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More "Trifling" Quotes from Famous Books



... ablaze with diamonds and other jewels, it is pleasant to think, that very few losses were sustained, and those were, generally, of trifling value. The only loss of any moment was that sustained by Prince Albert, from the girdle of whose gorgeous dress, is supposed to have dropped a valuable brilliant ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... trust will never be disturbed!—we draw a line. On one side of this line,' said Mr. Micawber, representing it on the desk with the office ruler, 'is the whole range of the human intellect, with a trifling exception; on the other, IS that exception; that is to say, the affairs of Messrs Wickfield and Heep, with all belonging and appertaining thereunto. I trust I give no offence to the companion of my youth, in submitting this ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... when I bear the treasure, Would you very angry be Should I keep a trifling measure That ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles

... first week the novelty has passed, and the money of some of the improvident families is running low. All are upon short allowance, the problem being to prolong life at the minimum of expense. The man goes without his meat, the mother without her tea, the children without the trifling, inexpensive luxuries with which parental fondness usually treated them. Before the end of the second week a good many are hungry, and the workers begin to pine for employment. Their muscles are as hungry for exercise as their stomachs are for food. The provision dealers are more and more cautious ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... felt there was to be no more trifling, and as I tore his side with my heel he broke at last into his great, fearful stride, and before we reached the lane Harry Dunn's black mare was straining every nerve lengths and lengths behind, and in three minutes more I stood ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... "But how earnest thou here?" "In my clothes." "From whence?" "From behind me." "Where art thou going?" "Before me." "Upon what dost thou travel?" "Upon the earth" Hyjauje, vexed at the pertness of the youth, exclaimed, "Quit this trifling, and inform me whence thou comest." "From Egypt." "Art thou from Cairo?" "Why askest thou?" said the boy? "Because," replied Hyjauje, "her sands are of gold, and her river Nile miraculously fruitful; but her women are wanton, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... last, however, Harvey paid but little attention, allowing the officers from Albany full charge of the case. He was on the trail of a murderer, and all else seemed of but trifling importance. ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis

... later, by the end of the year 1825, Dinah de la Baudraye was accused of not choosing to have any visitors but men; then it was said that she did not care for women—and that was a crime. Not a thing could she do, not her most trifling action, could escape criticism and misrepresentation. After making every sacrifice that a well-bred woman can make, and placing herself entirely in the right, Madame de la Baudraye was so rash as to say to a false friend who condoled with her on ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... him, a ceremony he performed very gracefully with great dignity. Then he offered me the six feet of sugar-cane, with the remark that it was a small, trifling gift, unworthy of my high-chief notice. I accepted it with a show of great joy and appreciation, though by a turn of the head one could see acres of sugar-cane growing on the ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... but I confess that this was regarded as a work of genius. The ordinary man in training eats only about twice as much as any sane person, or perhaps a little more; and as, of course, the system needs recuperating under the great strains that are put upon it, this trifling ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... Ion, some trifling gift to Molly often being the excuse, was sweet and gracious to all, but devoted herself especially to Violet, insisting on sharing her room when she staid over night, coaxing her out for long walks and drives, rowing with her on the lake, ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley

... should be paid to vested interests, but Grey firmly supported the private remonstrances of the king against such an act of confiscation. In fact, the savings recommended by the committee were so trifling that it was thought better to waive the question for the time, and the first economical essay of the new regime ended ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... that luxury, which custom had made a necessity, filled his daily life full of trifling annoyances and surprises which were often unpleasant and sometimes humorous; but the new and arid order of things kept him so busy that he had little time for the apathy, bitterness, or self-commiseration which, in linked sequence, ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... of this concession will be to enrich, improve, and develop her aptitude and aspiration to serve the high ideals of life and society. Woman will devote less time to dress, fashions, gossip and all the other petty and trifling things that are generally the subject of their conversation and will endeavor to study and discuss the more serious questions of ...
— The Woman and the Right to Vote • Rafael Palma

... summer sunshine. Beauty was his dream; he possessed natural taste, and had cultivated the same without judgment. His intricate disposition and extreme sensitiveness frightened him away from much effort at self-expression; yet not a few trifling scraps and shreds of lyric poetry had fallen from his pen in high moments. These, when the mood changed, he read again, and found dead, and usually destroyed. He was more easily discouraged than a child who sets out to tell its parent a story, and is all silence and shamefaced blushes ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... misery without believing in them: he has been like one busy picking shining stones in a mine, while there was a world dying of plague above him. I spoke, but he listened with scorn. I told him the studies he wished me to live for were either childish trifling—dead toys—or else they must be made warm and living by pulses that beat to worldly ambitions and fleshly lusts, for worldly ambitions and fleshly lusts made all the substance of the poetry and history he wanted me to bend my eyes ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... were Suras for the convenience of travellers, which people in England, when speaking of Eastern lands, call Caravanserais. These are generally open spaces, surrounded by mud walls, with sheds at their sides for people who are willing to pay a very trifling sum for the luxury of sleeping under cover, and, if they like, for having their horses near them. Carts and oxen are always in the open. Sellers of grain and wood are always there with everything native travellers require. ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... very serious loss. As to the Americans themselves, though they complained very loudly, vowing they would bring an action against the river, the steamboats, against every boat, and every thing, for I don't know how many millions of dollars, their losses were very trifling, as it is the custom for a man in the Western States to carry all his money in his pocket-book, and his pocket-book in his pocket; as to luggage, he never has any except a small valise, two feet long, in which are contained a shirt, two bosoms, three ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... cover a multitude of other people's sins and it covered those of Phineas. The latter was to be pitied; as to fearing him, as a consequence of his threat to "get square," Jed never thought of such a thing. If he felt any anxiety at all in the matter it was a trifling uneasiness because his friends, the Hunniwells and the Armstrongs, were included in the threat. But he was inclined to consider Mr. Babbitt's wrath as he had once estimated the speech of a certain Ostable candidate for political office, to be "like a tumbler of ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... Grey's which had become part of his pupil's spiritual endowment, and which was perpetually present to him at this crisis of his life, in the spirit, if not in the letter—'Conviction is the Conscience of the Mind.' And with this intellectual conscience he was no more capable of trifling than ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... prompt substitution of employments, I found I had effectually changed places with the cabin-boy; who, instead of waiting on me, was, in future, to receive that trifling attention at my hands. The mates were presented as two rear-admirals at nurse, and the crew was said to be composed of so many post-captains in the navy of Great Britain. To conclude, the audience was given ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... through all their manners reign; Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain; Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue; And e'en ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... from the very height they have fallen. Our enthusiasm for genius or virtue is thus turned into a jest by the very person who has kindled it, and who thus fatally quenches the sparks of both. It is not that Lord Byron is sometimes serious and sometimes trifling, sometimes profligate, and sometimes moral—but when he is most serious and most moral, he is only preparing to mortify the unsuspecting reader by putting a pitiful hoax upon him. This is a most unaccountable anomaly. It ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... new and delightful; and it must have been true, because my informant was a quiet, slow-spoken man of the West, who refrained from laughing at me. I have met very few people who could do that. Next day all the idleness and trifling were at an end, and my friends conveyed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 23, 1892 • Various

... Theodosia and Constance and Winifred, the Pacific does not live up to its name. However, if I could transport my people, chloroformed and by rapid transit, to Greece, I would beg of them to journey from Athens to Patras by rail; and if that exquisite experience did not smooth away all trifling difficulties and make each wish to be the one to apologize first, then I would mark them as doomed from the beginning, by their own insensate and unappreciative natures, as destined to finish their honeymoon ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... to whose desire for harmony we now bear witness; but to every controversy will apply the truth that there are no international controversies so serious that they cannot be settled peaceably if both parties really desire peaceable settlement, while there are few causes of dispute so trifling that they cannot be made the occasion of war if either party really desires war. The matters in dispute between nations are nothing; the spirit which ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root

... Constitution, who is the most eloquent of the Americans, and stands, in politics, next to Burke: "The Parliament of Great Britain asserted a right to tax the Colonies in all cases whatsoever; and it was precisely on this question that they made the Revolution turn. The amount of taxation was trifling, but the claim itself was inconsistent with liberty, and that was in their eyes enough. It was against the recital of an act of Parliament, rather than against any suffering under its enactment, that they took up arms. ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... fat girl all scarred by small-pox, and our dairymaid, who was blind of an eye, agreed, one fine day, to throw themselves at my mother's feet and accuse the Frenchman of trifling with their ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin

... satire is nothing less than a quarto volume, resembling, in its form and manner, the Philosophical Transactions themselves; printed as if for the convenience of members to enable them to bind the "Review" with the work reviewed. Voluminous pleasantry incurs the censure of that tedious trifling which it designs to expose. In this literary facetia, however, no inconsiderable knowledge is interspersed with the ridicule. Perhaps Hill might have recollected the successful attempts of Stubbe on the Royal Society, who contributed that curious knowledge ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... "They have rarely been able to resist the fatal facility of the instrument, and have usually addressed themselves to winning the applause of concert audiences by the execution of those brilliant but utterly trifling and inane variations which constitute the great body of existing solos for the flute."* He fretted because "the flute had been the black beast in the orchestra." With his mastery of its technique and his own marvelous ability to bring ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... the facility of casting shells in America, determined me finally to substitute six inch howitzers of French calibre. Experience has proved, on a comparison of their effects with those of the larger sized howitzers, that the difference is trifling, and that the former will answer all the purposes of the latter, while their proportions render them more manageable, and economise ammunition. The French artillerists, enlightened by this discovery, have determined the reform ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... State of the future a few hours' work every day will give boundless prosperity to all, for "Wealth may easily be made as plentiful as water at the expense of trifling toil."[355] "Under Socialism, nineteen-twentieths of the people will be better off materially than they are to-day, for they will be equal partners in all the productive and distributive wealth of the community."[356] "Comparative ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... value of the daily product of the weakest worker. These sums, compared with one hundred dollars, would give us the exact difference between the strongest and the weakest, under the favorable co-operative conditions, existing at Solaris. A difference, so trifling as to be scarcely worthy of consideration, only one-fourth of one per cent. What think you, George! Where now is the injustice of equal wages? Remember, when justice is done, the ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... take life seriously, and to take a cure at sixty-five and regret that one did not have more pleasure in youth is, forgive my saying so, trifling. ...
— The Sea-Gull • Anton Checkov

... life, but it will place you above the risk of the contingencies of fortune in this country. I wish for no thanks," he said, with a wave of his hand as Hector was about to speak. "I have given more for the most trifling favours. I now bid you adieu, and doubt not that I shall hear that you and your regiment have greatly distinguished yourselves in the east, where hostilities will in all probability shortly be commenced. You had ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... are guilty of in pursuing the trade? No—you stir up the harmless Africans to war, and stain their fields with blood: you keep constant hostile ferment in their territories, in order to procure captives for your uses; some you purchase with a few trifling articles, and waft to distant shores to be made the instruments of grandeur, pride ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole

... will contest things apparently decided by sense and experience, or who disavows clear principles of reason, approved by general consent and the common sense of men, what other hopeful way is there of proceeding with him, than pleasantly to explode his conceits? To dispute seriously with him were trifling; to trifle with him is the proper course. Since he rejecteth the grounds of reasoning, 'tis vain to be in earnest; what then remains but to jest with him? To deal seriously were to yield too much respect to such a baffler, and too much weight to his fancies; to raise the man too high in ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... about his travels. But I don't think they have made him very cosmopolitan. It seems as if he went about with a little imaginary standard, and was chiefly interested in things, to see whether they fitted it or not. Trifling matters annoy him; and when he finds sublimity mixed up with absurdity, it almost makes him angry. One of the oddest and oldest-looking buildings in Quebec is a little one-story house on St. Louis Street, to which poor General Montgomery ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells

... series of rude jolts. He used to think that his mother's job consisted of traveling in Pullmans, eating delicate viands turned out by the hotel chefs, and strewing Featherloom Petticoats along the path. I gave him plenty of money, and he got into the habit of looking lightly upon anything more trifling than a five-dollar bill. He's changing his mind by great leaps. I'm prepared to spend the night in the coal cellar if you'll just fix him up—not too comfortably. It'll be a great lesson for him. There he is now. Just coming in. Fuzzy coat and ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... you, not blue! It's a trifle; But trifling in stockings won't do; For love has an eye like a rifle (His bandage ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey

... in very ancient times, two brothers, one of whom was rich, and the other poor. Christmas was approaching, but the poor man had nothing in the house for a Christmas dinner; so he went to his brother and asked him for a trifling gift. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... piece of wheat, a scrap of lucorne, a patch of clover or vetches, a bit of vine with cherry and other fruit trees scattered among all, and the whole cultivated with the spade; it makes a pretty appearance, but must form a poor system of trifling. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... promised land lay before him. Panshin quickly learnt the secret of getting on in the world; he knew how to yield with genuine respect to its decrees; he knew how to take up trifles with half ironical seriousness, and to appear to regard everything serious as trifling; he was a capital dancer; and dressed in the English style. In a short time he gained the reputation of being one of the smartest and most ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev

... steeled her wavering will; and, as in fancy, he had seen himself in the circus, driving in a race, so she pictured herself seated at the chess-board. She felt herself playing with all her might to win; but not, as with his father, for flowers, trifling presents or mere glory; nay, for a very different stake Life ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... paper, though it is altogether too light and trifling in its treatment of serious subjects. Besides, it never treats of any thing serious. This won't do. The earnest men and women of the nation require something better at your hands. I have an essay on the "Origin of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various

... That was a trifling question to ask the Duchess; since all the news of her shadowy world came to her ears in some swift ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... the mother's knitting needle, or ball of worsted, when it fell to the ground, stroked the sleek coat of the tortoise-shell cat, and replenished the teapot for the daughter from the bright copper kettle that sang before the fire. All these quiet little offices may seem of trifling import, but when true love is translated into Low Dutch it is in this way that it eloquently expresses itself. They were not lost upon the Webber family. The winning youngster found marvelous favor ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... five hundred men, who were designed not to defend their country only, but to wrest Upper Canada from the Crown of Great Britain. To General Hull's fears of the savage ferocity of the Indians, this bloodless victory must, to some extent, however trifling, be attributed. General Hull was evidently superstitiously afraid of an Indian. While asking the inhabitants of Upper Canada to come to him for protection, he could not help entreating, as it were, protection for himself against the Indians. If you will not ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... an elixir fine Exhilarates like sparkling wine; Where mere existence brings a joy Life's trifling ills ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey

... Tennesseeans. After the first week or so of arrivals—principally Welsh and English miners, with an occasional Irishman—the trains had returned daily to the Creek without a passenger; and accordingly this one created some trifling sensation. ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Rochefort, where he was sentenced to pass twelve years of his life, he came to Paris, and scarcely had he arrived there, where he had already practised, when, by way of getting his hand in, he committed several trifling robberies, and when, by these preliminary steps, he had proceeded to exploits more worthy of his ancient renown, he conceived the project of stealing a treasure. No one will imagine that this was in the Central Office, now the Prefecture of Police!! It was already ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... seemed to bear it much worse, appeared weary of sitting, and could hardly refrain from tears. Petrea, in whose disposition it lay to impart to others whatever she herself possessed—sometimes overlooking the trifling fact that what she possessed was very little desired by others—and feeling herself now in possession of a considerable degree of prowess, wished to impart some of the same to her companion in misfortune, and seated herself ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... As for the trifling petulance which the rage of party stirs up in little minds, though it should show itself even in this court, it has not made the slightest impression on me. The highest flight of such clamorous birds is winged in an inferior ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... from letters written to her husband, while he was absent in Maine, may be thought by some to go a little too much into the trifling details of daily life and feeling, but do not such details after all form no small part of the moral warp ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... will never be shaken, for the close similarity between man and the lower animals in embryonic development, as well as in innumerable points of structure and constitution, both of high and of the most trifling importance,—the rudiments which he retains and the abnormal reversions to which he is occasionally liable,—are facts which cannot be disputed. Viewed in the light of our knowledge of the whole organic world, their meaning ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... so well trained that they would govern themselves, and there would be very little need of the instrumentality of a political organization. If women understood that it was not only their right, but their duty, to educate themselves to be citizens of the State, we should have, instead of the trifling topics which now occupy their attention in our domestic circles, the consideration of great questions; and doubtless their finer perceptions often would help to settle great questions aright; and they who should ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... indicate that the Pirate is not invariably so lucky as on the last-mentioned occasion. It is his rule never to spend any more money on repairs than what cannot possibly be avoided. There was an unsafe steam-pipe, which might easily have been replaced at a trifling cost; but, of course, the Pirate would spend nothing on it, and relied on his own usual resources. One day the steam-pipe burst, when a number of passengers were on board, and a woman got her legs scalded. After that, the Pirate found it absolutely necessary to get a new ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... had blazed the trail some distance ahead, would return, and, bidding the boy pile brush, would attack the underwood as though it were a personal enemy of his and would cover the ground in a way that would make Wilbur's most strenuous moments seem trifling in comparison. Once he returned and saw the lad laboring for dear life, breathing hard, and showing by his very pose that he was tiring rapidly, although it was not yet noon, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... whole forming an interesting museum of crime and mystery which would have furnished a store of rich material for a fresh Newgate Calendar. It was an axiom of Crewe's that a detective never knew when some old scrap of information or some trifling article of some dead and forgotten crime might not afford a valuable clue. Expert criminals frequently repeated themselves, like people in lesser walks of life, and Crewe's "library and museum," as he called it, had sometimes furnished ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... proportion of suicidal attempts the patient only succeeds in inflicting one or more comparatively superficial wounds across the front of the neck. In many cases the haemorrhage from these is trifling, but if the external jugular and other large superficial veins are divided, it may be fairly profuse, although it is seldom immediately fatal, unless the blood is sucked ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... Loveland in his usual quiet mood and Chance smarting from a recent wound. He had begun to feel that his position was almost secure with Miss Leigh, but that day, on the occasion of a picnic at which he had amused himself by trifling with a silly young girl, he was amazed, mortified, and hurt by receiving the cold shoulder when he proffered his company to Miss Leigh on ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... Westminster Hall to me; she came and undertakes to get her daughter a lodging and nurse at next doore to her, though she dare not, for the parish's sake, whose sexton her husband is, to [have] her into her owne house. Thence home, calling at my bookseller's and other trifling places, and in the evening the mother come and with a nurse she has got, who demanded and I did agree at 10s. per weeke to take her, and so she away, and my house mighty uncouth, having so few in it, and we shall want a servant or two by ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... Instead of the profound questions he had somehow expected to hear raised, everybody seemed gossiping, or searching the heart of such topics as where to go this summer, or how to get new servants. Trifling with coffee-cups, they dissected their fellow artists in the same way as his society friends of the other night had dissected the fellow—"smart"; and the varnish on the floor, the pictures, and the piano were reflected on all the faces around. Shelton ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... "A trifling task," the attorney smiled easily. "All ready for your signature, too. You sign there, the second line. But wait—we ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish

... But her mind was so much upset that she trembled at the slightest noise, and her hands shook whenever any trifling disturbance ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... opprobrium on the person of the judge-conservator. Then the father definitor Fray Pedro Barreto spoke. He read a short paper that he had written, saying that he had not been able to commit it to memory. He was followed by father Fray Antonio Gonsalez, who alleged a very trifling defect in the bull. After him Fray Diego Collado spoke. He said that he was the confessor of the president of Castilla when the bishop of Cordoba had a similar suit with the orders in Espana. Father Fray ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various

... the steamer, and of course required men to operate it. But the boys were not forgotten. They still kept the chemical engines—and the smaller lads the hand-engines—and they were often called on to put out trifling blazes, and help at the ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster

... At home, she herself prepared the supper, moving indolently about the room, her dressing-gown dragging after her, from table to cupboard, and back again, often with a pause at his side, in which she forgot what she had set out for. Maurice disputed each trifling service with her; he could only think of Louise as made to be waited on, slow ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... inquiry, and Freeman had not been clever enough to shelter himself behind the plea that copies were not originals; he did not know enough about manuscripts to think of it. The blunders he had detected were trifling, and Froude summed up the labours of his antagonists fairly enough in a letter to Skelton from his beloved Derreen.* "I acknowledge to five real mistakes in the whole book- twelve volumes—about twenty trifling slips, equivalent to i's not dotted and t's not crossed; and that ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... or Sinking Fund, for the special purpose of paying off this stock, the effect of which, though not exactly known, must shortly be very considerable. The Tiers Consolide is saleable and transferable at a moment's warning, and at a trifling expense. It is not subject to taxation, nor open to attachments, either on the principal ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... apt to think that men of a great genius are hardly brought to prostitute their pens in a very odious cause; which besides, is more properly undertaken by noise and impudence, by gross railing and scurrility, by calumny and lying, and by little trifling cavils and carpings in the wrong place, which those whifflers use for ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... himself?—and why precisely THEN, immediately on his becoming possessed of them and on leaving the old woman? Strange, indeed, did this coincidence appear to him. This idle conversation was destined to have a fearful influence on his destiny, extending to the most trifling incident and causing him to feel sure he was the instrument of a ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... and two deniers. It is perhaps even more interesting to know that of this vast sum more than three millions went for marble, twenty-one millions for masonry, two and a half millions for the rougher woodwork and a like sum for marquetry. Other additional "trifling" embellishments of Versailles and the Trianon during the same period counted up another six ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield

... does not come off and is not heard. The small vision in one eye only is separate from the landscape, and practically does not much influence the mind of the person on whom it is inflicted, who continues aware that it is a mere delusion, causing scarcely anything but trifling interruption. This is perhaps only the case with the few, more numerous however amongst the strong nations than amongst the weaker ones, who are impervious to ordinary hypnotism, or could only ...
— Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris

... point in Waverley's character one day while she sat with Miss Bradwardine. 'His genius and elegant taste,' answered Rose, 'cannot be interested in such trifling discussions. What is it to him, for example, whether the Chief of the Macindallaghers, who has brought out only fifty men, should be a colonel or a captain? and how could Mr. Waverley be supposed to interest himself in the violent altercation between your brother ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... mental and moral culture which gives a peculiar charm to the human countenance. It is impossible for me to bring the females of this country before you in so vivid a manner that you can form a correct idea of them. But select from among your acquaintances a lady who is excessively weak, vain and trifling; who has no relish for any intellectual or moral improvement; whose conversation is altogether confined to dress, parties, balls, admiration, marriage; whose temper and faults have never been corrected by her parents, but who is following, ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... as it has done of late years, and especially in this country; and they who affect to speak with supercilious contempt of the publications of the present age in general, or of the Royal Society in particular, are only those who are themselves engaged in the most trifling of all literary pursuits, who are unacquainted with all real science, and are ignorant of the progress and present ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... vague idea that the situation was not felicitous. He retained, however, his presence of mind sufficiently to kick Uncle Billy, who was about to say something, and Uncle Billy was sober enough to recognize in Mr. Oakhurst's kick a superior power that would not bear trifling. He then endeavored to dissuade Tom Simson from delaying further, but in vain. He even pointed out the fact that there was no provision, nor means of making a camp. But, unluckily, "The Innocent" met this objection by assuring the party that he was provided with an extra mule loaded with ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... that would have killed the poor thing outright. But a Kelmscott, you know, should respect his order, and shouldn't shrink for a moment from these trifling sacrifices! ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... the threshold. Bonaparte had only to glance at him to recognize a perfect gentleman. A trifling emaciation, a slight pallor, gave Sir John the characteristics of great distinction. He bowed, awaiting the formal introduction, like ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... infinite variety!" I scoffed. "Just fifty-two Poor trifling bits of pasteboard!—their combinations few Compared to what there is in ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris

... on open forest land in lat. 26 deg. 54' 16" S. It was only during the last two days that I could perceive in the barometer, any indication that we were rising to any higher level above the sea than that of the great basin, in which we had journeyed so long, and the difference was still but trifling, as indicated by not more than six or seven millimetres of the Syphon barometer; our actual height above the sea being 737 feet. Thermometer, at sunrise, 19 deg.; at 4 P. ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... likely that we shot at a woman? You are trifling. It will be the worse for you. Forgive me—but we are in such a ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... that the selection of a home for ourselves and families is a matter of the very highest moment to all who desire to prolong life and enjoy the full possession of all their powers. Very trifling attention has been given this question, as a rule, since we see on all hands multitudes crowding into unhealthy precincts, to say nothing of those more pestilential-breeding apartments which are everywhere inhabited by the poorer class, as well as by thousands of the well-to-do and intelligent ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

... brain. By this it must not be imagined that he was an idiot, or lacking in intelligence in any way, but he had some curious mental twists that marked him as something out of the normal. His chief peculiarity lay in his dread of pain to himself. An ache, a trifling bruise, a mere scratch upon himself, would hurl him into a paroxysm of terror which frequently terminated in a fit, or, at least, convulsions of a serious nature. This drove the girl, who was his only living relative, ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... officers sprang to their feet. "Keep seated, gentlemen! We must not break up the Council," said the Governor. "We are sure to have the Intendant here in a few minutes and to learn the cause of this uproar. It is some trifling affair of noisy ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... my usual practice, I send you this letter, containing a trifling biographical sketch, and an offer of my literary services. I don't suppose you will accept them, treating me as for forty-three years past all the journals of this empire have done; for I have offered my contributions to them all—all. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various

... manifest not only bodily infirmities, but the relaxing and enfeebling influences proceeding from the lower portions of the brain. They totter about in their second childhood, mentally and physically enervated. Those who become dissipated by the use of intoxicating beverages are not only weak, trifling, and foolish, but walk with an unsteadiness which betrays their condition. These illustrations show that this part of the brain is destitute of energy. Diseases of the digestive organs also indicate it. Cholera, whether induced by invisible ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... mean. You refer to that rascally apprentice, Dick Taverner," cried James. "Call ye his attack upon you a trifling outrage—a mere nothing, Count. I call it a riot—almost a ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... black Misfortune beckons When upon himself he reckons, Marshals Faith among his assets, Blinks his nature's many facets. This dull gem is an ascetic, Bloodless, pulseless, apathetic: Shift the light—a trifling matter— Fra Anselmo turns a satyr! ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... living mind 550 Should have such mighty sway! yet so it was), A weight of ages did at once descend Upon my heart; no thought embodied, no Distinct remembrances, but weight and power,— Power growing under weight: alas! I feel 555 That I am trifling: 'twas a moment's pause,— All that took place within me came and went As in a moment; yet with Time it dwells, And grateful memory, as a ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... most deeply interested; and his gentle teachings and fervent prayers were eagerly listened to by the youthful prisoner. Mr. W——, his counsel, came often, also, but in his endeavors to keep up the spirits of Lewie and his sister, his manner was so trifling and flippant that it grated on their feelings painfully. He was working as laboriously it seemed, as the enormous fee promised him would warrant, leaving no stone unturned which would throw some ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely

... subject went into abeyance; and has so remained, with trifling exception, through an interval in which far more than a million, in England alone, of the children who were at that time within that stage of their life on which chiefly a general scheme would have acted, have grown up to animal maturity, destitute of all that can, ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... when the routed posse, with Race Moran in the lead, his left arm tied up in a blood-stained handkerchief, rode into Crawling Water. A bullet had pierced the fleshy part of the agent's wrist, a trifling wound, but one which gave him more pain than he might have suffered from a serious injury. None of the members of the posse had been dangerously wounded; indeed, they had suffered more in the spirit ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... mind to reap the fruits of a crime which was already half executed, he hesitated to carry out his designs. For him, as for many men of mixed character in whom weakness and strength are equally blended, the least trifling consideration determines whether they shall continue to lead blameless lives or become actively criminal. In the vast masses of men enrolled in Napoleon's armies there were many who, like Castanier, possessed the purely ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... world who do not, first or last, desire to be fathers. If it be said, that marriage ought not to be for life, but that its duration ought to be subject to the will, the mutual will at least, of the parties; the answer is, that it would seldom be of long duration. Every trifling dispute would lead to a separation; a hasty word would be enough. Knowing that the engagement is for life, prevents disputes too; it checks anger in its beginnings. Put a rigging horse into a field with a weak fence, and with captivating pasture on the other side, and he is continually ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett

... with little self-denial, in the business of all times except their own. We are very uncorrupt and tolerably enlightened judges of the transactions of past ages; where no passions deceive, and where the whole train of circumstances, from the trifling cause to the tragical event, is set in an orderly series before us. Few are the partisans of departed tyranny; and to be a Whig on the business of an hundred years ago, is very consistent with every advantage of present servility. This retrospective wisdom, and historical patriotism, are things of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... to those friends who wish to see a monthly list of stock phrases, with their English meaning, we beg to remind them that the Frazlibro de la Turisto contains 400 such phrases, each in 6 languages, for the trifling cost of 6d. We are not disposed to sacrifice our limited space as suggested, unless, after mastering the 400 phrases named, which deal with a great diversity of subjects, our friends still feel the need for a ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 2 • Various

... roughly repulsed, and feelings of resentment and revenge are kindled. This, I am persuaded, is the cause and origin of many of the affrays with the natives, which are apparently inexplicable to us. Nor ought we to wonder, that a slight insult, or a trifling injury, should sometimes hurry them to an act apparently not warranted by the provocation. Who can tell how long their feelings had been rankling in their bosoms; how long, or how much they had borne; a single drop will ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... very well," said Hugh; "little pets are very nice in their place, and no one appreciates them better than faithfully yours, for an hour or so. But when you get 'em for breakfast and lunch and dinner. And they even insist upon trifling with the holies of your smoking times, trying to light up cigarettes themselves, and jabbering all the time, why then you seize on a civil offer to risk your neck in a racing car as a drowning man would catch at a torpedo if he found ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner

... surrendered. She thought, darkly, of his fiery manner that day, of his burning looks, his hot, impulsive words, of his confidences. Hypocrisy all! For while they had been together he must have been thinking of sending for Hester! He had been trifling with her! Faith in an ideal is a sacred thing, and shattered, it lights the fires of hate and scorn, and the emotions that seethed through Rosalind's veins as in her room she considered Trevison's unworthiness, finally developed ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer

... married, will set her above making such a trifling accident, such an involuntary suffering ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... occasion, it is said, he was so lucky that he came to a fellow student with his pockets full of money; and was induced to resolve never to play again—a resolution broken about as soon as made. Of course he lost all his winnings, and more; and had to borrow a trifling sum to get himself out of the place. Then an incident occurs which is highly characteristic of the better side of Goldsmith's nature. He had just got this money, and was about to leave Leyden, when, as Mr. Forster ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black

... half-past eight or nine, and it was now hard on one o'clock. Jean was "making a night of it," that seemed very clear. But what was the business or pleasure that engaged him? I admit that I was extremely annoyed. My darling scheme, on which I had prided myself so much, was tripped up by the trifling accident of ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope

... efforts to destroy it, without interfering too much with the free movement of the army. When the army is numerically very superior to the enemy, or when the river is passed just after a great victory gained, the difficulty mentioned is trifling; but when the campaign is just opening, and the two opposing armies are about equal, the ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... to her "dearest lord and father," as she used affectionately to call Galileo, were almost invariably accompanied by some gift, trifling it may be, but always the best the poor nun had to bestow. The tender grace of these endearing communications was all the more precious to him from the fact that the rest of Galileo's relatives were of quite ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball

... not become as ingenious, as humane, as industrious, and as capable of arts, manufactures, and trades, as even the bulk of Europeans—Whether, if it were abolished, a much more profitable trade might not be substituted, and this to the very centre of their extended country, instead of the trifling portion which now subsists upon their coasts—And whether the great hindrance to such a new and advantageous commerce has not wholly proceeded from that unjust, inhuman, unchristianlike traffic, called the Slave Trade, which is carried on by the Europeans." The public proposal of these and other ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... Second-year Medicine, hoping the more to impress the Professors, I entered my name for honours—and they rejected me in the preliminary pass. It seems that in the examination in Materia Medica, I had among other trifling lapses prescribed a dose of Oleum Crotonis of "one half to two drachms carefully increased." I confess that I had never heard of the wretched stuff; the question was taken from far on in the text book and, unfortunately, my reading ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... back, and kicked Jack brutally in the ribs. Jack expected the blow, and managed to relax so that no bones were broken by the kick, though he was sore for hours. Moreover he fortified himself so that, although the pain of the kick was far from trifling, ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland

... planters and others for twenty-five cents a day to work out the fine and cost, and which provide that for every day lost from sickness he shall work another to pay for his board while sick. Under these laws they allege that a colored man may be fined $500 for some trifling misdemeanor, and be compelled to work five or six years to pay the fine; and that it is not uncommon for colored men thus hired out to be worked in a chain gang upon the plantations under overseers, with whip in hand, precisely as in the days of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... "You are trifling with me; you are very shrewd, and you must allow that a man may be suspicious of you.—You have sold more than one man by tying him up in a sack after making him go into it of his own accord. I know all your great victories—the ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... formed, that the bystander thinks; but Lucy thought of young Montjoie only with an instinctive dislike, which would have been contempt in a less calm and tolerant mind. That Bice, with all her gifts, a creature so full of life and sweetness and strength, should be handed over to this trifling commonplace lad, was in itself terrible to think of. Lucy did not think of the girl's beauty, or of that newly-developed gift of song which had taken her by surprise, but only and simply of herself, the warm-hearted ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... existence, but rather every thing to perplex such a sentiment, and to confound such an expectation. There is nothing in its aspect which seems to foretel life—nothing to predict resuscitation. In general, however desperate the case, hope is sustained by the most trifling circumstances, the feeblest glimmerings of the yet unextinguished lamp; if there be the gentlest breath, or the slightest motion, the solicitude of wakeful tenderness is still maintained, and the possibility at least ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... he was to discover almost immediately, was a trifling disaster. It distressed him, but it did not affect his material welfare. Tragedy really began when he turned to the magazine section. Scarcely had he started to glance at it when this headline struck him ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... here to make amends for past neglect and sinfulness. I have a debt there, sir"—and she pointed solemnly towards the sky—"which must be paid. I have been an unfaithful steward, and must be reconciled to my good master ere I die. You may trust me. You know my income and my means. It is trifling; comparatively speaking—nothing. Yet, less than half of it must suffice for my support. The rest is for your flock. You shall distribute it, and you shall teach me how to minister to their temporal necessities—how to labour for their eternal glory. The world and I have parted, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... to make some trifling purchases of her, I heard a sound of quarreling in the back shop. There were the voices of several women, among which I distinguished that of Genevieve, broken by sobs. On looking further in, I perceived the fruit-woman with a child in her arms, and kissing ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... much annoyed. I should be moved to say that if that was the only way of cutting my grass I would not cut my grass, but continue to cut my neighbour. Or suppose the difference were even less defensible; suppose a man had suffered from a trifling shindy with his wife. And suppose somebody told him that the introduction of an entirely new vacuum-cleaner would compel him to a reluctant reconciliation with his wife. It would be found, I fancy, that human nature abhors that vacuum. Reasonably spirited human beings will not ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... their magnificent apparatus of bridges, causeways, of uplifted hollows and levelled heights, were constructed at an enormous cost of manual labour and of personal oppression and suffering, and with comparatively a trifling amount of science. But the railroad is the idea of the philosopher embodied by the free and cheerfully accorded toil of the labourer and artizan. When an Appius Claudius or a Marcus Flaminius determined to mark the year of his consulship ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne

... enormous. It is not conceivable that the Arctic Sea of itself could contribute anything of importance to this rainfall; for, in the first place, it is for the most part covered with drift-ice, from which the evaporation is but trifling; and, in the next place, the comparatively low temperature in these regions prevents any considerable evaporation taking place even from open surfaces of water. The moisture that produces this rainfall must consequently in a great measure come from elsewhere, principally ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... we have above remarked, for the hopes of the restoration of truth, and honour, and principle, in France, we must turn to the lower orders, it will not, I trust, be thought too trifling to observe, that any thing like real excellence in music, another favourite national propensity, is, as far as we could observe, to be found in the peasantry alone. The music of the capital, the modern compositions performed at ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... vicious men, who cannot come so far as their natural intention leadeth and almost compelleth them. And what if they were destitute of this so great and almost invincible help of the direction of nature? Ponder likewise the immense impotency of wicked men. For they are no light or trifling rewards[145] which they desire, and cannot obtain: but they fail in the very sum and top of things: neither can the poor wretches compass that which they only labour for nights and days: in which thing the ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

... Herbert, and had his volumes lying beside me, I made hundreds, perhaps thousands, of petty corrections, and many from books which he had not had an opportunity of seeing, and of which he could only reprint incorrect descriptions. All of these, though trifling in themselves, are things which should be noticed in case of a reprint; but how much time and trouble would it cost an editor to find and collate the necessary books? That, to be sure, is his business; ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various

... assassinate the Duke of Wellington. His violence of temper, as in the murder of the Duke d'Enghien, hurried him into acts that were not less impolitic than criminal. His tyrannical will would brook no contradiction, even in matters oL trifling importance. He broke away from engagements when he thought it advantageous to do so. It is not an injustice to say, that he was habitually untruthful: his bulletins were disfigured by flagrant falsehoods, as well as gross exaggerations. In a letter to Talleyrand from Italy ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... among the snows of winter, and clasping together in its true embrace the loveless ruin; and the vine that maketh glad the heart of man amidst the miseries of life. I must not be mistaken, though, for Devereux's talk was only a tender sort of trifling, and Lilias had said nothing to encourage him to risk more; but she now felt sure that Devereux liked her—that, indeed, he took a deep interest in her—and somehow she ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... little thing, but it should be borne in mind that it is nevertheless of the greatest importance. We know what effect comity or international politeness has on the relations or intercourse between nations. The most trifling acts, such as congratulations on a birth or marriage in the reigning family, are wonderfully efficacious in keeping up that feeling of amity which is so necessary to peace and continued friendship between states. To ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... my child, we must fulfill, The scoundrel see depart! Yet once! 'tis but a moment's chill, 'Tis but a trifling smart!" ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld

... is, gentlemen will force the colonists to take the teas. You will force them? Has seven years' struggle been yet able to force them? Oh, but it seems "we are in the right. The tax is trifling,—in effect it is rather an exoneration than an imposition; three fourths of the duty formerly payable on teas exported to America is taken off,—the place of collection is only shifted; instead ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... respectively to 1 pounds a year, attached to them. Several of the pews are let, the owners caring little for them, or having removed to other towns; many have been re-sold at intervals; and three have been forfeited through their proprietors having neglected to pay certain trifling rates laid upon them. The pews have deteriorated much in price. Once upon a time, when nearly all the fashionable families of Preston went to Trinity Church, neither Platonic love nor current coin could secure a pew. It was a la mode in its most respectable ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... hear you are so confident," Peter Ruff said. "Of course, if I have to take this thing on, I shall do my best, but if I might venture to allude, for a moment, to anything so trifling as my own domestic affairs, I am very anxious to know about ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the previous evening that Mrs. Travilla herself had learned that she was assailed by more than a trifling ailment. What seemed to her but a slight one, causing discomfort, and at times quite a good deal of pain, she had been conscious of for some weeks or months, but had not thought it necessary to speak of it ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley

... exactitude which at the least is amazing. Twenty-five years ago I did a great wrong to a human creature who was innocent, and who absolutely trusted me. There is no crime worse than this, yet it seemed to me quite a trifling affair,—an amusement—a nothing! I was perfectly aware that by some excessively straightlaced people it might be termed a sin; but my ideas of sin were as easy and condoning as yours are. I never repented it,—I can hardly say I ever thought of it,—if I did I excused ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... market only; whereas other branches of manufactures, practically enjoying no protection, in the case of depressed trade at home, had an opportunity of immediate relief, by spreading the surplus thereby created, at a very trifling sacrifice, over the wide markets ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... what I hear, poor Mr. Bertram has a bad chance of ultimate recovery. I thought little of his illness at first. I looked upon him as the sort of person to be made a fuss with, and to make a fuss himself in any trifling disorder, and was chiefly concerned for those who had to nurse him; but now it is confidently asserted that he is really in a decline, that the symptoms are most alarming, and that part of the family, at least, are aware of it. If it be so, I am sure you must ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... and tyranny of landlords, is usually set down as a principal cause of the great poverty and misery of the Irish people, during a long period. If we examine the rents paid one hundred and fifty, or even one hundred years ago, they will appear trifling when compared with the rents of the present day; so that, at first, one is inclined to question the accuracy of those writers who denounce the avarice and rack-renting propensities of the landlords of their time. But when we examine the question more closely, ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... party was ever tried, for General John E. Wool the department commander, had not at command a sufficient number of officers of appropriate rank to constitute a court in the case of Rains, and the charges against Ord were very properly ignored on account of their trifling character. ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... music of the hymn in question. "C'est egal, il faut chanter," ["No matter for that, they must sing."] resounded from all the patriots in the house. At last, finding the thing impossible, they agreed to a compromise; and one of the actors promised to sing it on the morrow, as well as the trifling impediment of having no voice would permit him.—You think your galleries despotic when they call for an epilogue that is forgotten, and the actress who should speak it is undrest; or when they insist upon enlivening the last acts of Jane Shore with Roast Beef! What would you think if they would ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... appearances, he anticipated another tempest with its flood. It is true, it was not the season when the last occurred, but the climate might admit of these changes. The difference between summer and winter was very trifling on that reef, and a hurricane, or a gale, was as likely to occur in the ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... dear child; I have nothing else worth telling you at present—at least, the same things don't strike me that used to do; or what perhaps is more true, when things of consequence takes one up, one can't attend to mere trifling. When I say this, you will ask me, where is my philosophy! Even where the best is: I think as coolly as I can, I don't exaggerate what is disagreeable, and I endeavour to lessen it, by undervaluing what I am inclined to think would be a ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... accept alms even from the poor, and so it happened that notwithstanding their own want, the poorest of their neighbours would bring them presents, one of a hen, another of a few eggs, a third of some trifling article of clothing. In their generous charity, the people, not only shared with them all they could spare conveniently, but moreover encroached on absolute necessaries. To complete the distress of the Sisters, the vessels ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"

... feet. The ride through the deep snow and the bitter December wind had been a hard one; but the woods in their glittering winter shroud, the sharp, refreshing breath of the pure air, and a thousand trifling matters—from the white hats that crowned every stock and stone to the tiny crystals of snow that fell on the green velvet of my fur-lined bodice—were a joy to me, albeit my heart was heavy with care. The evening star had risen or ever we reached the house; and out here, under God's open heavens, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the case of a paranoiac woman who was in litigation with her father over some trifling inheritance left by her mother, and who accused her father of a murder, and insinuated that she had heard her grandfather ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck

... good sort and Dick wasn't anything but lazy and trifling and sometimes a little tipsy. There wasn't anything mean ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson

... resumed Baba, "is a trifling thing, and it is very easy, you think, to cast it into the gutter. But I tell you, whoever and whatever you are, that this sparkling and seductive drink is the pygmy that binds the giant to the post with a thread, and lashes him with thongs ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff

... I detest the blasphemous proverb: 'Zeus pays no heed to lovers' oaths.' Why should an oath touching the best and holiest feelings of humanity be regarded by the Deity, as inferior in importance to asseverations respecting the trifling questions of mine and thine? Keep thy promise then,—hold fast thy love, but ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... that dare not offer What I desire to giue; and much lesse take What I shall die to want: But this is trifling, And all the more it seekes to hide it selfe, The bigger bulke it shewes. Hence bashfull cunning, And prompt me plaine and holy innocence. I am your wife, if you will marrie me; If not, Ile die your maid: to be your fellow You may denie me, but Ile be your ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... even on the bravest temper, the ironical mockery, the cruel despotism of trifling circumstances, that have made themselves the masters of our lives, the hewers of our fate, must weigh with a sense of involuntary bondage, against which to strive ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... the workman. Only in their eyes were they alike; both of them had the keen, alert eyes of observers. Perhaps the most curious thing of all was that, in spite of the fact that he had for so much of his life been an idler, trifling away his time in the pursuit of pleasure, except when he had made his expedition to the South Pole, the Duke gave one the impression of being a cleverer man, of a far finer brain, than the detective who had spent so much of his life ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson

... bear's hug of custom gradually squeezing the life out of a man's soul, had not yet begun for these happy-starred young Belgians. They still knew that the interest they took in their business was a trifling affair compared to their spontaneous, long-suffering affection for nautical sports. To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... take the article under such circumstances, for she had intended it as a bridal gift to a young friend of hers, and would have felt deeply mortified if the discovery had been made after the presentation. After a few more trifling purchases, she turned away, and Guly restored the rejected piece of work to its place, and put the box upon the shelf. As he turned round, his eye fell upon the face of his employer, who stood bolt upright on the ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... the view of occupying the public attention with what relates to myself, that I have determined to relate the circumstances of my ten years' exile; the miseries which I have endured, however bitterly I may have felt them, are so trifling in the midst of the public calamities of which we are witnesses, that I should be ashamed to speak of myself if the events which concern me were not in some degree connected with the great cause of threatened ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... him, clear and blue, and the mussel shells and pebbles, the playthings of his childhood, crunched over his feet. While he thus walked on his nose suddenly began to bleed; it was a trifling occurrence, but trifles sometimes are of great importance. A few large drops of blood fell upon one of his sleeves. He wiped them off and stopped the bleeding, and it seemed to him as if this had cleared and lightened ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... nickname for his brother. Pretty Aufilena had broken a promise and Catullus had vehemently maintained that she was less honest than a loose woman who kept her part of a bargain. It was surprising that a conversation so trifling should recur in this hour, but he could see again before him his brother's smiling face and hear him saying: "My Diogenes, never let your lantern go out. It will light your own feet even if you ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson

... of sections. A brisk shell fire assailed this battalion as it crossed the rear of the batteries, but, like the Manchester, the Highlanders for a time escaped the notice of the Boer riflemen, and they pushed on with trifling loss. ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... Bohemia. Long and toilsome was this ascent; for though the main road was still beneath our feet, so perfectly had its fabricators set the rules of their art at defiance, that it ran sheer and abrupt, with scarce a trifling deflection, from the base to the summit. The sun, also, beat upon us with a power which we found it extremely uncomfortable to sustain, and our thirst was excessive. And here it may, perhaps, be worth while for the benefit ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig

... Uncle Sam, the motorcycle, the friend and companion of Tom Slade. I have withheld none of their confidences—or trifling differences. I dare say they were both ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... the Times installment system, and they said I was frivolous. They said that to send thirteen eggs as payment for goods supplied to the value of twenty-five pounds one shilling and sixpence was mere trifling. Trifling! when those thirteen eggs were absolutely all we had over that week after Mrs. Beale had taken what she wanted for the kitchen. I tell you what it is, old boy, that ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse

... situations, for expressing my love of fair play. Once, in particular, I remember I was in the boxes at the theatre at Salisbury, when there was a violent party call for "God save the King." I was one of the loyal who as loudly demanded this tune to be played as any loyal man in the house; after some trifling opposition the call was complied with, and the performers came forward upon the stage and sung it: there was then a call for hats off, and I have no doubt that I was as zealous in this call as any one, because, in the first ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... She said she was glad to meet Mr. Ellery. The young minister affirmed his delight in meeting her. Then she disappeared in the misty twilight and John Ellery surreptitiously wiped his perspiring forehead with his cuff, having in his late desire for the primal necessities forgotten such a trifling ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... if we look upon them from the point of view of their acquired intension, they defy definition by reason of the very complexity of their meaning. We cannot say exactly what 'John' and 'Mary' mean, because those names, to us who know the particular persons denoted by them, suggest all the most trifling accidents of the individual as well as the ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock

... the Assembly of New York on its refusal to provide quarters for English troops, and resolved to assert British sovereignty by levying import duties of trivial amount at American ports. The Assembly of Massachusetts was dissolved on a trifling quarrel with its Governor, and Boston was occupied for a time by British soldiers. It was without a thought of any effective struggle however that the Cabinet had entered on this course of vexation; and when the remonstrances of the Legislatures of Massachusetts and Virginia, coupled ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green

... form of the Book was precisely determined by authority of Parliament. The purport of the Act was to enforce the use of the Book in a form otherwise determined. That form was settled, with some measure of ecclesiastical sanction, in the time of Edward VI. What sanction there was for the trifling changes now made is not very clear, and possibly men were not ...
— The Acts of Uniformity - Their Scope and Effect • T.A. Lacey

... reflection, so it becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible, in some instances to point out a defect in an established model without incurring the censure of the multitude. Such, my Lord, is the nature of man, and so trifling and capricious are the circumstances upon ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie

... strain after all, Watson. But I should be glad that you should add this case to your annals, for there are points in it which make it quite unique in the criminal records of this or, I believe, of any other country. A collection of my trifling achievements would certainly be incomplete which contained no account ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... admired are the Songs and Ballads, which are about 150 in number, and the whole of which are contained in this volume (with the exception of one or two of the former, which have been, on consideration, left out by me owing to their trifling and uninteresting nature). The same may be said of the ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... people, and being determined as far as possible to prevent all plunder, had their boats or stalls guarded by sentries. This, however, did not altogether hinder some of the more daring from getting things on the cheap now and then, but they were so trifling that they are ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence

... prophetic skill,—to which, I assure you, I make not the slightest claim,—I run the risk of passing for a hare-brained fellow, in case I prove to be mistaken: he plays a bold game who risks his good sense upon his cards, in return for the very trifling and insignificant merit of having divined a ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... material importance of the incidents. To deal with strong and deadly elements, banditti, pirates, war and murder, is to conjure with great names, and, in the event of failure, to double the disgrace. The arrival of Haydn and Consuelo at the Canon's villa is a very trifling incident; yet we may read a dozen boisterous stories from beginning to end, and not receive so fresh and stirring an impression of adventure. It was the scene of Crusoe at the wreck, if I remember rightly, that so bewitched my blacksmith. Nor is the fact surprising. Every single ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Landor, "there is no trickery, no trifling, no delay, no exposition, no garrulity, no dogmatism, no declamation, no prosing, . . . but the loud, clear challenge, the firm, unstealthy step, ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... Dictionary* gives a fairly clear elementary account of the subject. Ruskin also has written an excellent essay on verse-rhythms. With a manual in front of you, you can acquire in a couple of hours a knowledge of the formal principles in which the music of English verse is rooted. The business is trifling. But the business of appreciating the inmost spirit of the greatest verse is tremendous and lifelong. It is not something that can ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT

... moment; for Warburton forgot that Shakspeare characteristically introduces one in the Tempest's most fanciful scene.[3] Granger, who had not much time to study the manners of the age whose personages he was so well acquainted with, in a note on Milton's Masque, said that "these compositions were trifling and perplexed allegories, the persons of which are fantastical to the last degree. Ben Jonson, in his 'Masque of Christmas,' has introduced 'Minced Pie,' and 'Baby Cake,' who act their parts in the drama.[4] But the most wretched performances of this kind could ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... said young Mr. Cashell, with icy politeness, opening the door one half-inch, "if you still happen to be interested in our trifling experiments. But, should such ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... he is! Formerly the fellow posed as a pessimist, disgusted with life and bent upon airing impossible views of his own; now, he's trifling with animalism." ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... with which this apparently trifling anecdote is given us from antiquity evidently proves that it was one of the household tales of old Greece. It did not seem absurd in those times, when Art was recognized as a great Unity, an elaborate system ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... employment; but at no period of my life, not in the eight years I served the public, have I been obliged to write so much myself, as I have done since my retirement. Was this confined to friendly communication, and to my own business, it would be equally pleasing and trifling; but I have a thousand references to old matters, with which I ought not to be troubled, but which, nevertheless, must ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... many never reached a describable shape; very few reached even partial execution. One of the latter sort was an intended History of the most remarkable Conspiracies and Revolutions in the Middle and Later Ages. A first volume of the work was published in 1787. Schiller's part in it was trifling; scarcely more than that of a translator and editor. St. Real's Conspiracy of Bedmar against Venice, here furnished with an extended introduction, is the best piece in the book. Indeed, St. Real seems first to have set him on this task: the Abbe had already signified his predilection ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... around until it indicated a pressure such as only a strong man could have exerted. Comparing the marks made in the steel in the experiment and by the safe-cracker, it was evident that no such pressure had been necessary. Apparently the lock on the door was only a trifling affair, and the steel itself was not very, tough. The safe-makers had relied on the first line ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... before how that trifling matter could be arranged; and, as he went industriously to work making shavings out of a portion ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis

... and his relatives are on our kirk rolls as members or adherents, and all we can do is to fence the communion-table against them for a period, and bring them to the stool of repentance. Some here may think a night of squabbling and broken heads in a Highland burgh too trifling an affair for the interference of the kirk or the court of law: I am under no such delusion. There is a valour better than the valour of the beast unreasoning. Your lordship has seen it at its proper place in your younger wars; young Elrigmore, I am sure, has seen it on the Continent, ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... I forward, for thy acceptance, two small volumes, as a trifling testimony of the high estimation in which we have long held thy writings. So great was our desire to see thee when my wife and I were, a few springs ago, making a ramble on foot through some parts of your beautiful country, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... in his heart Bunting looked back to this last night with a feeling of shame and self-rebuke. Whatever had made such horrible thoughts and suspicions as had possessed him suddenly come into his head? And just because of a trifling thing like that blood. No doubt Mr. Sleuth's nose had bled—that was what had happened; though, come to think of it, he had mentioned brushing up against a ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... Christian name very well, but he did not choose to have it appear that his august memory had been laden with a thing so trifling. ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... Asti, caldo, frappe!" he said loudly, so that all might hear him give the order. A month in Venice, and he would be able to talk like a native. True, if any Italian spoke to him, he was obliged to shake his head; but that was a trifling matter. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... studying, and who flitted about the room all the time. From the first he regarded them with disfavor. Their frivolous manners and their constant humming were not pleasing to him; but when they became so impertinent as to alight on his back, this trifling with his dignity was past endurance; he hissed, and snapped his beak at the elusive little creatures, and finally worked himself into such a rage that he was found completely exhausted, and almost in a dying condition. These continued excitements, indeed, so wore upon his sensitive ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller

... course," began Indiman, "that I went off with Estes that May evening with just an apology to you about a family affair. Really, I knew nothing; but the boy's manner struck me as peculiar, and, while the incident of the opal button was trifling in itself, I was sure that there was something behind it. But when I plumped the question squarely at Estes he had nothing to say except that the jewel had been slipped into his hand while he stood looking into a shop-window. Where ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... stands but a step away from the Campo Santo, and our guide ushered us into it with the air of one who had till now held in reserve his great stroke and was ready to deliver it. Yet I think he waited till we had looked at some comparatively trifling sculptures by Nicolo Pisano before he raised his voice, and uttered a melodious species of howl. While we stood in some amazement at this, the conscious structure of the dome caught the sound and prolonged it with a variety ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... scene as the eye could wish to rest upon. As I wheeled my horse and sped upon my way I felt, my dears, that this was a land worth fighting for, and that a man's life was a small thing if he could but aid, in however trifling a degree, in working out its freedom and its happiness. At a little village over the hill I fell in with an outpost of horse, the commander of which rode some distance with me, and set me on my road to Nether Stowey. It seemed strange to my Hampshire eyes to note that the earth is all ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... this trifling transaction occurred, is the locale of an undertaking which will probably outlast all the little diadems of all the little kings. This is the canal by which it is proposed to unite the Rhine, the Mayne, and the Danube; in other words, to make the longest water communication in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... In this local trifling two hours passed, until the party sat down to the long-looked for repast. It was here that the health of Judge Piper was neatly proposed by the editor of the "Argus." The judge responded with great dignity and some emotion. He reminded them that it had been his humble endeavor to promote harmony—that ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... greased with the best watch-maker's oil—selected a ball perfectly round and true—laid the patch upon the muzzle, and placing the bullet exactly in the centre over the bore, buried it with a single rap of a small lignum vita mallet, which hung from his button-hole; and then, with but a trifling effort, drove it home by one steady thrust of the stout copper-headed charging rod. This done, he again inspected the cone, and seeing that the powder was forced quite up into sight, picked out, with the same anxious scrutiny that had marked all of his proceedings, ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... journey of that morning, it had quite passed out of her little head in the usual way of such trifling unpleasantnesses which go so frequently to make up the tally of childhood's days. Jamie had no understanding of it. His Vada was with him again, hectoring, guiding him as was her wont, and, in his babyish ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... tons of it. In Mexico the curious class of miners known as 'gambusinos' rove through the valleys of the Sierra Madre armed with pick and pan, passing their lives in hunting mines, as pigs hunt truffles. If they come upon a mine, they never try to work it, but sell the secret for a trifling sum, and, drinking out the money, start on again to find the mines worked by the Aztecs, till an Apache bullet or arrow stops them, their El Dorado still ahead, or they are found beside their pick ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... clogs are not necessary," he said. "The rain runs off as fast as it falls. Thy boots are all such trifling feet can carry. What can women do on this hard world-road with such impediments as French clogs ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... fill the mind and bar out every minor terror. Its deafening threats demanded the whole of the imagination. Compared with the probability of plunging down an unknown depth into a boiling hell of waters, all other peril seemed too trifling to attract notice. Such a fate is an enhancement ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... bear until I hear from you again. Tell me all about your pretty inconnue across the road. What is her name? Who is she? Who's her father? Where's her mother? Who's her lover? You cannot imagine how this will occupy me. The more trifling, the better. My imprisonment has weakened me intellectually to such a degree that I find your epistolary gifts quite considerable. I am passing into my second childhood. In a week or two I shall take to India rubber rings and prongs of coral. A silver ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... of this famous priest, was indeed a very wise man, and his sayings were reckoned of scarcely less authority then the words of his master. Whatever he said had a weight which other men's words had not; and all his actions, however trifling in their nature, were magnified into actions of importance, and became invested with a character, which did not belong to those of men in other respects more gifted than he. Yet the unbounded respect in which his nation held him was not undeserved. Wisdom he possessed, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... by now made these particular defences of the Canal of most trifling importance. Her foot is in Palestine. Work done at Ashton may well be gradually obliterated. Yet a few words can be said of the men who lived and laboured here in June, 1916, in a temperature rising often to 120 ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst

... are trifling with me, my pretty bird. Take care; I'll not be trifled with," said ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... devoted fanatics became convinced that their gods had deserted them, that victory was not for them, and that no effort, however heroic on their part, could drive us from the Ridge. The enemy's loss was heavy, ours trifling, for our men were admirably steady, well protected by breastworks, and never allowed to show themselves except when the assailants came close up. We had only 1 officer and 9 men killed ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... David do that for? I don't know. It was such a trifling little matter that it was not thought necessary to give any reason. Perhaps he had eaten too much pie and felt cross; and what else were those women for but to be made stand around on such occasions? Weren't they his property? Didn't those ten women belong to David? Hadn't he a ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... 'on this occasion they must go free, and on every occasion. Lord Cockletown, let him be what he may before, is of late a good landlord, and a friend to the people. His niece, too, is—' He then complimented me upon some trifling acts of kindness I had paid to his family when—hem—ahem—in fact, when they stood much in ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... above often "go off rather suddenly," as it is called, from some trifling ailment of a few days, which just makes up the sum of exhaustion necessary to produce death. And everybody cries, who would have thought it? except the observing nurse, if there is one, who had always expected the exhaustion to come, ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale

... distinctly the purchaser, could identify him. Does he see him in court? Yes, there he is. Points at Sabre. Anything odd about purchaser's manner? Couldn't say exactly odd. Remembered he sat down while making the purchase. Ah, sat down, did he? Was it usual for customers to sit down when making a trifling purchase? No, not in his shop it wasn't usual. Ah, it struck him then as peculiar, this sitting down? As if perhaps the purchaser was under a strain? No, not for that reason—customers didn't as a rule sit in his shop, because he didn't ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... the danger we escaped; nothing but a case of extreme necessity could have justified the attempt, and Providence was our guide;[17] at the same time warning us of the danger we ran, having actually seen the breakers, and escaped them by a trifling distance; and this was performed late at night, all the ships following and guided ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross

... that Weelum MacLure drove across Sir George in safety, because the bridge was not for use that day. Whether that bridge was really built by Marshall Wade in his great work of pacifying the Highlands is very far from certain, but Drumtochty did not relish any trifling with its traditions, and had a wonderful pride in its solitary bridge, as well it might, since from the Beeches nothing could well be more picturesque. Its plan came nearly to an inverted V, and the apex was just long enough to allow the horses to rest after the ascent, before they precipitated ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... method of dressing this fruit for the table at Pompeii, for large quantities of figs so treated have been unearthed in shops and kitchens. Such grains of information as the wearing of hoods and the preserving of figs may appear trifling enough at first sight, yet it is from a number of petty details such as these that we are assisted to an intimate understanding of a state of society extinct ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... that critical moment there occurred one of those trifling incidents which so often produce results ridiculously disproportionate to their apparent importance. Through the open door to which his back was turned, a little snake had made its way into the room, and having ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... ye trifling, self-assuming elves, Brimful of pride, of nothing, of yourselves, Survey Eugenio, view him o'er and o'er, Then sink into yourselves, and ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... much-called-upon but sadly unsusceptible Edward. There is something grimly humorous in the idea of Mary Wollstonecraft, destined as she was from all eternity to sound an alarum call to arouse women from their lethargy, spending her days behind a counter attending to their trifling temporal wants! A Roland might as well have been asked to become cook, a Sir Galahad to turn scullion. Honest work is never disgraceful in itself. Indeed, "Better do to no end, than nothing!" But one regrets the pain and the waste when circumstances ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... highest standing on each side,—making eleven in all; Dr. Schmidt a little way off, anxious that I should prove true all that he had said in praise of me; and the rest of the class in the background, filling up the large hall. It was terrible. The trifling honor of being considered capable was rather dearly purchased. I went through the whole hour bravely, without missing a single question; until finally the clock struck twelve, when every thing suddenly ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska

... a chariot-race (spectaculum) drives out morality and invites the most trifling contentions; it is the emptier of honourable conduct, the ever-flowing spring of squabbles: a thing which Antiquity commenced as a matter of religion, but which a quarrelsome posterity has turned into ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... that portion of them which could be converted to the state of civilization. In the practice of European States, before our Revolution, they had been considered as children to be governed; as tenants at discretion, to be dispossessed as occasion might require; as hunters to be indemnified by trifling concessions for removal from the grounds from which their game was extirpated. In changing the system it would seem as if a full contemplation of the consequences of the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams • John Quincy Adams

... other. You will meet with many of these writers, who will give you a fine heroic long preface, that makes you hope for something extraordinary to follow, when after all, the body of the history shall be idle, weak, and trifling, such as puts you in mind of a sporting Cupid, who covers his head with the mask of a Hercules or Titan. The reader immediately cries out, "The mountain {39} has brought forth!" Certainly it ought not to be so; everything should be alike and of the same ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian

... like a certain account of the heroine’s adventures; all I knew was, that in one of the drawers which were the delight of my childhood, along with attar of roses and fragrant wonders from Hindustan, there were letters carefully treasured, and trifling presents which I was taught to think valuable because they had come from the queen of the desert, who dwelt in tents, and ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... added to the fatigue of these repeated journeys, all conspired to produce feelings of intense sadness, which was reflected on almost all the countenances of the Imperial household; while the officers said among themselves that the combats in the North were trifling compared with those which ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... she kneeled, and, by the aid of her notes, she told off to the good Father and receptacle of the queen's trifling sins, Fernando de Talavera, how wicked she had been. When it was over and the queen had risen to go, Fernando came forth, and with ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... You are desirous of engaging in the management of an Academy. Are you in low circumstances? Are you a broken attorney, or excise-man? A disbanded Frenchman, or superannuated clerk? Offer your service for a trifling consideration; declaim on the roguery of requiring large sums, and make yourself amends in the inferior articles; quills, paper, ink, books, candles, fire, extraordinary expences, taylors and shoe-maker's bills, are excellent items in academy-accounts. You may charge them ...
— The Academy Keeper • Anonymous

... a dead weight on this market only; whereas other branches of manufactures, practically enjoying no protection, in the case of depressed trade at home, had an opportunity of immediate relief, by spreading the surplus thereby created, at a very trifling sacrifice, over the ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... as I found out afterwards). One evening I was playing at whist, one of my opponents being a momentarily discarded lover of my young lady; I thought he was looking very distrait; however, things went off quietly enough for some time, till on some trifling question arising concerning the rules of the game, the young man suddenly and quite gratuitously insulted me most grossly, ending his insolent conduct by throwing his cards in my face. This was more than I could put up with, so I called him out, ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha

... clarionet; those of the middle and high, to the vox humana of some organs; lastly, the harmonical sounds are exactly like those of the harmonica. It is conceived, that this diversity of tones affords already a great variety in the execution, which is always looked upon as being feeble and trifling, on account of the smallness of the instrument. It was not thought possible to derive much pleasure from any attempt which could be made to conquer the difficulties of so limited an instrument; because, in the extent of these octaves, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various

... Neapolitans, with a little gossamer veil dropping daintily on the shoulder of one of those exquisite balzarines, to be seen any day at Stewart's and elsewhere. Well, you know (this you must know) that shopkeepers have the impertinence to demand a trifling exchange for these things, even of a lady; and also that some people have a remarkably small purse, and a remarkably small portion of the yellow "root" in that. And now, to bring the matter home, I am one of that ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... critics, Dickens, looking about superciliously, or Anthony Trollope, breathing hard, or Trollope mere, or Harriet Martineau, or Captain Marryat, or Mayne Reid, or Samuel Lover. For in a case like this a trifling matter like an anachronism or a misstatement ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice

... the professor said earnestly, "let me point out to you that this is a wonderful position in which you have been placed. You ought to be most proud and grateful. Any trifling inconveniences which may result should be, I venture to say, utterly ignored by you. Now come, let me ask you a question. Are you feeling absolutely your—how shall ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... for half an hour. When he returned his suit-case was closed. He thought nothing of a matter so trifling till he looked inside, and then he underwent a feeling as if it had been rifled. But nothing was gone, so far as he could see. Then he noticed the folding-pocket, for its fastening cord was undone. How well he remembered placing there the letter from Ailsa, months ago! ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... to be fairly inaugurated. Jenkins' idea, excellent in theory, was extremely difficult, almost impracticable, in practice. And yet God knows that the affair had been carried through with an excess of zeal as to every detail, even the most trifling, and that all the money and attendants necessary were forthcoming. At the head of the establishment was one of the most skilful men in the profession, M. Pondevez, a graduate of the Paris hospitals; and associated with him, to take more direct charge of the children, ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... river was immense, and ever on the increase. Limehouse, it would seem, had nothing to do but to go to Deptford, and that Deptford consumed all its time in returning the visit. Little children were sent across continually on the most trifling errands, going and coming for one halfpenny. An immense income was made by the owners of the ferry. No two adjacent streets in London had more to do with each other than had the lanes of Rotherhithe and the lanes of Limehouse. Westminster and Lambeth were further ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... the writings of Dr. West, "he might have omitted doing the thing if he would," and he is perplexed to ascertain its meaning. "To say that if a man had chosen not to go to a debauch, (for that is the case put by Dr. West,) he would, indeed, have chosen not to go to it, is too great trifling to be ascribed to Dr. West." "Yet to say," he continues, "that the man could have avoided the external action of going, &c., if he would, would be equally trifling; for the question before us is concerning the liberty ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... probably trifling, but may be considered worth recording. Facing the title-page to The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, London, W. Bowyer, for Bernard Lintot, &c., 1717, 8vo., no date at end of preface, is in (no ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various

... which is greater than the things man accumulates, the deeds he accomplishes, the theories he builds; the soul whose onward course is never checked by death or dissolution. Man's mistakes and failures have by no means been trifling or small, they have strewn his path with colossal ruins; his sufferings have been immense, like birth-pangs for a giant child; they are the prelude of a fulfilment whose scope is infinite. Man has gone through and is still undergoing martyrdoms in various ways, ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore

... between the shallowest routineer and the deepest thinker appears, to the latter, trifling; to the ...
— Maxims for Revolutionists • George Bernard Shaw

... smoothly before the wind. But in the midst of our debate, we plainly heard a voice calling out for help, in our own tongue, like a person in great distress. I then insisted on going, and not suffering a fellow-creature to perish for the sake of a trifling delay. In compliance with my resolute demand, he slackened sail; and hoisting out the boat, myself and seven others made to the cry, and soon found it to come from an elderly man, labouring for life, with his arms across several long poles, of equal size ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock

... altogether upon the caprice of superhuman powers, the moral elements of a drama are but faintly discernible. Thus the central action of Sakoontala hinges on the fact that the heroine, absorbed in thoughts of love, neglects to welcome with due respect the great saint Durvasas—certainly a trifling and venial fault—but he is represented as blighting her with a curse which results in all the unhappiness of the drama, and which is only ended at last by the intervention of a more powerful being. By this principle of construction the characters are reduced to mere shadow creations: ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... the dust smooth around our shanty each night to make a sort of visitors' book. Then each morning I could go out and by study of the tracks get an exact idea of who had called. Of course there were many blank nights; on others the happenings were trifling, but some were full of interest. In this way I learned of the Coyote's visits to the garbage pail and of the Skunk establishment under the house, and other interesting facts as in the diagram. I have always used this method of study in my mountain trips, and recall ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

... over while dressing, and trying hard to believe herself a very ill-used, instead of naughty, child. It was a burning shame that she had been scolded and left behind for such a trifling fault; but she would let "papa" and everybody else see that she didn't care; she wouldn't ask one word about what kind of a time they had had (she hoped it hadn't been so very nice); and she would show papa, too, that she could do very well without ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley

... and nation—and especially those who consider themselves as good, and even better perhaps, than he who became a cura, while they do not become anything better than bilango or servant? How severely the good cura will chastise them, and for trifling offenses! [305] as we see the Indians do when they act as gobernadorcillos of their villages for even a single year—when the first thing that they do, and in which they most delight, is immediately to place the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... way? or would you do him these services and yet not give him anything?" Here I will draw a distinction, or at any rate endeavour to do so. A benefit is a useful service, yet all useful service is not a benefit; for some are so trifling as not to claim the title of benefits. To produce a benefit two conditions must concur. First, the importance of the thing given; for some things fall short of the dignity of a benefit. Who ever called a hunch ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... Of course you have heard that matters have already become strained between the civil government and myself. Only last week my head aide-de-camp sent for a barber who was attached to a neighboring regiment, using as a messenger the orderly whom I had stationed at the door. For this trifling order there has been ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... still holding to the bars, for she somehow felt quite unaccountably weak. "It wasn't very bad. There's hardly any scar at all—or won't be, when it's fully healed. But all this is trifling, compared to what you've suffered and are suffering. Oh, what a horrible affair! What frightful accusations! Tell me ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... pleasure and not a little wisdom; at any rate a direction for which she would all her life be thankful. It would have been surprising if her presence in the doctor's house had not after some time made changes in it, but there was no great difference outwardly except that she gathered some trifling possessions which sometimes harmonized, and as often did not, with the household gods of the doctor and Marilla. There was a shy sort of intercourse between Nan and Mrs. Graham's grandchildren, but it was not very valuable to ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... Certain trifling symptoms aroused the suspicions of the French, who soon found themselves in a cul-de-sac, where the natives persisted in declaring that fresh water was to be found. Labbe, in spite of all the persuasions of the natives, did not wish to imperil his boats in two or three feet of ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... acknowledged that "if the property were of great value, as, for instance, if it were a vessel employed for smuggling or other illegal purposes, it would be * * * dangerous * * * to permit * * * [an officer] to sell or destroy it as a public nuisance, * * * But where the property is of trifling value, * * * we think it is within the power of the legislature to order its ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... character of the prisoner's antecedents. We went back to Mayfair—Charles, well satisfied that the man he dreaded was under lock and key; myself, not too well pleased to think that the man I dreaded was no longer at large, and that the trifling little episode of the ten per cent commission ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... wild night, but she did not speak of Edna's visit to her room. Afterward she went up to prepare for her ride, but during the next hour Richard noticed she was not in her usual spirits, and questioned her kindly as to the cause of her depression. Bessie made some trifling excuse; she had slept badly, and her head ached; but in reality she could find no ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... king and his good wife, Sweetbine, were very much grieved at the foolish trifling of their daughter, Dewbell—for they were well assured that Dewbell loved the noble knight, Sir Timothy, and that it was only a spirit of mere wantonness that led her to vex and torment him. Long into ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... organism placed under new conditions [often] sometimes varies in a small degree and in very trifling respects such as stature, fatness, sometimes colour, health, habits in animals and probably disposition. Also habits of life develope certain parts. Disuse atrophies. [Most of these slight ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin

... more duty on a given article in one year, but, if so, he would pay a little less in another, and in a series of years these would counterbalance each other and amount to the same thing so far as his interest is concerned. This inconvenience would be trifling when contrasted with the additional security thus afforded against frauds upon the revenue, in which every consumer ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan

... that's the matter?' he returned pettishly (this being the first time of his showing such a mood). 'Upon my heart and life such trifling is trying to any man's temper, Baptista! Sending me about from here to yond, and then when I come back saying 'ee don't like the place that I have sunk so much money and words to get for 'ee. 'Od dang it all, 'tis enough to—But I won't say any more at present, mee deer, though it is ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.

... sector would not make interesting reading as it was a quiet time. The enemy shelling was not heavy and was confined to a few favourite spots. At night he sent over a few gas shells, but never in great numbers, and the damage done was trifling. On the other hand, night after night he received thousands of shells of all sizes from our gunners, especially from 6-inch howitzers, ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... be had in any thing like the plenty we expected, from the account given of this country by the natives of Senegal, who, being themselves extremely poor, consider that to be a large quantity which we think very trifling. The Negroes value their gold as a very precious thing, even at a higher rate than the Portuguese, yet we got it in barter very reasonably for things of very small value. We continued here eleven days, during which the caravels were continually resorted to by great numbers of Negroes from ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... he, with a look at once stern and disappointed, "again thou failest me? what wanton trifling! why shouldst thou thus elate a worn-out mind, only to make it feel its lingering credulity? or why, teaching me to think I had found an angel, so unkindly ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... visit to the camp of Satanta a trifling incident comes to my mind. Crossing Red river which was considerably swollen due to the heavy thaws—the river at this point was only about nine feet across and about two and a half feet deep—but it was a treacherous place because it was ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... Archbishop, who was against the restoration—for entirely insufficient reasons, it was true. 'Put a roof,' Father Oliver said, 'on the abbey, and it will look like any other church, and another link will be broken. "Which is the better—a great memory or some trifling comfort?"' A few moments after the car turned the corner and he caught sight of Father Moran, 'out for his morning's walk,' he said; and he compared Moran's walk up and down the highroad with his own rambles along the lake shores and through ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... the children of Israel to sprinkle their lintels and door-posts with blood, they might have been foolish enough to say, "No; we shall do better. We shall not be content with doing so trifling a thing; we shall rather build up great walls around our houses, so that the destroying angel may not get in." Do you think, if they had done so, their first-born would have been saved? No; there would have been death in every such household; ...
— The Cities of Refuge: or, The Name of Jesus - A Sunday book for the young • John Ross Macduff

... Stephen Arnold to Crooked Lane is hardly ours to examine. It must have been strong, since going up to Mrs. Sand involved certain concessions, doubtless intrinsically trifling, but of exaggerated discomfort to the mind spiritually cloistered, whatever its other latitude. Among them was a distinctly necessary apology, difficult enough to make to a lady of rank so superior and authority so voyant in the Church militant, by a mere fighting soul without ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... frequently the centre of meeting for many, and very distant tribes. The facility of obtaining scraps by begging, small rewards for trifling jobs of work, donations from the charitable, and a variety of broken victuals, offal, etc. enable them to collect in large numbers, and indulge to the uttermost their curiosity in observing the novelties around them, in meeting strange tribes, and joining them ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... cabin. They didn't come back to Nells no more that I herd bout. The man Nells worked for muster been one in that crowd. He lived way over yonder. No I think the Ku Klux was a good thing at that time. The darkies got sassy (saucy), trifling, lazy. They was notorious. They got mean. The men wouldn't work. Their families have to work an' let them roam round over the country. Some of em mean to their families. They woulder starved the white out and their selves too. I seed the Ku Klux heap a times but they didn't bother me no more. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... Other trifling souvenirs are already packed away. Almost everybody that knows me has given me something. Manm-Robert brought me a tiny packet of orange-seeds,—seeds of a "gift- orange": so long as I can keep these in my vest-pocket ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... in milk is so trifling, that it can hardly answer that purpose. I have heard of only one instance of its being used for the production of a spirituous liquor, and this is by the Tartan Arabs; their abundance of horses, as well as their ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... wanted to see them himself and pick out the men he liked); eight days more at Soohaj, then to Siout eight days more, and meanwhile Ismail Pasha has gone back to Cairo and the poor souls may wait indefinitely, for no one will venture to remind the Pasha of their trifling existence. ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... from Fort Severn, the blizzard had been light, and the snowfall trifling. Presently, they uncovered faint tracks leading away southwest, and judged, from the edge of the crust where the sledge had occasionally broken through, that they were not ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... experience, though this disease may not be entirely arrested in its course, and not generally much abridged in its duration, still the use of appropriate medicines will greatly modify it, and render it a comparatively trifling affection. ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill

... provoked again this ominous flare, poor Susie grasped at her only advantage. "Do you really accuse a man like Sir Luke Strett of trifling ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... are indispensable or desirable qualities, and will cross with animals with a view to establish them. This proceeding will be of the 'give-and-take' kind. He will submit to the introduction of a trifling defect, in order that he may profit by a great excellence; and between excellences perhaps somewhat incompatible he will decide on which is the greatest, and give it the preference. To a person commencing ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie

... not altogether agreeable decision, which in any other person would probably mean that he had at last made up his mind to call in the sheriff. But Buck was convinced that this was the last thing Lynch intended to do, and gradually there grew up in his mind, fostered by one or two trifling particulars in Tex's manner toward himself, a curious, instinctive feeling of ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... curiosity and astonishment, lifting the legs of our trowsers and opening our shirts, to see if the skin of our bodies resembled that of our faces and hands. We remained some time with them, to make proposals of peace; and having ascertained that this warlike demonstration originated in a trifling offence on the part of the Kreluits, we found them well disposed to arrange matters in an amicable fashion. After having given them, therefore, some looking-glasses, beads, knives, tobacco, and other trifles, we quitted them and pursued ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere

... about something every school-girl is mistress of! "Or, perhaps, it is because your world is so different from mine! Music, laughter, the traditions of Italian bel canto, you have no room for them, they are too light, too trifling. You are above them," poising her fair ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham

... interrupted him, and, with a smile, in the presence of all the officers, replied—"Never mind it, Lieutenant—there's no harm done—we never missed you." The effect of this sarcasm is said to have been admirable; and to have resulted in the complete reform of the offender, who, from being a trifling, purposeless, and unscrupulous young man, grew considerate equally of his duties and his word, and, by a career of industry, sobriety and modesty, made ample amends, in future days, for all the errors ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... ticket-offices, etc., one should pay no attention to other people, further than to guard against allowing one's absorbing interest in one's own affairs to make one regardless of the just rights of others in the matter of "turn" at ticket or stamp windows, or in the use of the public desk, pens, etc.—trifling tests of good manners that distinguish the well-bred, and which illustrate very pointedly the truth that selfishness is always vulgar, and that an unfailing habit of considering other people's comfort is ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton

... British Coffee House in King Street appointing where an Interview may be had will meet with a Person who flatters himself he shall not be thought Disagreeable by any Lady answering the above description. N. B. Profound Secrecy will be observ'd. No Trifling Answers will ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... resistance, captured two companies of infantry and the guns. The captured arms and accouterments served to equip Waller's men, whose rifles were altered flintlocks and worthless, and the prisoners were sent to the Teche to be guarded by Fournet's Acadians. This trifling success, the first in the State since the loss of New Orleans, attracted attention, and the people rejoiced at the capture of the Des Allemands garrison as might those of Greece at the unearthing of the accomplished and classic thief Cacus. Indeed, the den of that worthy never contained ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... was too much in earnest to be daunted by anything so trifling as the misplacing of a mask. He studied hard, despite a youthful liking for the jolly joys of Bacchus, and soon made for himself an enviable position upon the Dublin stage. For the youth had all the qualities that went toward the formation of a ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... had mentioned Lindsay's offer to Dresser, who was rising at laborious hours and toiling in the McNamara and Hill's offices, he realized how unmentionable and trifling were his grounds for hesitation. Dresser's enthusiasm almost persuaded him that Lindsay had given him something valuable. And if he found it difficult to explain his distaste for the thing to Dresser, what would he have to say to other people—to the Hitchcocks? Yet he made his reservations ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... of the soil within the boundaries of the great Commonwealth of New York, there were many small remnants scattered over the western part of this State in a condition of wretched vagrancy; reduced by idleness and intemperance to poverty, and ready, for a trifling compensation, to have their names attached to any memorial, without regard to its objects, for a small sum of money they would lend themselves to the service of any artful intriguer whose designs were to defraud ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson

... colonists and the travellers—the American plants would cost too much. But the rocks were possible, as well as the shattered trees, the immortelles, and the moss; and in their enthusiasm for new ideas, after many experiments, with the assistance of a single man-servant, and for a trifling sum, they made for themselves a residence which had no analogy to ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... father!" retorted the Commandant's wife, "are not husband and wife the same flesh and spirit? Ivan Kouzmitch, are you trifling? Lock them up separately, and keep them on broad and water till this ridiculous idea goes out of their heads. And Father Garasim shall make them do penance that they may ask pardon of heaven ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... possible to him. The world was rose-colored as it always was when he looked at it, glass in hand, near to Uncle Caragol. All obstacles would turn out to be trifling: everything would arrange itself with wonderful facility. Men were able to progress ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... strong, and prudently retired into West Virginia. 2. On the night that the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan, General Butler, with thirty thousand men, ascended the James River, under the protection of gunboats, and landed at Bermuda Hundred. After some trifling successes, he was surprised in a dense fog by Beauregard, and driven back into his defences with considerable loss. Beauregard then threw intrenchments across the narrow strip which connects Bermuda Hundred with the main land, and, as Grant tersely said, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... where the latter, imbued with a wholesome fear of the penalty for contravening the law, refrains from giving it, the agency of degraded whites is readily secured by the Indian, and, with their connivance, the unlawful object compassed. Of course the white abettor in these cases risks trifling, if any, publicity in the matter, and is inspired with the less fear of detection. There are some few hotel-keepers who, though they more than suspect the purpose to which the liquor these whites are demanding is to be applied, permit ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie

... me? I will stand no trifling! A nice commencement of the term. Taking advantage of the absence of Dr. Colville, eh?" came the stern voice of the science master, as his eyes went round the group. Dr. Colville, the Head of Garfield, had been taken ill during the vacation, and ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... General Gordon declined one post for which he appeared to be well suited, I have to describe how it was that he accepted another for which neither by training nor by character was he in the least degree fitted. The exact train of trifling circumstances that led up to the proposal that Gordon should accompany the newly-appointed Viceroy, the Marquis of Ripon, to India cannot be traced, because it is impossible to assign to each its correct importance. But it may be said generally, that the prevalent idea was that Lord ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... reasons why I always feel myself at a disadvantage with Aunt Caroline. The first of these brings me to a trifling matter that I should have set down before, but which I have made a habit of ignoring so far as possible in both thought and speech. As was Lord Byron, I am slightly lame. I admit that is the only quality in common; still, I like the romantic association. Now, my limp is very slight, and I never ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... "You shall live, Alexandra Andreevna; I will cure you; we will ask your mother's blessing ... we will be united—we will be happy." "No, no, I have your word; I must die ... you have promised me ... you have told me." ... It was cruel for me—cruel for many reasons. And see what trifling things can do sometimes; it seems nothing at all, but it's painful. It occurred to her to ask me, what is my name; not my surname, but my first name. I must needs be so unlucky as to be called Trifon. Yes, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev

... to impress you with the importance of the event. The past five months of trooper life have not passed unpleasantly. There have been the inconveniences and hardships of the moment, "les petites miseres de la vie militaire," which sound trifling enough, but are rather a tax on one's endurance sometimes. The life of a trooper, and especially of a scout, is often a sort of struggle for existence in small ways. You have to care for and tend your pony, supplement his ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... the night-mare of my own delinquencies. I should, many a good day, have blown my brains out, but for the recollection that it would have given pleasure to my mother-in-law; and, even then, if I could have been certain to haunt her—but I won't dwell upon these trifling family matters. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... To trifling. Far as Jericho I'd send All shilly-shally. Do, for goodness' sake Speak out and say, "As husband I thee take." I've married twice, and know how ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

... other corporations, than governments, surrender their affairs into the hands of the majority, the answer is, that they allow majorities to determine only trifling matters, that are in their nature mere questions of discretion, and where there is no natural presumption of justice or right on one side rather than the other. They never surrender to the majority the power to dispose of; or, ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner

... period of Dr. Angell's long administration, however, were the years from 1875 to 1879, when a comparatively trifling discrepancy in the books of the Chemical Laboratory developed into a struggle which almost disrupted the University. The story of the trouble, which is generally known as the Douglas-Rose controversy, is ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw

... confidence, but told her less. For this difference, perhaps, Frina was chiefly responsible. Maritza felt that she had grown lukewarm, not to her personally, but toward the cause which took so few and such trifling steps toward its end. She did not wonder at it. No day passed in which she herself had not a period of despair, a passionate longing to drive things to a speedy conclusion, though the end brought failure. To her, her cause was paramount, and she would not ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... Joseph, 'an advertisement which has appeared the last two days in various journals, and reappears this morning, may possibly have failed to catch your eye. The name, with a trifling variation, bears a strong resemblance to your own. Ah, here it is. If you please, I will read ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... enlightened to discern worth and merit—even beneath the spangled vest of the humblest acrobat. Your foster-brother, brief as our acquaintance has been, has already endeared himself to all hearts, while you have borne a trifling reverse of fortune with sullen discontent and conspicuous incapacity. He has perfected himself in a lofty and distinguished profession during years spent by you, Sir, in idly cumbering the earth of Eton and Oxford. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various

... each other, beautiful as two divinities, listened, smiling and growing pale. At the end of the song Petronius gave directions to serve more wine and food; then he conversed with the guests sitting near him of trifling but pleasant things, such as are mentioned usually at feasts. Finally, he called to the Greek to bind his arm for a moment; for he said that sleep was tormenting him, and he wanted to yield himself to Hypnos before Thanatos put ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... man feels himself hard-pressed in a fight and is struggling desperately to hold his ground, he has small thought for the trifling courtesies demanded by custom. Without returning the greetings of the two men and instinctively drawing apart from Holmes, the surveyor shot a single question at his employer. ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... abreast of the grove when the British force in the watercourse met them. It would not seem to be a very important matter, at what point in the watercourse the infantry of the two opposing parties came into collision, but matters apparently trifling in themselves often decide the fate of battles; and, in fact, had the French artillery retained their fire until their infantry were abreast of the grove, the battle of Kavaripak would have been won by them, and the ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty

... man could recollect individually each part of the service of that bright Christmas morning, and the trifling occurrences which took place as its minutes slowly drew along; the duties of that day dividing themselves by a complete line from the services of other times. The tunes they that morning essayed remained ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy

... caused her made her heart throb violently. She then recalled him as she next saw him, in the drawing-room by her husband's side, seated in the very chair that she had left but a moment before. This trifling circumstance impressed her; she saw in this a proof of sympathetic understanding, a sort of gift of second sight which Octave possessed, and which in her eyes was so formidable a weapon. According to her ideas, he must ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... and made a number of suggestions from which I gathered that if the whole thing were altered, my idea of the background altogether changed, the figures differently posed, the effect of light and shade diametrically reversed, and a few other trifling alterations made, the thing might possibly be hung on the top line. Ma foi, I feel altogether crushed, for I had really flattered myself that the sketch was not ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... evening Matthew betook himself to Carmody to buy the dress, determined to get the worst over and have done with it. It would be, he felt assured, no trifling ordeal. There were some things Matthew could buy and prove himself no mean bargainer; but he knew he would be at the mercy of shopkeepers when it came ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... word of even the most trifling document should be written in such clear characters that it would be impossible to mistake it for another word, or the writer may find himself in the position of the Eastern merchant who, writing to the Indies for five thousand mangoes, received by the next vessel five hundred ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... against my nose. Lo, says he, are these not beuties? And his reek of barley wine did fille the chamber. Worste of alle, deare Mother, this all-advised wretche doth spend alle his vacant houres in compiling a booke on the art (as he calleth it) of angling, surely a trifling petty wanton ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley

... external to the living mind 550 Should have such mighty sway! yet so it was), A weight of ages did at once descend Upon my heart; no thought embodied, no Distinct remembrances, but weight and power,— Power growing under weight: alas! I feel 555 That I am trifling: 'twas a moment's pause,— All that took place within me came and went As in a moment; yet with Time it dwells, And grateful memory, as ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... Swift, when it occurred to me that I might be useful to him in getting up all the local Swiftian relics, traditions, etc. I set to work, obtained them, made the sketches, and sent them to him in a batch. He was supremely grateful, and never forgot the volunteered trifling service. To it I owe a host of literary friends and acquaintance with the "great guns," Dickens, Carlyle, and the rest; and when I ventured to try my prentice pen, it was Forster who took personal charge of the venture. It was long remembered ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald

... question—a small, trifling question," said the lawyer, preparing his ground well. "Have you ever once set foot in the ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun

... of some hidden spite, or obscure quarrel; it explains the apparent ferocity of the murder, and the improbability of a practical thief selecting such an unprofitable couple as his prey. The rummaged chest of drawers and the fact that some trifling articles of jewellery were left untouched on the top of them, are consistent with an eager search by the murderer for some particular object. Against this theory of revenge is the fact that Butler was a malignant ruffian and ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... when I send you a trifling temporary production made for the occasion of the day, and to perish with it, in return for your ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... contempt on his feeble descendant. "So much for you! You float in shallow water!"[A] the wry lips seemed to be saying to him. "Is it possible," he thought, "that I cannot gain mastery over myself; that I am going to yield to this—this trifling affair!" (Men who are seriously wounded in a battle always think their wounds "a mere trifle;" when a man can deceive himself no longer, it is time to give up living). "Am I really a child? Well, yes I have seen near at hand, I have almost grasped, the possibility of gaining a life-long ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... America—are not found on their banks. This is not only a curious, but an important fact, and might be sufficient to determine any one on the choice of a settlement. You may deem a mosquito a very small thing, and its presence a trifling annoyance. Let me tell you that settlements have been broken up and deserted on account of the persecution experienced from these little insects! They are the real "wild beasts" of South America, far more to be ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... politicians' indifference to its approval, their services were of slight account. Too often a political office was granted from a pocket borough in which a restricted electorate could be bought at a trifling expense. To gain support inside the House of Commons was enough. The greater public outside could be ignored. This attitude changed with the coming of the French Revolution. Here was a new force unrealized before—that of a crowd which, being unrepresented and with a real ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks

... their descendants (and they must have some) were, though Catholics, invested with these privileges. There necessarily must be some Catholics in the kingdom who were not excluded with the rest of their brethren: and where were they? But such a construction was trifling, contrary to all rules of logic, and all fair modes of reasoning. So far as the treaty of Limerick went, the case was conclusive: faith had been pledged, and faith had been broken." The treaty of Limerick thus brought forward by Sir ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... ladangs, a dollar or more from each family in the neighbourhood, under the pretence of ensuring favourable weather for their undertaking. To accomplish this purpose he abstains, or pretends to abstain, for many days and nights from food and sleep, and performs various trifling ceremonies; continuing all the time in the open air. If he espies a cloud gathering he immediately begins to smoke tobacco with great vehemence, walking about with a quick pace and throwing the puffs towards it with all the force of his lungs. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... hitherto met with. They were so wild that it was impossible to carry on any trade with them, or any sustained intercourse. What they appeared to esteem above everything else were fish-hooks, knives, and all articles in metal, attaching no value to all the trifling baubles which up to this time had served for barter. Twenty-five armed men landed and advanced from four to six miles into the interior of the country. They were received by the natives with flights of arrows, after which the latter retired into the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... that are learned in the scriptures. They behold the attainment of the highest end by Jiva not with their physical eyes but with the eye of the scriptures, for they that are themselves emancipated cannot be said to behold the emancipation of another. This is grave trifling for explaining the use of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... two professions before-mentioned, commonly followed by the men, some of them employ themselves as carpenters and turners; the former making watering troughs and chests; the latter turn, trenchers and dishes; make sieves, spoons, and other trifling articles, which they hawk about. Many of them, as well as the smiths, find constant employment in the houses of the better sort of people; for whom they work the year round. They are not paid in money, but beside other advantages ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland

... ever played; I had no companions; I passed my hours in homesickness; I spent the whole night weeping in my bed. I sought to bring before my mind recollections of home, trifling memories of little things, little events. I thought incessantly of all I had left behind there. I became almost imperceptibly an over-sensitive youth to whom the slightest ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... moment combined to sit heavily upon poor Schneidekoupon, and to remove his disturbing influence from the scene, at least until other men should get what they wanted. These were merely the trifling incidents that fell within Mrs. Lee's observation. She felt an atmosphere of bargain and intrigue, but she could only imagine how far it extended. Even Carrington, when she spoke to him about it, only ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... through his day's work. Jan had tried one assistant, who had proved to be more plague than profit, and Jan was better without him. Master Cheese, promoted now to tail-coats and turn-up collars, was coming on, and could attend to trifling cases. Master Cheese wished to be promoted also to "Mister" Cheese; but he remained obstinately excessively short, and people would still call him "Master." He appeared to grow in breadth instead of height, and underwent, in consequence, a perpetual inward mortification. ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... a word about his own prospects in reference to the marriage, but Everett had been at first too full of his own affairs to attend much to a matter which was comparatively so trifling. "Upon my word," he said, "I am beginning to feel angry with the governor, which is a kind of thing I ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... cruelty or malice than one who indulges in spiteful feelings, fault finding, and resentment. Our habitual thoughts and desires make us responsive to certain stimuli and indifferent to others. The words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart, as well as the trifling acts that we perform, in themselves however unimportant, have their subtle and accumulative influence in determining our momentous acts. The familiar case of the drinker who says, "This glass doesn't count" can be paralleled ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... adopting male attire as of innovating on the immemorial mode du pays, yet the quality of the materials allows scope for wealth and female coquetry to show themselves. Thus the invariable mode de Broons, with its trifling difference in form, which in the eye of the inhabitants made it as different as light from darkness from the mode de St. Jouan,' was equally observable in the coarse linen coiffe of the maid, and the richly-laced and beautifully 'got up' head-dress of the daughter ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... Nikolay and the doctor who attends him, you emphasize that "all that is done without love, without self-sacrifice, even in regard to trifling conveniences." You are right, speaking of people generally, but what would you have the doctors do? If, as your old nurse says, "The bowel has burst," what's one to do, even if one is ready to give one's life to the sufferer? As a rule, while the family, ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... to the northern extreme the coast is sandy and low, presenting, with trifling exceptions, a continued beach. On the north side of Point Malcolm it stretches north, and then eastward, forming a bight five miles within the land; after which the general trending is north-north-east, with very ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... thought of Kedzie at all, he dismissed her as a trifling memory. He wanted Charity, who did not want him. Charity had Cheever, who did not want her. Kedzie had Gilfoyle, and did not want him. It looked as if the old jingle ought to be changed from "Finders keepers, losers weepers" to ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... comparatively well if the mischief done us by Science, Medicine and Chemistry, and all that sort of thing—stopped here. The mere consideration that burial in the heart of cities is unhealthy, would but lead to extramural interment, to which our only objection—though even that is no very trifling one—is that it would diminish mortality, and consequently our trade. But this Science—confound it!—shows that the dead do not remain permanently in their coffins, even when the sextons of metropolitan graveyards will let them. It not only informs Londoners ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various

... and convincing that differentiation which divides so sharply the sexual activity of the female from that of the male. The serious part in sex belongs to the one who gives life, while in comparison the activity of the male can almost be regarded as trifling. And I believe that this view will be found to be amply supported by facts if we turn now to consider the later and human relation of the sexes. In all cases it is the same, the serious business in sex belongs to the woman. As it was in the beginning, so, it seems to me, it continues ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... that God sends the little trials as well as the great, and that He has commanded us to 'let patience have her perfect work.' I fear it is a lack of the spirit of forgiveness that makes it so difficult for us to bear these trifling vexations with equanimity. And you must remember too, dear, that the Bible bids us be courteous, and teaches us to treat others as we ourselves would wish to ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley

... dropped on all-fours, groping about in the darkness for the weapon that had rolled away and out of immediate reach. Oxenford, drawing his knife, struck downward, aiming for the angle of neck and collar-bone. But in his eagerness he overshot the mark, the blade making only a trifling flesh wound, and the next instant Dom Gillian had him in his clutch. ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... tendency. We like everything to be exactly in its accustomed place; we like things to happen exactly at their appointed times; we like everything to be usual, orderly, punctual, methodical, to a hair's breadth, to a minute. It distresses and upsets us if it is not so. For instance, to take a very trifling matter, a thrush has built its nest year after year in the catkin-tree on the lawn; this year, for no obvious reason, it is building in the ivy on the garden wall. We have said very little about it, but I think we both feel that the ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... And, as if to remind men that the principles involved in the movements of the Church are of the same nature as those involved in the movements of the state, the resemblances here pointed out are sometimes singularly illustrated in trifling details. The Bishop of Alexandria was not the first triumvir who came to an untimely end on the banks of the Nile; the Roman pontiff was not the first who consolidated his power by the aid of ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... glitter of the world, as to esteem such things more highly than the far richer treasures of the heart, which alone can garnish a home with unsullied beauty, and feel the pity and contempt for them that I do, these trifling baubles will take their appropriate place, and you will see life as it is, and value it for what is pure and genuine—not for that which is ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless

... received it as those who were accustomed to the deference of inferiors, and returned it with courtesy; but he thought—perhaps it was but a youthful vision—that the young lady coloured slightly, kept her eyes on the ground, and seemed embarrassed though in a trifling degree, as she returned his military salutation. This must have been owing to her recollection of the audacious stranger in the neighbouring turret at the Fleur de Lys; but did that discomposure express displeasure? This question he ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... and how the boy Damian, and the girl Eveline, were dying of love with each other, but had not courage to say a word of it, for fear of the Constable, though he were a thousand miles off?-You seem concerned, worthy sir—may I offer your reverend worship a trifling sup from my bottle, which is sovereign for tremor cordis, and ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... that Rosalie waited in the arbour seemed very, very long to her. Every minute was like an hour, and at the least sound she started from her seat, and looked down the gravel path. But it was only a bird, or a falling leaf, or some other trifling sound, which Rosalie's anxious ears ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton

... of an hour returned with a large collection of shields, spears, krisses, and mats, which he begged our acceptance of. Every day did he bring us presents of some description or another, refusing to take any thing in return, except perhaps an English pocket handkerchief or something of very trifling value. Suddenly his visits were discontinued, and we saw no more of him. One day, dining at the house lent us by the sultan, Mr. Brooke was talking with some of our party of a young Malay chief, who, being mad, had attempted ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... his volumes lying beside me, I made hundreds, perhaps thousands, of petty corrections, and many from books which he had not had an opportunity of seeing, and of which he could only reprint incorrect descriptions. All of these, though trifling in themselves, are things which should be noticed in case of a reprint; but how much time and trouble would it cost an editor to find and collate the necessary books? That, to be sure, is his business; but the question for the public is, Would it be done at all? and could it ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various

... constant cause of our recurring financial disasters is this centralizing usury that directly opposes the distribution of wealth that is natural, when the producers of wealth are permitted to receive and enjoy it. Root out this evil, and then the trifling differences in our harvests, changes in our tariff laws, currency legislation, and the score of other things that now affect us, would be unfelt ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott

... was enchanted with the monster—she had a secret weakness for cheap little gifts—that is to say, from her own particular friends. More than once Douglas had brought her some trifling tribute, but his mother had felt deeply affronted by such uncalled for generosity to a stranger; and when he ventured to exhibit the Chinese atrocity, she exclaimed ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... th' old Hebrew walking-switch, eats up its neighbours; Mankind are his show-box—a friend, would you know him? Pull the string, ruling passion the picture will show him. What pity, in rearing so beauteous a system, One trifling particular, truth, should have miss'd him; For spite of his fine theoretic positions, Mankind is a ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... of officers sprang to their feet. "Keep seated, gentlemen! We must not break up the Council," said the Governor. "We are sure to have the Intendant here in a few minutes and to learn the cause of this uproar. It is some trifling affair of noisy habitans, I have ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... scarce ruffled by the breeze, Methought, last night, I saw the man i' th' moon; As in the hollow bowl of silver spoon A broad reflected face the gazer sees; (Who trifling, dinner done, with bread and cheese, Abstractly lifts the spoon aforesaid up;) Or the same thing beholds in polished cup, Or concave snuff-box, whence the vocal sneeze! Sight of the man suggested HOTSPUR'S boast; But the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... and, known places reviving old ideas, it almost seems as if we had never moved from the spot where we are at present. I fall into the same trains of thinking; except that I am more restless, more inclined to melancholy, to inaction, to a kind of inanity, which no trifling efforts can ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... bitumen, and was kindled in the dishonourable regions below, derived from Hell and contrary to God, it cannot pass forth to the element of love; but ends in barrenness and murmurs, fantastic expectations and trifling imaginative confidences; and they at last end in ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... any publicity, I would rather you passed my own trifling exploit over in silence," Bish said. "I gather the spaceport people wouldn't be too happy about giving the public the impression that their area is teeming with tread-snails, either. They have enough trouble hiring ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper

... all along he seems quite unconcerned about that which is certainly the highest object of tragical composition, the laying open the depths of the mind and the destiny of man. For the unfavourable reception which he has so frequently to confess, his self-love can always find some excuse, some trifling circumstance to which the fate of his ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... amiable life imaginable in the housekeeper's room. She could hit off likenesses, too, in quite a startling way, and Eddie said he would give her some lessons in painting if she wished. Agnes was enthusiastic in her thanks for what was, after all, but a trifling service, and while the lessons lasted Bertie was rather glum, as he had to ramble about alone, and amuse himself as best he could. But Eddie very soon grew tired of a pupil who after three lessons far excelled the teacher, and as a change, ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... and romance of the pursuit. The rest surely need not be envied to the sought. One thinks of Consul J.J. Jarves gradually getting together that little collection of Italian primitives, at New Haven, which, scorned in his lifetime and actually foreclosed for a trifling debt, is now an object of pilgrimage for European amateurs and experts. One recalls the mouse-like activities of the Brothers Dutuit, unearthing here a gorgeous enamel, retrieving there a Rembrandt drawing, fetching out a Gothic ivory from a junk-shop. One sighs for those days, ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather

... of making colonial subjects more familiar to the general reader, and more popular than they are at present, I have perhaps given to this little work a character so trifling as to make it appear unworthy of the attention of political philosophers; and yet, inasmuch as it points out some of the wants of a large body of British subjects, whose fortunes lie entirely at the mercy of ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... lacerated arm hurt him and was not easy to manage, he raised it over his head to show that the damage was trifling. ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... There was a trifling pause while the servant replied. Mrs. Sands was still faintly smiling, a mechanical smile, and her eyes ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... make authority to consist only in force Bounty, which, though very often secret, had the louder echo Civil war is one of those complicated diseases Clergy always great examples of slavish servitude Confounded the most weighty with the most trifling Contempt—the most dangerous disease of any State Dangerous to refuse presents from one's superiors Distinguished between bad and worse, good and better Fading flowers, which are fragrant to-day and offensive tomorrow Fool in adversity and a knave in prosperity Fools yield only when they cannot ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Court Memoirs of France • David Widger

... feather. As a matter of fact, there is a sea of evidence accumulated by the investigations of men quite as scientific as Miller, testimony that is neither petty nor ignoble. It is because you and your associates are so trifling in methods that the tables and the chair play leading parts ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland

... promises in his preface, of shooting the wild moors and fishing the waters, of days spent by "fell and flood," and light and joyous nights in mountain bivouacs and moorland huts. There is too much hearsay, and storytelling not to the purpose, and trifling gossip of "exquisite potatoes" and "rascally sherry"—details which would disgrace a half-crown guide book, and ought certainly not to be set forth with spaced large type in hotpressed octavos at a costly rate. Nevertheless, the work may suit club-room tables ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various

... of the leg strongly pressed against the sides of the animal that endeavours to unhorse you; and as little accidents afford frequent occasions to remind the boys of this rule, it becomes so rooted in the memory of the intelligent, that their danger is comparatively trifling. Of the temperaments and habits of blood-horses there are great varieties, and those very strongly contrasted. The majority of them are playful, but their gambols are dangerous to the timid or unskilful. They are all easily and suddenly alarmed, when anything they do ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... train would start in about a quarter of an hour. I had some coffee and a roll at the buffet. While I was consuming that trifling refection the young man and his sister joined me. The girl was taciturn as before, but her brother talked cheerfully as he sipped chocolate; he told me that his name was Watts, and he introduced his sister. He had a pleasant but rather ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett

... cherish their six-penny books with increased care. The shadow of impending conflict was already deep upon the country when Mein departed; and the events of the decade following seventeen hundred and seventy-three—the year of the Boston Tea-Party—were too absorbing and distressing for such trifling publications as toy-books to be more than occasionally printed. Indeed, the history of the American Revolution is so interwoven with tales of privation of the necessities of life that it is astonishing that any printer ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey

... they seem to me like three years—three disastrous years—so greatly during them has the gulf between Roger and me widened and deepened. Looking back on what it was before that, it seems to me now to have been but a shallow and trifling ditch, compared to the abyss that it is now. We left Mr. Parker standing at the hall-door, his red hair flaming bravely in the morning sun, loudly expressing his regret at our departure, and trying to extract an unlikely promise from us that we will ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... George might whet his teeth on the detailed arrangements for feeding and camping the Battery on Epsom Downs. This organization gave George pause, especially when he remembered that the Battery was a very trifling item in the Division, and when Resmith casually informed him that a Division on the trek occupied fifteen miles of road. He began to perceive the difference between the Army and a circus, and to figure the Staff as something other than a club ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... chattering paroquet. Bank and money, titles and riches, were the texts of her discourse. Rich she certainly was. She had a small hotel on the Boulevard Haussmann; she had horses and carriages, gorgeous furniture in most questionable taste, three or four servants, and led a most indolent existence, trifling away her life among women like herself, less confident in her bearing, perhaps, than they, from her provincial birth and breeding. This, and a certain freshness, the result of a childhood passed in the open ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... it again, then, and inform her that it rests with you whether her son shall become an assassin or not. For, by my mother's soul, I swear that, if ever there comes to pass the most trifling interchange of thought between Prince Eugene and the Marchioness de Strozzi, he shall die—die, if I have to expiate the deed upon the scaffold! Do you ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... Little precautions, so trifling that few think of noticing them, have much to do with the quiet of the sick-room, and consequently with the patient's comfort. A rattling window will keep a child awake for hours, or the creaking handle of the door rouse it up again each time anyone enters the room; and to put ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... boldest dashed on the platform; the Grand Council had to escape, carrying the stranger with them. The mob tore out of the hall, and told their friends outside—anger led to anger, the passions rose like the waves at the equinox. Nothing could stop the mob, from so apparently trifling a cause a tumult was created; the jealousy of the townsmen now appeared—that jealousy, smothered and subdued for so many years, burst forth ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various

... he pleases. He goes to bed when it suits him, and does not get up at all unless he wants to. He is not entered at the university for any particular length of time; so he is likely to change about. He passes no examinations upon entering college. He merely pays a trifling fee of five or ten dollars, receives a card entitling him to the privileges of the university, and that is the end of it. He is now ready for business—or play, as he shall prefer. If he elects to work, he finds a large list of lectures to choose from. He selects the subjects which he will study, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the bottom of the basket all the letters which I knew came from the Ministers, and all the reports which were addressed to me for the First Consul. I then covered them over with those which; judging from their envelopes and seals, appeared to be of that trifling kind with which the First Consul was daily overwhelmed: these usually consisted of requests that he would name the number of a lottery ticket, so, that the writer might have the benefit of his good luck—solicitations that he would stand ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... as to call for immediate remedial action by the Congress. It is discreditable to us as a Nation that our merchant marine should be utterly insignificant in comparison to that of other nations which we overtop in other forms of business. We should not longer submit to conditions under which only a trifling portion of our great commerce is carried in our own ships. To remedy this state of things would not .merely serve to build up our shipping interests, but it would also result in benefit to all who are interested ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... the midnight murderer with the purloiner of a pocket-handkerchief; the branded felon with the man guilty of some political offence; the debtor with the false coiner; so that many a young and thoughtless individual whom a trifling fault, the result of ignorance or of unformed principles, has brought hither, must leave this place wholly contaminated and hardened by bad example and vicious conversation. Here there were indeed some ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... C. Miller, a printer, who agreed to publish whatever secrets of Free Masonry Morgan would reveal. The work, done by night and on Sundays, was finally interrupted on September 11, 1826, by Morgan's arrest, on a trifling criminal charge, and transfer to Canandaigua for examination. His acquittal was immediately followed by a second arrest upon a civil process for a small debt and by his imprisonment in the Canandaigua jail. When discharged on the succeeding night, he was quickly seized, and, as it ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... long, surprised whistle had so suddenly scared her, happened at that moment to be sitting astride the top of the blank wall, engaged in the legitimate occupation of sticking bits of broken bottles into putty. The man was Piper, and doubtless the trifling incident had long since slipped his mind, for that same afternoon his master, Colonel Crofton, had committed suicide in a fit of depression owing ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... supposed to reveal hidden messages in the plays: First, no poet bending his energies to the composition of such masterpieces as Shakspere's could possibly concern himself at the same time with weaving into them a complicated and trifling cryptogram. Second, the cipher systems are absolutely arbitrary and unscientific, applied to any writings whatever can be made to 'prove' anything that one likes, and indeed have been discredited in the hands of their own inventors by being made to 'prove' far too much. Third, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... said he, and striking a match, stepped into the darkness after the man. The hall of No. 13 seemed to be almost as cold as the world without, and the trifling glimmer of the lucifer served rather to reveal than dispel the surrounding darkness. The light, as it were, hollowed a gulf out of the tremendous gloom and made the house tenfold more ghostly than before. The footsteps of Denzil and Berwin sounding on the bare boards—for ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume

... now mention the consequences of the severity. The wretched Africans, daily subjected to the lash, and unmercifully whipt and beaten on every trifling occasion, have been found to resist their opposers. Unpardonable crime! that they should have the feelings of nature! that their breasts should glow with resentment on an injury! that they should be so far overcome, ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson

... follow; forget not, in trifling, earthly things, the great heavenly circumstances. Summon the consecrated of the highest degree of your circle to go to-night to the palace of Prince Frederick William at Potsdam, and under the very eyes of the old freethinking king we will open ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... answer, yet the distaste grew. Irresistibly he had acquired a habit of seeing unpleasant things: the meanness and the smallness of his surroundings; the uncouth furnishings of his home; the lack of grace in his parents and acquaintances; the trifling incidents that required so many hours of discussion; and in all things the absence of that sense of humor and appreciation of the lighter side of life which, from reading, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... on the other side looked at me keenly, but in a moment retorted, 'Enough trifling, sir! Who YOU are I do not know. But the person riding at your rein is M. de Rosny. Him I do know, and I warn him ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... outrageous comedy, furious with Berenice for her part in the play, full of rage against the men who stood around grinning and laughing at the whole performance. Most of all, he assured himself, he was righteously indignant at the trifling with sacred things. He looked neither to the left nor to the right, but with Mrs. Wilson sweeping along by his side he strode toward ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... and after she and her mother had returned from their walk she took occasion to find Dunn in the garden and ask him some trifling question or another. ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon

... more made use of his favorite element, and laid in ashes the market-place of Strasburg all around the minster. More fortunate than its great compeers, St. Paul's of London, and St. Peter's of Hamburg, it miraculously experienced but trifling damage. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... became well-nigh intolerable. Each evening Nana was beaten, and when her father was tired of this amusement her mother scolded. They rarely had anything to eat and were always cold. If the girl bought some trifling article of dress ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... attracting public notice, being designed only for his family. In like manner I intend to tell my story, not as one posturing before the public, but as in the midst of my own people and friends, tried and true, to whom I can speak with the utmost freedom, feeling that even trifling incidents may not be wholly destitute ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... look in your pockets," replied the sailor. "You might have overlooked some trifling thing that won't be of no use to you in the jungle, but that'll come in mighty handy to a poor sailorman in London. Ah! just as I feared," he ejaculated an instant later as he withdrew a roll of bank-notes from ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... cadets who were loitering there, and who immediately took themselves away; and made me sit down on what he called a "locker." The tent curtains were rolled tight up, as far as they would go, and so were the curtains of every other tent; most beautiful order prevailed everywhere and over every trifling detail. ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... one's own ideals, not other people's, and in her inmost heart she knew that she thought but poorly of the girls who run foolish risks for the sake of a little extra pleasure and gratification, just as she thought poorly of the man who amused himself, trifling with a girl's affections, to pass a ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... that I am suddenly called away from my place at Penhollow, and will, therefore, not be able to do myself the pleasure of calling on you and settling my little account. I sincerely hope that the possession of my live stock which I make entirely over to you, will more than reimburse you for any trifling expense which you may have incurred on my account. If it is any gratification to you to know that you have rendered a slight assistance to the son of one of England's noblest noblemen, you have it. With expressions of the deepest ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders

... secretly chafed at the sort of invisible, but insuperable resistance which pretty Lilias Walsingham, as it seemed, unconsciously opposed to his approaches to a nearer and tenderer sort of trifling. 'The little Siren! there are air-drawn circles round her which I cannot pass—and why should I? How is it that she interests me, and yet repels me so easily? And—and when I came here first,' he continued aloud, 'you were, oh dear! how mere a child, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... asked by those, who, in a work of this kind, love to cavil at every trifling omission, whether Charlotte did not possess any valuable of which she could have disposed, and by that means have supported herself till Mrs. Beauchamp's return, when she would have been certain of receiving every tender attention which compassion and friendship could dictate: but ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... been seen to, some trifling inquiry was made as to their lodger, when Mrs. Wilson, understanding previously the intention of Martha, and sympathizing with the case of poor Kate, left the apartment, as if on some ordinary household affair. Martha now set about gaining the information she sought; but with ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... which I respect with timidity and reverence—who can tell his previous history, what things he does, what truths he believes in, what happiness he is giving to others? Therefore when I see him in danger I willingly risk my life to save his. I know myself, and I estimate my value as a trifling thing." ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... from the woes that hung o'er them once so heavily. In misfortune's rude shocks the practised art of the man may perchance disclose relief; but the child, in his innocence of heart, will bow 'neath the stroke of a trifling grief." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various

... were combating the nations which threaten Illyricum on all sides, I appointed to protect Gaul, presuming on the issue of some trifling battles which he has fought against the half-armed Germans, and full of silly elation, has taken a few auxiliary battalions into his noble alliance, men from their natural ferocity and the desperateness of their situation ready for acts of the most ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... knowledge at the same time that I improv'd in virtue, and considering that in conversation it was obtain'd rather by the use of the ears than of the tongue, and therefore wishing to break a habit I was getting into of prattling, punning, and joking, which only made me acceptable to trifling company, I gave Silence the second place. This and the next, Order, I expected would allow me more time for attending to my project and my studies. Resolution, once become habitual, would keep me firm in my endeavours to obtain all the ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... platform the utmost solicitude was manifested for her on the part of everybody. Once a glass of water was sent for but did not come as soon as it should, and everyone on the stage was visibly concerned except Miss Anthony herself, who calmly observed, by way of apology for a trifling difficulty with her voice, that she was not accustomed to speak in public, at which a laugh went round.... Her silvery hair was parted in the middle and brushed down over her ears. Her eyes have the deep-set appearance which is characteristic of elderly ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... 'but it pleased his Majesty the King of France to confer titles of French nobility on us, after we had rendered him a trifling service. We should likewise esteem ourselves your debtors, sir, if you would inform us of your own name, since we are fortunate enough to be entertaining ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... relating to the stage is the most diffuse. It is scattered about in biography, criticism and anecdote, not unfrequently of great interest, but occupying so much "valuable" time, that to condense it, or to pick the wheat from the chaff, is no trifling task. So much for the amusement which our "Companion" may yield to the Londoner: his utility as a cicerone or guide will be more obvious to our country friends, who flock in thousands to see and hear comedy and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various

... consists of one thousand copies. Of these five hundred are bound, five hundred remain in sheets. The title-pages, of course, are all printed alike; but the publishers assure me that new title-pages can be struck off at a trifling expense, with the imprint of Saunders and Ottley. The cost of a copy in sheets or "folded" (if that means somewhat more?) is eighty-nine cents; and bound is $1.15. The retail price is $2.50 a copy; and the author's profit, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... replied Annie, yet she recognized the difficulty of that phase of the situation. It is just such trifling matters which detract from the dignity of extreme attitudes toward existence. Annie had taken an extreme attitude, yet here were the butcher and the grocer to reckon with. How could she communicate with them in writing without appearing absurd to the verge ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... necessities of hunger were so keen that the men could hardly wait for a proper distribution of the supplies. There was no means of cooking meat except by toasting it on the end of a ramrod poked over a fire of fence rails, but that was only a trifling matter to a hungry soldier. Loaves of bread were torn asunder in chunks, as bread-knives were not in evidence, while butter was spread by means of a chip. But the absence of table etiquette was not considered, so long as the purpose ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... bestowed on one whom a young woman cannot esteem, and is determined not to marry, are uncomely and unmaidenly. You have already been more bounteous of your favours to Henry Smith than your mother, whom God assoilzie, ever was to me before I married her. I tell thee, Catharine, this trifling with the love of an honest man is what I neither can, will, nor ought to endure. I have given my consent to the match, and I insist it shall take place without delay, and that you receive Henry Wynd tomorrow, as a man whose bride you are to be with ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... jostled sometimes in the throng, yet as this seldom happens out of design, few are offended at it; the variety of beautiful objects, animate and inanimate, he meets with in the streets and shops, inspires the passenger with joy, and makes him slight the trifling inconvenience of being crowded now and then. The lights also in the shops till eight or nine in the evening, especially in those of toymen and pastry-cooks, in the winter, make the night appear even brighter and more ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales

... the leaves of our peaches and plum-trees, as they wither under a blight. What does Paley see in this? A legion of animated beings (for such is a blight) claiming their portion of the bounty of Nature, and made happy by our comparatively trifling privation, We are tortured by bodily pain,—Paley himself was so, even at the moment that he was thus nobly vindicating God's wisdom and ways. What of that? Pain is not the object of contrivance—no anatomist ever dreamt of explaining any organ of the body on the principle of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various

... read, take up and read"'; the Bishop's word to Monnica ('as if it had sounded from heaven'), 'It is not possible that the son of those tears should perish'; the beggar-man, 'joking and joyous,' in the streets of Milan: it is by these, apparently trifling, these all-significant moments that his narrative moves, with a more reticent and effective symbolism than any other narrative known to me. They are the moments in which the soul has really lived, or has really seen; and the rest of life may well be a blindness and ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... eight years I served the public, have I been obliged to write so much myself, as I have done since my retirement. Was this confined to friendly communication, and to my own business, it would be equally pleasing and trifling; but I have a thousand references to old matters, with which I ought not to be troubled, but which, nevertheless, must receive ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... about him; he was not struck by the air of comfortable prosperity, of thriving content, which marked the great commercial centre, and he let pass, unnoticed, the unfamiliar details of a foreign street, the trifling yet significant incidents of foreign life. Such impressions as he received, bore the stamp of his own mood. He was sensible, for instance, in face of the picturesque houses that clustered together in ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... seemed to bespeak the existence of a climate at times much more severe than a latitude of 16 degrees 6 minutes south, would lead one to anticipate. The remains of small fires, a well greased bark pillow, a head ornament of seabird's feathers, together with several other trifling articles, strewn upon the floors of these wigwams, proved that they ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... those who suffer good to be done them. So that the sense is, 'They will be well treated and will be helped by my benefactions, so that they will make mention of my beneficence towards them'. But why do I pick out a few trifling examples from so many important ones, when I have on my side the venerable authority of the papal Curia? There is a Curial Decree[33] still extant in the Decretals, ordaining that persons should be appointed in the chief academies (as they were then) capable of ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... proclamation rather than that of overworked and underpaid reporters striving to please their employers with all the desperation of servants working for a tip. The yelping after spies, the heaping of adjectives on every trifling achievement of British arms, the ill-timed talk of snatching the enemy's trade in a war theoretically fought for a high principle, all that journalistic vulgarity—which might be as characteristic of our own papers under ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... thought of a collision with the Church. Embarrassed, and at the same time incensed at their timidity, the Constable hasted to dismiss them, with the general assurance that all would be well—that his nephew's indisposition was a trifling complaint, exaggerated by a conceited physician, and by his own want of care—and that the message of the Archbishop, so unceremoniously delivered, was but the consequence of their mutual and friendly familiarity, which induced them sometimes, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... learn, confined entirely to comparisons between different courses, different kinds of clubs and balls, and different scores. Belleair turns up its nose at Palm Beach. It considers the game of golf as played at Palm Beach a trifling game, and it feels that the winter population of Palm Beach wastes a lot of time talking about clothes and the stock market when it might be discussing cleeks, midirons, and mashies. The woman who thinks it essential to ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... to the future tourist the noblest monuments of the past. The abbeys and castles and tombs of England and Scotland are now so well cared for, that, ruins though they be, they will last for centuries. And yet the observant traveller can note, year by year, little changes, trifling alterations, which, though without great importance, are not destitute of interest; for he who has once visited Melrose, will be interested to learn that even one more stone has ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various

... of that Providence, who has condescended to call himself the stranger's friend. At this moment, painful as my reflections were, the extraordinary beauty of a small moss in fructification irresistibly caught my eye. I mention this, to show from what trifling circumstances the mind will sometimes derive consolation, for though the whole plant was not larger than the top of one of my fingers, I could not contemplate the delicate conformation of its roots, leaves, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... officers of various rank. As we appeared at the balcony there was a perceptible flutter among them, and some of them began to ogle us as only Frenchmen could whose eyes had not rested upon a white woman for several months. This incident, trifling as it seems, was to become the key-note of our future Mexican existence. The group of officers in quest of suitable quarters turned out to be General Bazaine and his staff, some of whom afterward ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... although he might be diffident on matters that he did not thoroughly understand, he was not a man to brook trifling or impertinence. "It is what I have said, no more nor less. I am not satisfied either as to the capitalization or as to the guarantee that the enterprise can be really carried out. Further"—and he paused,—"Further, I should like what I have never yet been able to obtain, more ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

... arts of her sex, the small deceits in which she had disguised herself fell away from her now. She said to herself, "I will stop the nonsense about the marriage with Pete." It was mean, it was foolish, it was miserable trifling, it was wicked, it was a waste of life—above all, it was doing a great, great wrong to her love of Philip! How could she ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... our house to two strangers in distress. Your husband," continued Mr. Hale's mother-in-law, "does not require to know more. As to the letter and package, we will keep that for further consideration. It cannot be of much importance, or they would have spoken of it before; it is probably some trifling present as a return for your hospitality. I should use no INDECOROUS haste ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte

... prohibit peon slavery elicited an apparently spontaneous and sincere expression of detestation from Douglas of "this revolting system." Black slavery was not abhorrent to him; but a species of slavery not confined to any color or race, which might, because of a trifling debt, condemn the free white man and his posterity to an endless servitude—this was indeed intolerable. If the Senate was about to abolish black slavery, being unwilling to intrust the territorial legislature ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... that he be sworn and he took the oath with the others. Immediately Doctor Ribera, attorney for Spain, said that the reasons were trifling, and seemed to have been invented to delay the case. A copy was given to the attorneys for ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair

... hand a very small box made of oakwood, curiously inlaid. "I take you to witness," he said, "cousin Menteith, that I give this box and its contents to Annot Lyle. It contains a few ornaments that belonged to my poor mother—of trifling value, you may guess, for the wife of a Highland laird ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... was—from one room to another. To my mother, and many in her situation, the sedan-chair recommended itself also by advantages of another class. Immediately on coming to Bath her carriage was "laid up in ordinary." The trifling rent of a coach-house, some slight annual repairs, and the tax, composed the whole annual cost. At that time, and throughout the war, the usual estimate for the cost of a close carriage in London was three hundred and twenty pounds; since, in order to have the certain ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... to want; but I can as little doubt that the cases are exceptional, and that much of the suffering of the class is a consequence either of improvidence on the part of the competently skilled, or of a course of trifling during the term of apprenticeship, quite as common as trifling at school, that always lands those who indulge in it in the hapless position of ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles









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