was glad to go to bed early. Wine I do not take, or that also would have been an extra. You could not live very ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... marks? But she mastered with hardly a struggle the mysteries of figures, for she would have to sell her cattle, and "dad doesn't know when they are cheating." Her ideas of education were purely utilitarian, and what did not appear immediately useful she refused to trifle with. And so all through the following long winter she vexed my righteous soul with her wilfulness and pride. An appeal to her father was idle. She would wind her long, thin arms about his neck and let her waving red hair float over him until the old man was quite helpless ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... gold mines which he discovered long before we heard of California,—Y., born to millions, crazed by too much plum-cake, (the boys said,) dogged, explosive,—made a Polyphemus of my weak-eyed schoolmaster, by a vicious flirt with a stick,—(the multi-millonnaires sent him a trifle, it was said, to buy another eye with; but boys are jealous of rich folks, and I don't doubt the good people made him easy for life,)—how ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... will come. The journey hence to Ennis is long for one old as I am, and would be lightened by so small a trifle as—shall I say a bank note of the meanest value." Upon this Neville handed him two bank notes for L1 each, and Captain O'Hara walked forth out of ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... guests, were concluding the byplay of marrying the darker couple, that the hurricane struck the dwelling. The holy and jovial father had made faint pretence of kissing this second bride; the ladies, colonels, dons, etc.,—though the joke struck them as a trifle coarse—were beginning to laugh and clap hands again and the gowned jester to bow to right and left, when Bras-Coupe, tardily realizing the consummation of his hopes, stepped forward to ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... and the bits of things," said Peter, "and there's a trifle put by to add to it. But tell me this; when you're out there, can you support ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... said, perhaps a trifle resentfully. At least Mackenzie thought he read a resentful note in the quick rejoinder, a resentful flash of color in ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... nothing!" he cried to the mother and sister—"it's only a faint, a mere trifle! Only just now the doctor said he was much better, that he is perfectly well! Water! See, he is coming to himself, ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... conveyed in, may be offensive, perhaps, because they are new to you. Accustomed to the language of courtiers, you measure their affections by the vehemence of their expressions, and when they only praise you indifferently, you admire their sincerity. But this is not a time to trifle with your fortune. They deceive you, Sir, who tell you that you have many friends, whose affections are founded upon a principle of personal attachment. The first foundation of friendship is not the power of conferring benefits, but the equality with which they ...
— English Satires • Various
... the sceptre in a fine manner. So we followed, each tiny boy gripping my hand tight. We were all three a trifle awed. Elsbeth led us into a dark underbrush. The branches, as they flew back in our faces, left them wet with dew. A wee path, made by the girl's dear feet, guided our footsteps. Perfumes of elderberry and wild cucumber scented the air. A bird, frightened ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... nothing. Let us not leave off. We have known one another for a long time, and among friends one ought not to be so quickly offended for such a trifle. ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... In 1679 the altercation on this point was brought to an issue by the arrest, at the intendant's instance [Transcriber's note: insistence?], of La Toupine, a retainer of Du Lhut. An accusation of disobeying the edict was no trifle, for the penalty might mean a sentence to the galleys. After a bitter contest over La Toupine the matter was settled on a basis not unfavourable to Frontenac. In 1681 a fresh edict declared that all coureurs de bois who came back to the colony should receive the benefit of an amnesty. ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... was somebody, but for the life of me I could not remember who. All of a sudden it flashed across me that he was Socrates. He talked enough for six, but it was all in dialetto, so I could not understand him, nor, when I had discovered who he was, did I much try to do so. He was a good creature, a trifle given to stealing fruit and vegetables, but an amiable man enough. He had had a long day with his mule and me, and he only asked me five francs. I gave him ten, for I pitied his poor old patched boots, and there was a meekness about him that touched me. "And now, Socrates," ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... the term "locooed" so he was not quite sure what Jeb meant. But he was thankful that he had life enough left even to suffer with the broken arms and legs; for a trifle like that was not to be scorned when he might have been done for completely even as he feared old ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... they are relative, not absolute. Sometimes meaning and sound conflict with one another, and one must be sacrificed in part, as when the normal accent of a word refuses to coincide with the verse-accent demanded by a certain measure, so that we "wrench" the accent a trifle, or make it "hover" over two syllables without really alighting upon either. And it is significant that lovers of poetry have always found pleasure in such compromises. [Footnote: Compare the passage about Chopin's ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... without a cravat when his picture was taken, and his white shirt-collar, coming up high in the neck, has the appearance of a white neckerchief. This trifle of dress, with the intellectual look of the man, strikes every observer as giving him a clerical appearance. The picture strongly resembles—more in air, perhaps, than in feature—the large engraved ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... Felix the Horse-Master and also Andivius Hedulio and that you saved my Nona! My gratitude cannot be expressed, any more than your service to me can be requited. But I shall do all I can. The gems you took were but a trifle and you were welcome to them. In fact, I never missed them. In any case they were but an installment on what you deserved and now deserve. It is not yet too late for me to save you. I can cause your speedy release and probably your complete rehabilitation. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... trifle as the idea came to him. Still, it might only have been an additionally strong movement of the breeze; turning some angle that caused it to give forth ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... similar to yours, cannot, however, be compared with it—mine only relates to a trifling flirtation, a thwarted fancy, while yours is a serious passion for a woman of your own rank who has accepted your hand, and therefore has no right to trifle with you,—she must be ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin |
