"Trifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... well," answered Midas in a discontented tone. "But, after all, it is but a trifle when you consider that it has taken me my whole life to get it together. If one could live a thousand years, he might have time ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... wounded in fact, nor can words cure it: do not trifle, but speedily, once more I do repeat it, restore my Daughter as I brought her hither, or you shall hear from me in such a kind, as ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... for the boyish young sergeant had he been but a trifle more suspicious of such sudden reform on his ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... trifle," answered Rogers and Murray in a breath. "We are over well supplied, and so you can't want, you know; and then the chances are that, before long, we pick up a good ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... the man," he says, "with so unchristian a soul that, for a trifle, he would perpetuate the trespass of a possessor, which would inevitably be the result if he did not consent to abandon his right?" By the Eternal! I am that man. Though a million proprietors should burn for it in hell, I lay the blame on them for depriving ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... swayed more by passion than by judgment in all his corrections." Of another, whom he had previously described as an idler beyond hope of correction: "Nor is it worth while, except for the sake of example, ... to be at much trouble, or any expence over a trifle, to hunt him up." Of a third, who was thought to have escaped in company with a neighbor's slave: "If Mr. Dulany is disposed to pursue any measure for the purpose of recovering his man, I will join him in the expence so far ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... not seen a sober day for a month, came in with a little package in his hand. Tremblingly he unwrapped it, and handed the articles to the pawnbroker, saying, 'Give me ten cents.' And, boys, what do you suppose that package was? A pair of baby's shoes; little things with the buttons only a trifle soiled, as if they had been worn once or twice. 'Where did you get them?' asked the pawnbroker. 'Got 'em at home,' replied the man, who had an intelligent face and the manner of a gentleman, despite his sad condition. 'My wife bought 'em for our baby. Give me ten cents for 'em. I want a drink.' ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... such thing," interrupted Mr. Henry—"I would not have disturbed you at this time of night for any such trifle; but our ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... over this mornin' to see a feller that owed me a trifle o' money. Exceptin' of some loose change, what he paid me 's all I got with me,' I says, takin' out my wallet. 'That wad's got a hunderd an' twenty-five into it, an' if you'd sooner have your hoss an' halter than the wad,' I says, 'why, I'll ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... family name. No more than that; nothing that can betray us; yet enough to whet his lordship's appetite. You shall be the ambassador to bear him the tempting offers from the king. You will obtain his answers—accepting. Those you will deliver to me, and I shall do the trifle that may still be needed to set the rope ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... majesty," 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
... said John. Daylight had scarcely begun to fail; but nevertheless the man's tone announced a grievance, that, with half-a-dozen women in the house, he the exhausted breadwinner should have been obliged to attend to such a trifle. Bessie sprang to pull the chain of the Welsbach tap, and the white and silver of the tea-table glittered under the yellow light. Every woman looked furtively at ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... you like your lentil soup?" says K. "Excellently well," say I, "but devil a drop is in the plate!" I have got to enter into the joke; that's the long and the short of it. But it is being pushed just a trifle too far when I am told I apparently ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... am in great hopes that you will do me a little favour. I have temporary need of a trifle of pecuniary aid—some slight debts which have grown upon me abroad," he added carelessly, with a short cough—"and, knowing your good heart, I have resolved to apply to you. If you can oblige me with a couple of hundred pounds or so, I'll give you my acknowledgment, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... from sentimental reasons, I have nothing more to say, and I must not criticise your mother's work; but—" And he broke off, seeing that the old lady took the matter so much to heart, and being sorry that he had been ruffled at a trifle. ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... world-wide diocese Rests on the power of the keys; Our church, a trifle heterodox, We'll rest on ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... fighting and carnage, beyond the ordinary blood-feuds between the different tribes, going on for some months in the country, and the bodies of men were as commonly found as those of camels used to be. So it may seem surprising that the Arab should have taken the trouble to dismount for such a trifle. ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... the matter with Lord Somers, and these two concluded that just a trifle more maturity of that gently ironical mind, a little more seasoning of the gracious personality, and the State would have in Joseph Addison a servant ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... 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 ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... small scholars thought "it was a grand time—master did not seem to mind them;" while older ones wondered at his unwonted humor. Meanwhile his reflections were any thing but agreeable. How could he have been so harsh for such a trifle, and ungentlemanly too. All Annie's faults were the mere exuberance of a joyous spirit; and she was quick to acknowledge and regret them; and yet he had not expostulated, but abruptly commanded her to leave. How she must ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... in your presence' (anything more awkward than master I never set eyes on. He's knocked down one of the best porcelain vegetables this very afternoon!); 'he will beg for any little favours, some trifle, it may be, made by your own hand' (master's always a-asking if I've got any of those doughnuts to give away); 'and, if granted, he will treasure them in secret with pride and rapture' (I don't think master kep' any of them doughnuts though, Eliza. I saw him swaller five; but you couldn't ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... father, God be merciful to his soul, was dying, he gave orders that the widow should take Nikita into the homestead—of course I know all about it from my son,—and the money was to go to Akoulina. Why, another one might have thought of his own interests, but Nikita gives everything clean! It's no trifle. Fancy what a sum ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... have a grown-up daughter who positively must be married; but I cannot raise a sufficient dowry. Will your honour give me a trifle towards making ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... hard, indeed, to stifle Fervour such as mine has grown, And I 'd freely give a trifle Could I win you for mine own; But the question simply narrows Down to one persistent fact, That we cannot say we're sparrows, And ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... trifle of patronage into his farewell. Nature had turned him out such a good-looking fellow that he might have spared the other, but he was not conscious of his good ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... formed by nature and habit to cling to others, soon began to form plans for future support. Her inexperienced mind foresaw few of the difficulties involved in the career her friends had suggested. She merely expected to study and work hard; but that seemed a trifle, if she could avoid for herself and her sister the publicity which their father had so ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... opposition, when they saw that to be impossible, was inexcusable; for that if they will not comply with such humane offers, and right hands for security, they should have experience of such a war as would spare nobody, and should soon be made sensible that their wall would be but a trifle, when battered by the Roman machines; in depending on which they demonstrate themselves to be the only Galileans that were no better than arrogant slaves ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... person bespoke physical and moral health. Her face was more gentle than striking; her eyes were very blue and full of animation; she had a rich complexion; her hair was light yellow, but not colorless; her nose, slightly aquiline; her red lips were a trifle thick, like those of all the Hapsburgs; her hands and feet were models of beauty; she had an impressive carriage, and was a little above the medium height. When she arrived in France, she was a little too stout, and her face was a little ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... but the effect was to set Vera into crying out at every one being so intolerably cross about such a trifle, ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... bounty of education and nurture of father and mother, and paid no heed to the virtue of precept and injunction of teachers and friends, with the result that I incurred the punishment, of failure recently in the least trifle, and the reckless waste of half my lifetime. There have been meanwhile, generation after generation, those in the inner chambers, the whole mass of whom could not, on any account, be, through my influence, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... gold are valuable, men say," says Archbishop Leighton, in his masterly Commentary on Peter; and the veriest trifle from the pen of such a writer as Charles Lamb should be highly prized by all readers that are readers. Therefore I think it would be unwise in me not to print Elia's Postscript to his "Chapter on Ears," and his Answers to Correspondents. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... and gladly, if I could have promised her a position," Murdoch explained, "but I could not do that, as I knew nothing of your plans, and a girl can't afford to trifle with her ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... that you should not go to the picnic. Chouteau's Pond is beyond the stockade, and shut in by the woods; it would be an ideal spot for a surprise and a capture. There are always plenty of rascally Osages to be hired for a trifle to carry out ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... another kind of service which was not of a truth servitude, although it appeared to be such. It was generally seen among certain persons called cabalangay. Whenever such persons wanted any small trifle, they begged the head chief of their barangay for it, and he gave it to them. In return, whenever he summoned them they were obliged to go to him to work in his fields or to row in his boats. Whenever a feast or banquet was given, then they all came together and helped furnish ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... lose sight of. overlook, disregard; pass over, pas by; let pass; blink; wink at, connive at; gloss over; take no note of, take no thought of, take no account of, take no notice of; pay no regard to; laisser aller[Fr]. scamp; trifle, fribble[obs3]; do by halves; cut; slight &c. (despise) 930; play with, trifle with; slur, skim, skim the surface; effleurer [Fr]; take a cursory view of &c. 457. slur over, skip over, jump over, slip over; pretermit[obs3], miss, skip, jump, omit, give the go-by ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... time, the allowance stopped; the lawyer had no explanation to offer; nobody came to look after her; nobody wrote. The Oldershaws saw her, and thought she might answer to exhibit; and the woman parted with her for a trifle to the Oldershaws; and the Oldershaws parted with her for good and all to the Blanchards. That's the story of her birth, parentage, and education! She may be the daughter of a duke, or the daughter of a costermonger. The circumstances may be highly romantic, or utterly commonplace. Fancy ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... 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 ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... posturings. After years spent in this work, my aged friend became so used to his job that he did it automatically, and scarcely gave a thought to the boy at the top. One warm day, however, he carried his indifference a trifle too far, and dropped into a quiet nap, from which he woke only to find that the pole was falling and had already gone too far to be recovered, but the agility of the boy saved him from injury. As my knowledge of Japanese is limited ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... failure with the coffee, she made it a trifle strong and boiled the milk that should temper without cooling it. The biscuits rose like her own spirits, the omelet speedily began to take on color like her own flushed face as she busied herself about ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... The only ticklish part of the trip to the Belgian outposts was working our way through the villages which had been mined in anticipation of a German invasion. It is bad enough working one's way through there in a motor with everybody helping you to keep out of harm's way, but it must be a trifle worse to do it in a mass with a man on a hill a little way off waiting for you to come up to the signal post so that he can touch a button and send you in small pieces into ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... indicated by Big Pete as the landing place of the phenomenal jumper might possibly have offered a foothold for a bighorn or goat, but I could not believe that any human being could jump twenty feet to a crumbling trifle of a ledge on the face of a precipice, and not only retain a foothold there, but run up the face of the rock like a fly on a window-pane. Yet I could see that something had worn the ledge at the point ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... exposures, negatives may be made with almost exactly the same density in each quarter, and by cutting out slightly less than one-quarter of the mat the four images will be separated by black lines in the print; by cutting out a trifle more than the exact quarter, they will be separated by white ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... of evident effort to maintain her part, grew a trifle silent. As I regarded her I was reminded of a white dove in the company of a pair of peacocks. The Philosopher adjusted his eyeglasses from time to time as if they did not fit well; he seemed to feel his vision growing distorted. I became intensely fatigued with it all, and ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... petty things they are we wonder at, like children that esteem every trifle, and prefer a fairing before their fathers! What difference is between us and them but that we are dearer fools, coxcombs at a higher rate? They are pleased with cockleshells, whistles, hobby-horses, and such like; we with statues, marble pillars, pictures, gilded roofs, where underneath is ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... adequate expression of his love. The intervals of his devotion were passed in idle boasting, and to me he detailed every incident. There was something really touching in the abject way in which he mentioned each trifle concerning her. Little circumstances connected with her daily life were described as one would describe the traits of some rare animal. His career of degradation seemed to have blunted every idea of responsibility. He looked ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... as he was in the street he remembered that he had not pulled-to the garden door of the house. "Dash the confounded thing!" he exploded, returning. But he was not really annoyed. He would not have been really annoyed even if he had had to return from half-way down Trafalgar Road. Everything was a trifle save that a girl had run after him under such romantic circumstances. The circumstances were not strictly romantic, but they so ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... laid beside Julia; she shifted her sore body just a trifle to make room, and spread weak fingers to raise the blanket from the baby's face. A little crumpled rose leaf of a face, a shock of soft black hair, and two tiny hands that curved warmly against Julia's investigating finger. All the rest was ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... then quickly vanished. She evidently dreaded a meeting with her refractory teacher. Well she might, for there sat Christal—but I will tell you all minutely. You see how I try to note down every trifle, ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... deceiving him as to its value? The old man, whose business made him a good judge, decided that the ring was not worth less than two hundred and fifty dollars, and if he could get it into his possession for a trifle, it would be a ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... San Francisco, which covers a trifle over 42 square miles of territory, has an ocean beach extending for three miles on its western boundary and overlooked by automobile highways. Street cars, starting at the Ferry Building, arrive at the beach after ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood
... stories in my own way; after all, they are my stories. And I shall tell the stories that appeal to me most. The universe has had enough and too much of dry history; these shall be adventurous tales to make the blood of a young man who reads them run a trifle faster—and perhaps the blood of the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... after a moment's hesitation, "that is exactly what I am doing. When I was a girl, my brothers and sisters and I used to discuss the question of the sovereignty of the will. Most of us believed in it devoutly. We regarded circumstance as an annoying trifle, that no person who respected himself would allow to stand in his way. I want to try that theory and see what comes ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... if Henry George had been a trifle more astute in the laws of literary supply and demand, he could and would have anticipated the result, even in spite of the natural prejudice which an author always feels for ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... gravely on her slim, small figure. He was a man of forty, with a high but well-shaped head, on which the hair, still dense, but prematurely grizzled, had been cropped close. He had a fine, narrow, extremely modelled and composed face, of which the only fault was just this effect of its running a trifle too much to points; an appearance to which the shape of the beard contributed not a little. This beard, cut in the manner of the portraits of the sixteenth century and surmounted by a fair moustache, of which the ends had a romantic upward flourish, gave its wearer a foreign, traditionary ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... him, first enjoining him to silence. To her relief, also to her surprise, he took it very calmly. His face went a shade whiter beneath his sun-tanned skin; he stood a trifle more erect than before; ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... my name on the title-page of this trifle from principle. My pen-children are all mine, and I cannot think of disowning one, though it may happen to be born hump-backed. But I beg of you, gentlest of unfortunate readers, not to take DAISY'S NECKLACE ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Mr Harrel, "it is high time now to give up this reserve, and trifle no longer with a gentleman so unexceptionable as Sir Robert Floyer. The whole town has long acknowledged him as your husband, and you are every where regarded as his bride, a little frankness, therefore, in accepting him, will not only bind him to you for ever, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... a trifle for a beginning; those royalties may be worth several hundred thousand. In the 'Times Magazine' article that I read about Godfrey Vandeford and his plays, it said he had paid the author of 'Dear Geraldine' more than a hundred thousand dollars in royalties. ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... week's cleaning and baking. John had the uncomfortable feeling of a man who knows himself in the way. He had only loitered around in order to see Denas and be sure that all was well with his girl. Then he was a trifle disappointed that she had not brought him his weekly paper. He went silently off to the boats, and Denas was annoyed and reproved by his patient look of disappointment. Women who are cleaning and baking are often, what is called by people less troublesomely employed, ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Mr. Le Mesurier hurriedly, 'there's no reason that I know of why you shouldn't have asked him, except that it's surely a trifle unusual, isn't it? You don't know him ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... the unerring instinct of an old Indian fighter, Gillis, during that first mad retreat, had discovered temporary shelter behind one of the largest bowlders. It was a trifle in advance of those later rolled into position by the soldiers, but was of a size and shape which should have afforded ample protection for two, and doubtless would have done so had it not been for the firing from the cliff opposite. Even then it was a deflected bullet, glancing from off the polished ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... "wish the horse was led by some other officer. For my part, if I could only be covered by a troop now and then, I could do many an important piece of service to the cause, to which this capture of the peddler would be a trifle." ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... part of that debt which carries interest. But when the public is to be represented in a miserable condition, and the consequences of the late war to be laid before us in dreadful colors, then we are to be told that the unfunded debt is within a trifle of ten millions, and so large a portion of it carries interest that we must not compute less than 3 per cent ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... great country where they have replaced alcohol by sugar, and where (perhaps in consequence) heroines of such super-sentimentality as Daidie Grattan have no terrors for them. Personally I found her and her exploits on burning ships, besieged mills and the like a trifle sticky. For the rest you have some interesting details of the workings of the paper industry; a style that to the unfamiliar eye is at times startling (as when, on page 282, the hero's head "snapped erect"); and lots and lots of love. As for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... heat and stifling air, worked steadily alone in the dusty office, the cold, homely face bent over the books, never changing but once. It was a trifle then; yet, when she looked back afterwards, the trifle was all that gave the day a name. The room shook, as I said, with the thunderous, incessant sound of the engines and the looms; she scarcely heard it, being used to it. Once, however, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... only a trifle; he starts, and discovers, before he has made a mile, that his beast cannot possibly go on; so he returns to the farm, and is there detained, for a week perhaps, until his horse is fit ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... men when it has become a "crusade for righteousness." Part of Theodore Roosevelt's power was in his picturesque phrasing of political issues as if they were great moral struggles. No one could forget, or fail to have his heart beat a trifle faster at Roosevelt's trumpet call in the 1912 campaign: "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." His "Big Stick" became a potent political symbol. Astute political leaders have not failed to ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... race, from peasant girls to empresses, and from shepherd lads to omnipotent tyrants, have known, to some extent, the sadness and the joy of the love token. The ballad that the lover-poet addressed to one who was "just a porcelain trifle, just a thing of puffs and patches," but who was, just the same, his adored—the ballad love token pleased even that unemotional doll. "And you kept it and you read it, belle Marquise!" Silly or ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... trifle impatiently, and in response to his bidding the door opened and a small boy entered the room dragging after him a long rifle. Suddenly overcome by a speechless shyness, he paused on the threshold to stare with round, ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... about a trifle! It reminds us of the story of a Jew who had a sneaking inclination for a certain meat prohibited by his creed. One day the temptation to partake was too strong; he slipped into a place of refreshment and ordered some sausages. The weather happened ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... its motto, and one befitting an old capital of King and Commons, both in continual strife with the feudal nobles, "Pro Rege, Lege, et Grege." Here then, plain upon this apparent arbitrarily levised trifle, this petty provincial money-token, this poor bawbee, that is, this coin not only of the very humblest order, but proverbially sordid at that, we find clearly set down, long generations ago, the whole [Page:99] four-fold analysis and synthesis of ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... like the noxious weed it is. When Rubinstein, Tausig and Liszt played Chopin in passional phrases, the public and critics were aghast. This was a transformed Chopin indeed, a Chopin transposed to the key of manliness. Yet it is the true Chopin. The young man's manners were a trifle feminine but his brain was masculine, electric, and his soul courageous. His Polonaises, Ballades, Scherzi and Etudes need a mighty grip, a grip ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... States Senate,—I make no such hypocritical pretense; but I do say to you that in this mighty issue it is nothing to you—nothing to the mass of the people of the nation,—whether or not Judge Douglas or myself shall ever be heard of after this night; it may be a trifle to either of us, but in connection with this mighty question, upon which hang the destinies of the nation, perhaps, it is absolutely nothing: but where will you be placed if you reindorse Judge Douglas? Don't you know how apt he is, how exceedingly anxious he ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... attractive. Like the candle inside a Chinese lantern, it may serve to light up and show to advantage the pretty devices outside. But the outside is the important thing, and the inside only incidental. Insipidity of mind is perhaps a trifle objectionable, because there are a few young men of property who dislike insipidity, and who therefore might be lost from the toils in consequence. It is a crotchet and an eccentricity in a man to desire ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... expression, of the age of the Georges, masking a power of imaginative impersonation probably unknown in Shakespeare's day. Edward Burbage, like Shakespeare's own portrait, is, we venture to think, a trifle stolid. Field—Nathaniel Field, author of The Fatal Dowry, and an actor of reputation—in his singular costume, and with a face of perhaps not quite reassuring subtlety, might pass for the original of those Italian, or Italianized, voluptuaries in sin ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... charity-school and old men's hospital, and afterwards stepped into a large Roman Catholic church, erected within these few years past, and closely imitating the mediaeval architecture and arrangements. It is strange what a plaything, a trifle, an unserious affair, this imitative spirit makes of a huge, ponderous edifice, which if it had really been built five hundred years ago would have been worthy of all respect. I think the time must soon come when this sort of thing will be held in utmost scorn, until the lapse of time shall ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... or reputation. And, moreover, he feared that his plain, democratic manners and principles—which he scorned to alter for anyone—would be but ill-suited to the courtly life of Versailles. For it must be owned that Mr. Jefferson's democracy, like his learning, was a trifle ostentatious, and became more so as he grew older. Surely, though, such blemishes are not incompatible with greatness of character, but only serve to make a great man more lovable and human. And ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... voyage of Captain Cook, which he desired me to present in his name to the commander; who being an enthusiast in every thing relating to discoveries, received it with a satisfaction which shewed, that, though a trifle, nothing could have been more acceptable. Captain Clerke had likewise entrusted me with a discretionary power of shewing him a chart of the discoveries made in the present voyage; and as I judged that a person in his situation, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... kept the fleece while a portion of the body has been in the pot! Lie there, poor Straight-Horns, if quiet thou canst be after such strange butchery. Reuben, I paid thee, as the sun rose, a Spanish piece in silver, for the trifle of debt that lay between us, in behalf of the good turn thou didst the shoes, which were none the better for the last hunt in the hills. Hast ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... in England, is said by Jacobite tradition to have most frequently climbed James's cellar stair! Cumberland speaks of 'the goodness of the intelligence' now offered to the Government. 'On my part, I bear it witness, for I never knew it fail me in the least trifle, and have had very material and early notices from it. How far the price may agree with our present saving schemes I don't know, but good intelligence ought not to be lightly thrown ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... think, sir, you were saying somewhat about'—pausing in a high flutter of expectation. The gentleman provoked at his inordinate vanity resolved not to indulge it, and with an exquisitely sly air of indifference answered, 'A mere trifle, sir; not worth repeating.' The mortification of Richardson was visible, and he did not speak ten words more the whole day. Dr. Johnson was present, and appeared to ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... stripped her of everything she possessed, as a stake to speculate with, and had abandoned her in her poverty for evermore, with no touch of compunction. Miss Pross's fidelity of belief in Solomon (deducting a mere trifle for this slight mistake) was quite a serious matter with Mr. Lorry, and had its weight in his good ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... Vanilla cream Raspberry cream Strawberry cream Cocoa nut cream Chocolate cream Oyster cream Iced jelly Peach cream Coffee cream Quince cream Citron cream Almond cream Lemon cream Lemonade iced To make custard To make a trifle Rice ...
— The Virginia Housewife • Mary Randolph
... truth of it is, There are wicked and abominable laws which will be in your power to alter," he said to one of his Parliaments on Sept. 17th, 1656. "To hang a man for Six-and-eight-pence, and I know not what; to hang for a trifle and acquit murder,—is in the ministration of the Law, through the ill framing of it. I have known in my experience abominable murders acquitted. And to see men lose their lives for petty matters: this is a thing God will reckon for. And I wish it may not lie upon ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... if you please. You can talk coolly, because in regard to such matters you are cool, and, I may add, a trifle cold. Ambition is your mistress, and a musty law-book has more attractions for you than any woman living. I'm not so tempered. I am subject to the general law of nature, and a woman's love and sympathy are essential to success ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... support of his family, without return; for the customers, after playing off this cruel joke upon the old man, had never come back; and now, for seven years, the bottle had stood in a corner of the cupboard. To be sure, the silver-cased bottle was worth a trifle for its silver, and still more, perhaps, as an antiquarian knick- knack. But, all things considered, the honest and simple apothecary thought that he might make free with the liquid to such small extent as was necessary for himself. And there had been something ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a trifle, as if to settle himself better for the desperate work that faced him, he remained just as before, ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... says Governor Ford, "and everything from abroad was paid for by the borrowed money expended among us." Not only upon the railroads, but on the canal as well, the work was begun on a magnificent scale. Nine millions of dollars were thought to be a mere trifle in view of the colossal sum expected to be realized from the sale of canal lands, three hundred thousand acres of which had been given by the general Government. There were rumors of coming trouble, and of an unhealthy condition of the banks; but it was considered disloyal to look too curiously ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... the sound of their voices in the garden behind her, the girl's light chatter, her companion's brief, cynical laugh. For she knew by the sure intuition which is a woman's inner and unerring vision, that jest or trifle as he might his keen brain was actively employed in some subtle investigation too obscure for her to fathom, and that behind his badinage and behind his cynicism there sat a man ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... me. It was a trifle bombastic, and its composition appeared to me vague. No wonder it had roused hostility among his colleagues, I thought, as Sarakoff walked about, declaiming with outstretched arm. Put as briefly as ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... himself from the waist upwards, and snatching up the rope he began to lay on and Don Quixote to count the lashes. He might have given himself six or eight when he began to think the joke no trifle, and its price very low; and holding his hand for a moment, he told his master that he cried off on the score of a blind bargain, for each of those lashes ought to be paid for at the rate of half a real instead ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... miles, but Fred did not mind that. The prize for which he was striving was too great for him to shrink from such a trifle ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... immense amount of material she has to supply for her daily-renewed webs, her home, and her cocoon, all which have actually to be spun out of the assimilated food-stuffs in her own body; to say nothing of the additional necessity imposed upon her by nature for laying a trifle of six or seven hundred eggs in a single summer. And, to tell the truth, Lucy and Eliza seemed to us to be always eating. No matter at what hour one looked in upon them, they were pretty constantly engaged in devouring some inoffensive ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... from the mainland, containing about twenty persons, more than half of whom were women and children. They brought a little oil, some skin dresses, and tusks of the walrus, which they were willing to exchange for any trifle we chose to give them. They had also a number of toys of various kinds, such as canoes with their paddles, spears, and bows and arrows, all on a very large scale. Many of the jackets of these people, and particularly those of the females, were lined with ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... miserable negroes of the sugar plantations, which are a disgrace to humanity, as they were in colour. The censurable toleration of pederasty, for which one chiefly reproaches the morality of the ancients, is a trifle compared with the Christian horrors I have cited, and is not so rare among people of to-day as it appears to be. Can you then, taking everything into consideration, maintain that humanity has really become morally better ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... stains of travel, and had put on my best frock, and Dance was pleased to say that I looked very nice, "though, perhaps, a trifle more old-fashioned than a girl of your age ought to look." Then she laid down a few rules for my guidance when in the presence of Lady Chillington, and led the way to the Green Saloon, I following ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... 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 ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... the good fortune on the morning of this first Jubilee day to view the interior of the Coliseum when there was scarcely anybody there,—a trifle of ten thousand singers at one end, and a few thousand other people scattered about over the wide expanses of parquet and galleries. The decorations within, as without, were a pleasure to the eyes that love ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... received during an air-fight, and whose grey eyes had the keen, piercing, and yet dreamy look of the genuine bird-man, was sufficiently a hero to prove undeniably attractive. Tim was courteous and kind, but from the height of his five-and-twenty years a trifle condescending, and indeed he was wishing within himself that "Mum wouldn't fill the house with ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... person meets with disrespect, he is spoken of as one that is dead though alive. This king hath always been respected by thee and by Bhima and the twins, as also by all heroes and all persons in the world that are venerable for years. In some trifle then show him disrespect. Therefore, O Partha, address this Yudhishthira as 'thou' when his usual form of address is 'your honour.' A superior, O Bharata, by being addressed as 'thou,' is killed though ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... trifle, brother, touch you nearer Than is becoming. You know I have often Won the same sum of you at chess, and, as I have not just at present need of money, I've left the sum at rest in Hafi's chest, Which is not over-full; and thus the stakes ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... as ten times? And now that you know my will, instead of standing here squabbling over a trifle, I recommend you to give me my half, or you will soon see a fight. Do you think you can do ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... have to admit it—I found them just a trifle disappointing. Franklin, poor fellow, has apparently lost his wit. The spirit of Lincoln seemed to me to have none of that homely wisdom that he used to have. And it appears that we were quite mistaken in thinking Disraeli a brilliant man; it is clear ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... there is no doubt that it was agreed between the witnesses to swear that the negroes were free? This they might easily do, for there is no question but they told him so; and to swear it was but a trifle, when absolution can be got so cheap. It does not stand to reason, that slaves, who are in hopes of getting their freedom, would acknowledge themselves to be slaves. Do not their complexion and features ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... contented, and that my statements were untrue; they refused. "You had spoke up for us," explained one, "and we weren't going back on you." A girl, pitched on as their leader, was threatened with dismissal; she stood firm; next day she was discharged for some trifle, and they all threw down their work, some 1,400 of them, and then a crowd of them started off to me to ask what to do next. If we ever worked in our lives, Herbert Burrows and I worked for the next fortnight. And a pretty hubbub ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... without delay, for my fears of recapture quite unmanned me, making me needlessly dread any intercourse with strangers. Having thus resolved to leave Warrington I bade goodbye to my kind landlady, giving her a trifle over her demand, and then shaped my way to the northward. I went to several towns, large and small, and stayed in Manchester a week, where I sold what I made very readily. My supposed infirmities excited general commiseration ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... eye, at least, the figure was not shrunken. It was that of a man still young, and of a handsome face and much distinction of bearing. The dress was perfect in its quiet elegance; the air of the man composed,—a trifle sad, a trifle mocking. Haward snapped his fingers at the reflection. "The portrait of a gentleman," he said, ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... sir," said Charles Fischko emphatically, albeit a trifle thickly. "I guess you made a big hit there, Mr. Kapfer, and I don't think I am acting previously when I drink to the health of Mrs. Kapfer." He touched glasses with Max Kapfer, who sat opposite to him at ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... going to whistle, and his chin had the look of having been pushed back out of the way, a stiff fuzz of sandy whiskers made a hedge down either cheek, and but for that he was clean shaven. The skin over his high cheek bones was stretched smooth and tight as if it were a trifle too close a fit for the genial cushion beneath. He did not look brilliant, and he certainly was not handsome, but there was an inoffensive desire to please about him. He was introduced as Mr. Lemuel Skinner. He bowed low over Marcia's hand, said a few embarrassed, stiff sentences ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... he encountered Feder's visitor, who wore an air of furtive apprehension characteristic of a man making his initial visit to a pawn shop. Noblestone waited on the bench outside for perhaps ten minutes, when Mr. Feder's visitor emerged, a trifle ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... timidly, for her bashfulness made him a trifle bashful in return. "I should like to very much—for more reasons than one;" and he looked at her meaningly. "I'm getting tired, in some ways, of life abroad. I'd much prefer to come back now and settle down ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... spur cut from the guest variety. On one of these young hickories you observe I made three slice grafts and all of them have taken with a very thrifty growth of the Taylor variety. One point of importance, I believe, is to have the slice from the guest variety a trifle smaller than the slice from the host stock. The guest slice is bound firmly to the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... wearisome, and we may gape during the most fervent prayer, but I gad, John, there is always the freshness of youth in a mint julep. Pour just a few more drops of liquor into mine, if you please—want it to rassle me a trifle, you know. Recollect those come-all ye songs we used to sing, going down the river? Remember the time I snatched the sword out of my cane and lunged at a horse trader from Tennessee? Scoundrel grabbed it and broke it off and it was all I could do to keep him from establishing a close ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... enough to own, might have been better—who knows? She did not disguise from herself that Terence had faults. She was inclined to think him too easy and tolerant, just as he was inclined to think her perhaps a trifle hard—no, it was rather that she was uncompromising. In some ways she found St. John preferable; but then, of course, he would never have suited Rachel. Her friendship with St. John was established, for although she fluctuated between irritation and interest in a way ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... with real characters, individuals, human beings, it is a good deal after the fashion of our old playwrights, and does not disgrace its models. I was delighted with it; it is full of life and originality; a little long, but that's a trifle. There is a want of clearness and coherence in the plot, and the comic part has really no necessary connection with the rest of the piece; but none of that will signify much, or, I think, prevent it from succeeding. I like the woman's part exceedingly, but am afraid I ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... do not belong to an organization of any kind; each buys and sells for himself; he has his property there in that tin box, and if nobody is going to rob him what is frightening him? Why is he pale and trembling? Why does he run and shout and weep, and ask people to give him a trifle, only a trifle, for all he possesses ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... presume, I ween, To trifle with this hirsute wonder, Else would I rise in vengeful mien And rend his ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... only member of our family who could be described as a trifle 'common,' she would always take care to remark to strangers, when Swann was mentioned, that he could easily, if he had wished to, have lived in the Boulevard Haussmann or the Avenue de l'Opera, and that he was the son of old M. Swann who must have ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... said Aunt Jo kindly, "is to give you a letter to a Mr. Burbank, an excellent wizard of my acquaintance. He has recently invented a skinless grape and a watermelon that is all heart, and is quite the cleverest man in the business. Such a trifle as changing a pig into a horse will give him no trouble whatever. Have you ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... with me, boy," the little lady replied, a trifle haughty also. "I am not to be called 'little one' by such a mite as you. See! I am taller ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... more funny than this ridiculous little man's conviction—his dogmatic tone. Bunter would go on swinging up and down the poop like a deliberate, dignified pendulum. He said not a word. But the poor fellow had not a trifle on his conscience, as you know; and to have imbecile ghosts rammed down his throat like this on top of his own worry nearly drove him crazy. He knew that on many occasions he was on the verge of lunacy, because he could ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... bit of trouble, sir. It was a matter of a sovereign or going to gaol. He's only a youngster, and the prison smell sticks. Trust folk for nosing it out. He's got a chance now, and will be sending his mother a trifle presently." ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... remarks or marginal directions, such as every editor has added at his will, and often by comments more laborious than the matter will seem to deserve; but that which is most difficult is not always most important, and to an editor nothing is a trifle by which ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... cares about is to get a good rent out of the pay. They're asked every little while by honest folks 'on't they build a trifle o' small houses beyond the church up there, but no, they'd rather the money and kape us like bees in them old hives. Sure in winter we're better for having the more fires, but ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... government will lightly estimate the efforts which may be inspired by such frenzied fanaticism as exists among the Mormons in Utah. This is the first rebellion which has existed in our Territories, and humanity itself requires that we should put it down in such a manner that it shall be the last. To trifle with it would be to encourage it and to render it formidable. We ought to go there with such an imposing force as to convince these deluded people that resistance would be vain, and thus spare the effusion of blood. We can in this manner best convince them that we are their ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... public. The place is eminently religious. Cork is the Isle of Saints—with a port and a garrison to enhance its sanctity. At certain seasons a big trade is done in candles, on which names are written, which being blessed and burnt have powerful influence in the heavenly courts. It costs a trifle to hallow the tallow, but no matter. A friend has seen a muddy little well, which is fine for sore eyes. Offerings of old bottles and little headless images were planted around, but the favourite gift was a pin, stuck in the ground by way of fee. Jolly Mr. Whicker, of Dublin, who represents ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... or not, it is certain that the gallery had. All the evening they had been stewing in an atmosphere like that of the inner room of a Turkish bath, and they were ready for anything. It needed but a trifle to set them off. The lilt of that unspeakable Yankee melody supplied that trifle. Kay's malcontents, huddled in their seats by the window, were the first to break out. Feet began to stamp in time to the music—softly at first, then more ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... martyr legs—were more than consoled by thick chequered stockings, "thin in the foot, thick in the leg," for all they had endured. A neat packet of American cloth behind the saddle contained his change of raiment, and the bell and the handle-bar and the hubs and lamp, albeit a trifle freckled by wear, glittered blindingly in the rising sunlight. And at the top of the hill, after only one unsuccessful attempt, which, somehow, terminated on the green, Hoopdriver mounted, and with a stately and cautious restraint in his pace, and a dignified curvature of path, ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... nodded again, a trifle less phlegmatically. Perhaps Pete's eyes had begun to gleam,—such a gleam as the ptarmigan sees in the eyes of the little weasel, ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... seen to say that this armorial bearing was a strange one to him. He turned the letter over and over again, and looked at it back and front, with an expression in his face that said, as plain as countenance could speak, "I'd give a trifle to know what is inside of this." He looked at the seal again: "Here's a—goose, I think it is, sitting on a bowl with cross-bars on it, and a spoon in its mouth: like the fellow that owns it, may be. A goose with ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... to feel a trifle diffident as they approached the stranger who was seated in a wheeled chair in a corner ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... dressed she went out into her little drawing-room, and found the Duke looking more sunburnt and healthy than ever, though a trifle thinner. The rough active Western life always agreed with him. He came forward with a ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... clear and distinct. Some of the eggs are miniatures of some types of Pyctorhis sinensis, but many recall the eggs of the Titmouse. They are much about the size of those of Parus caeruleus and P. palustris, but a trifle less broad than either of these. The ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... chiefly, now, from the livers of fish caught by his grandson. With so many sources of income, no one wondered at his getting on. Indeed no one would have been surprised to hear, long before Malcolm had begun to earn anything, that the old man had already laid by a trifle. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... realized that it was a case of judgment, as well as physical haste. We had dropped into that six-foot pit. Had we waited a few moments longer, the depth would have been a hundred feet, two hundred, a thousand! It would have involved hours of arduous descent—if we had lingered until we were a trifle smaller! ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... several thousand parasangs to the rear in my mad race for daily sustenance. Well, I may not leave any vestiges on the sands of time, but, please God, I shan't die hungry,—not if I keep my health. Dear old Prexy! He was a nice old chump, though a trifle ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... of a union which was to consign to his charge the happiness of another, and feeling all that he should owe in such a marriage to the confidence both of niece and uncle, he evinced steadier principles than he had ever made manifest when he had only his own fortune to mar, and his own happiness to trifle with. He joined his old companions, but he kept aloof from their more dissipated pursuits. Beyond what was then thought the venial error of too devout libations to Bacchus, Charley Vernon ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Lord Reggie. "Nothing is really worth much till it is a trifle stale. A soul that is fresh is hardly a soul at all. Sensations give the grain to the wood, the depth and dignity to the picture. No fruit is so worthless as the fruit with the bloom ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... and noble reticence distinguished her bray. It was one of which a less sagacious animal would have been foolishly vain or ostentatiously prodigal. It was a contralto of great compass and profundity—reaching from low G to high C—perhaps a trifle stronger in the lower register, and not altogether free from a nasal falsetto in the upper. Daring and brilliant as it was in the middle notes, it was perhaps more musically remarkable for its great sustaining power. The element of surprise always entered ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... his home. It is a big, neighbourless cottage on a hill surrounded by a hundred mountains. We got off at his little private station, where John's family and Amaryllis met and greeted us. Amaryllis looked at me a trifle anxiously. ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... done," replied Jerry, as he shoved the gasolene lever over a trifle, and advanced the spark, thereby increasing the speed of the car. "Noddy's got a ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... Two instances are indeed given, of male birds being rejected, which had lost their ornamental plumage; but in both cases (a widow-finch and a silver pheasant) the long tail-plumes are the indication of sexual maturity. Such cases do not support the idea that males with the tail-feathers a trifle longer, or the colours a trifle brighter, are generally preferred, and that those which are only a little inferior are as generally rejected,—and this is what is absolutely needed to establish the theory of ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... were only symptoms Of his childishness. Yesterday it was published that Mr. Pitt's terms were so extravagant, that the Duke of Newcastle could not comply with them—and would take the whole himself—perhaps leave some little trifle for Mr. Fox—to-day all is afloat again, and all negotiations to recommence. Pitt's demands were, that his grace should not meddle in the House of Commons, nor in the province of Secretary of State, but stick to the Treasury, and even there to be controlled by a majority of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... are doing well, my boy. You take little and often, you save, you even have the honesty to lend a trifle at interest. That's all right, but you cannot imagine what pleasure it gives me to see one of my old acquaintances filling an honorable position. You have succeeded in doing so; your faults are but negative and therefore ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... the editor had a right to say what he pleased. Packard had been an athlete in college, and his eyes gave out before his rule had been seriously disputed. After throwing sundry protesting malefactors downstairs, he resigned and undertook work a trifle less exacting across the Missouri River, on ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... his outstretched hand came across a bar of iron. It proved to be a half-closed grating, shutting out the entrance into the further portion of the passage, but he was not to be turned aside by such a trifle as this, and after much pushing and banging managed to raise it sufficiently to make it possible to scramble underneath. Norah followed in agile fashion, but hardly had she done so than there came the sound of a fall, ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... mainly the work of land sharks, railroads, hotel and sanitarium people, and a few medical men who were crafty or misguided. This climate may be ideal in being germ-free, but where it is so hot and dry that even germs can't eke out an existence, it is also a trifle trying on the tender-foot consumptive. I found that the bad water and sand-storms in many localities, coupled with his homesickness, more than off-set all the good results the climate could ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... my sister Jenny's advice, and particularly mentioned to her the name of Aristotle. She immediately told me, he was a very great scholar, and that she had read him at the boarding-school. She certainly means a trifle sold by the hawkers, called, "Aristotle's Problems." [1] But this raised a great scruple in me, whether a fame increased by imposition of others is to be added to his account, or that these excrescencies, which grow out of his real reputation, and give encouragement to others to pass ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... Luna as the Miran settled heavily, and a trifle clumsily to Phobos. Miran radio-beams were forcing their way out toward the Miran station on Europa, to be relayed to the headquarters on Jupiter, just as Solarian radio beams were thrusting through space toward Luna. Said the Miran messages: "Their ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... Cato sure, and give up Utica, Caesar will ne'er refuse thee such a trifle. But are thy troops prepared for a revolt? Does the sedition catch from man to man, And ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison
... coming to an abrupt halt, "you know that feller told us to wait for victuals, and I am uncommon disposed for them victuals; for, to say truth, the trifle of rice they gave us this mornin' was barely enough to satisfy an average rat. Better come back an' do as we're bid. Obedience, you know, is ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... Conscious of guilt, and fearful of the light, They lurk enshrouded in the vale of night; Safe from detection, seize the unwary prey, And stab, like bravoes, all who come that way. 60 When first my Muse, perhaps more bold than wise, Bade the rude trifle into light arise, Little she thought such tempests would ensue; Less, that those tempests would be raised by you. The thunder's fury rends the towering oak, Rosciads, like shrubs, might 'scape the fatal stroke. Vain thought! a critic's fury knows no bound; Drawcansir-like, he deals destruction ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill |
