"Bagatelle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seen fit to comply, nor does there seem to be any good reason why it should do so. The land cost Washington a mere bagatelle, it was lost through the neglect of himself and his executors, and not one of the persons who would benefit by such a subsidy from the public funds is his lineal descendant. As a mere matter of public policy and common sense ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... was fond of cards, playing continually, but never for such stakes as would hurt him. He was a member of the Baldwin, the Cavendish, and the Bagatelle card clubs. It was shown that after dinner on the day of his death he had played a rubber of whist at the latter club. He had also played there in the afternoon. The evidence of those who had played with him—Mr. Murray, Sir John Hardy, and Colonel Moran—showed that ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a return to old times, alas!" said Hamilton, gaily; "for what we all had to do then was a bagatelle to this, and you have made the supreme sacrifice ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... low eminence west of the head of the park, and from this to our hotel extends a broad foot-way, lined with stalls and booths, "where bright-colored Spanish wools, trinkets and toys are sold, where bagatelle and tir au pistolet, roundabouts and peepshows,—all the 'fun of the fair,' in fact,—is set out for the amusement of idle Eaux Bonnes." These are sure indications of fashionable prosperity. Wherever these evanescent summer stalls appear, at Saratoga or St. Moritz or Eaux Bonnes, they tell ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... "if I knew you better, and could serve you more, you might apply to me for a more real assistance than any bagatelle I could afford you would be. If twenty pounds would really be of service to you, I will lend it you, upon this condition, that you never ask me ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... regularity. Of his life in Paris there are only the meagerest reports, and he records no observations upon political affairs. The town fascinated him more than any other in Europe; he notes that the city is rapidly beautifying under the emperor, that the people seem gay and happy, and 'Vive la bagatelle!' is again the burden of their song. His excuse for remissness in correspondence was, "I am a young ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and we went together to my office. My uncle keeps his accounts with me. Sometimes we look them over. We stayed until midnight; I dismissed my carriage. As we walked homeward we met some friends coming out of the rooms of the Bagatelle Club; five or six of my uncles and cousins, and also Doctor Keene. We all fell a-talking of my grandfather's fete de grandpere of next month, and went to have some coffee. When we separated, and my uncle and my cousin Achille Grandissime and ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... had been planning for years to attack Germany via Belgium, would she not then have had in readiness an invading force somewhere near adequate for such an undertaking? Instead she had the mere bagatelle of 75,000 or 100,000 men, which in the first months of the war actually constituted her whole available ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn
... the midst of one of the greatest battles in history. Any bombardment this world has ever known was a mere bagatelle ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... parted with. They will receive as money the certificates of public debt. I flatter myself that this arrangement will very soon absorb the whole of these certificates, and thus rid us of our domestic debt, which is four fifths of our whole debt. Our foreign debt will be then a bagatelle. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... everything for this object; letters from England incessantly urged a very different course; friends in Paris pressed her to visit them, to accompany them hither and thither, to join musical parties, to compose little songs (some bagatelle in celebration of a birthday or wedding), to drive to the further end of the town to play to this person or that who had heard of Madame's great talent. Hadria was glad to do anything she could to express her gratitude for the kindness she had received on all hands, but, alas! there were ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... their owners; that slavery should be destroyed with like disregard of the claims (for rights he would allow none) of the proprietors, and a multitude of extravagances of the same sort. Therefore say I, Vive la Bagatelle; motley ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... divined further that, having instructed ignorance, she must now allay timidity. She must represent the coming function as a mere bagatelle ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... Rustum Khan and his fiery unreason was the subject we discussed, and Fred laid law down as to how he should be dealt with whenever the chance should come to bring him to book. But Rustum Khan was a bagatelle compared to what was coming, if we had only known it. While we talked I saw Gregor Jhaere, the attaman of gipsies, ride down the track on a brown mule and dismount within ten yards of Kagig. He hobbled his mule, and went and sat close by Kagig ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... fellow. An old affair—ages ago—a stab in the dark! Nothing very much, in fact a mere bagatelle, only, as luck will have it, I am damnably short myself ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... the evening he kept his word and found Cardo sunk in the depths of an arm-chair, watching with lack-lustre eyes, while the Dr.'s two boys tried their skill at a game of bagatelle. ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... of displeasure that had gathered on Monsieur's brow fled as the fellow spoke. For he did speak, telling in his own style that the concussion had been a mere bagatelle, that his faculties had returned quite unimpaired after their brief absence, and that he was hungry but ready to serve us. What he did actually say to express this—to which the professor would have devoted five whole minutes ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... great injury. The rascals set out to cut my throat—was it required of me to whet the knife for them? They set out to strip me of the last penny I had, and they had every advantage, despotic powers, with complete access to all my private papers. If the robbers overlooked something that I had, a bagatelle I needed for the days of my adversity, was it my business to pluck them by the sleeve and turn traitor to myself? Why, the law itself gave me what they passed over. I was declared a bankrupt. Don't you know what that means? It means that the courts assumed responsibility for my affairs, paid ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Glucose Industry in the United States. In ten years' time twelve million dollars was invested in the business; and in Nineteen Hundred Three more than a hundred million dollars was invested. Our East Aurora hero sold out his interests, in Eighteen Hundred Ninety, for some such bagatelle ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... been a mere bagatelle but for the Gap Gang cutting in on our line of retreat. That added interest, and made a bright little affair of what would otherwise have been a ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... said to have cost M. Dollfus half a million of francs, a bagatelle in a career devoted to giving! The bare conception of what this good man has bestowed takes one's breath away! Not that he was alone; never was a city more prolific of generous men than Mulhouse, but Jean ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... an evening could smoke their pipes, play at bagatelle, chess, draughts, or cards, and take such beer as they required, any man getting drunk or even noisy to be expelled the club. This, however, was a rule never requiring to be called into force. The building was conducted on the principle of a regimental canteen. ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... religion, questions of race, questions even of national existence—are concerned. To enforce the decisions of a tribunal in such cases would require armies compared to which those of the present day are a mere bagatelle, and plunge the world into a sea of troubles compared to which those now existing are as nothing. What has been done is to provide a way, always ready and easily accessible, by which nations can settle most of their difficulties with each other. Hitherto, securing a court of arbitration has involved ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... "I am offered ten livres for the yellow birds. Une bagatelle! Onze, Gaspard! Onze! onze livres, pour ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the result was not good. Writing in March, M. Eugster says: "There are to-day from 750 to 800,000 prisoners in Germany. Allowing 300 grammes per man, this makes a daily consumption of 240,000 kilos. of bread (about 235 tons). This is not a bagatelle at a moment when the importation of cereals is impossible."[5] By Art. 7 of the Hague rules an arrangement between belligerents as to prisoners should be possible, and Eugster suggests that meal might be sent under neutral care to the camps, and bread baked there ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... little covered carriage that started with them for Wigton—a most desirable carriage for any country, except for its having a flat roof and no sides; which caused the plumps of rain accumulating on the roof to play vigorous games of bagatelle into the interior all the way, and to score immensely. It was comfortable to see how the people coming back in open carts from Wigton market made no more of the rain than if it were sunshine; how the Wigton policeman taking a country walk of half-a- dozen miles (apparently for ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... n'y a qu'une lettre touchant M. Loke [he wrote to a friend]. La seule matiere philosophique que j'y traite est la petite bagatelle de l'immortalite de l'ame; mais la chose a trop de consequence pour la traiter serieusement. Il a fallu l'egorger pour ne pas heurter de front nos seigneurs les theologiens, gens qui voient si clairement la spiritualite de l'ame qu'ils feraient bruler, s'ils pouvaient, ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... But if it come not yonder," pointing to Whitehall, which was immediately above them, for their boat lay close to the King's landing-stage—"if, like the contagion, it stays in the east and only the citizens suffer, why, vive la bagatelle! We—and our concubines—have no part in the punishment. We, who call down the fire, ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... pieces, and call them "Sensation Dramas." What a sensation Drama this is! What have people been flocking to see at the Adelphi Theatre for the last hundred and fifty nights? A woman pitched overboard out of a boat, and a certain Miles taking a tremendous "header," and bringing her to shore? Bagatelle! What is this compared to the real life-drama, of which a midday representation takes place just opposite the Adelphi in Northumberland Street? The brave Dumas, the intrepid Ainsworth, the terrible Eugene Sue, the cold-shudder-inspiring ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... down to it the last year—a mere bagatelle to what I had all the time I was at college and Tech.," replied Ashton, his eyes sparkling at the recollection. "He wished me to get in thick with the New Yorkers, the sons of the Wall Street leaders. He gave me leave to draw ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... portfolios to examine, and books to turn over; there was a bagatelle board in one corner of the room, a little group busy upon some game of guessing in another corner, and another group eagerly arranging specimens in a microscope, while the Doctor seemed to be ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... masques in the Corso—'Vive la bagatelle!'—the Germans are on the Po, the Barbarians at the gate, and their masters in council at Leybach (or whatever the eructation of the sound may syllable into a human pronunciation), and lo! they dance and sing and make merry, 'for to-morrow ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... and found the bagatelle-board on the table. Fritz and Minna were playing a game of the desultory sort—with the inevitable interruptions appropriate ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... Love Street (Rue de l'Amour), Goodchildren Street (Rue des Bons Enfants), and above all those two streets in the Faubourg Marigny which old Bernard Marigny amused himself by naming for two games of chance at which, it is said, he had lost a fortune—namely Bagatelle and Craps—the latter not the game played with dice, but an old-time ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... landlord, or victualler to discover somebody else, who is neither lodger, stranger, nor traveller. The landlord cannot detect him, but all sheriffs, grand jurors, and constables are required to hunt for him! Vive la bagatelle! ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... practical results with both. Thus, after the famous Brazilian aeronaut had won the Deutsch prize for a flight in an air-ship round the Eiffel tower, he immediately set to work to construct an aeroplane which he subsequently piloted at Bagatelle and was awarded the first ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... Now don't hurry away. It's lonely here all by myself, and I like a young gentleman like you to talk to. I knew a nice little boy once, just your age, that used to come and see me regular once a week and play bagatelle with me. He was a good player at ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... crouching at your feet. At a bath not dissimilar but financially far shallower, Monte Cristo cried: "The world is mine!" It was very amusing of him. But though, since then, values have varied, a bagatelle of ten millions is deep enough for any girl, sufficiently deep at least for its depths ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... forthwith on the floor, feeling that had he been master of the occasion, he would have got rid of it less awkwardly. "I shouldn't wonder if Mary were to be here by and by. There was a sort of engagement that she and Jack De Baron were to come and play bagatelle in the back drawing-room; but Jack never comes if he says he will, and I daresay she has forgotten all ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... slipped going up-stairs, and sprained her ankle, in a blue and green manner that had quite alarmed the doctor when he had seen it, and compared with which Mrs. Thursby's gathered finger in the spring was a mere bagatelle. ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... to ask him how many of the more important nations were involved with the matters at present in his despatch-box; and he said lightly, as though the concern in hand was a mere bagatelle, that only the United States, Great Britain and Germany were occupying his attention ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... hardly worth while your applying to one who am in power for the moment, a support of the Republic, in order to obtain such a bagatelle. Consider, you may perhaps think ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... a semicircle from about the Villa Rothschild to Bagatelle, following the race course at Longchamps, is one vast camp, and from this camp to the village of Boulogne the work of constructing trenches parallel with the enceinte is being pushed rapidly forward. I saw hundreds of ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... inn; and it required a refreshing draught of porter, with half an hour's repose, ere I could determine to give no further thought to Christie and her opinions than those of any other vulgar, prejudiced old woman. I resolved at last to treat the thing EN BAGATELLE, and calling for writing materials, I folded up a cheque for L100, with these ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... silks from some duffers in Fleet-street about this period; and he was found by Strong in the open Auction-room, in Cheapside, having invested some money in two desks, several pairs of richly-plated candlesticks, a dinner epergne and a bagatelle-board. The dinner epergne remained at chambers and figured at the banquets there, which the colonel gave pretty freely. It seemed beautiful in his eyes, until Jack Holt said it looked as if it had been taken in "a bill." ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fisherman has a greater advantage by having a discount upon these small purchases when they are all taken together, than he would have if he were paying for them separately. The discount upon two ounces of tobacco or a quarter pound of tea would be a mere bagatelle; but when the whole of his purchases [Page 141] in the course of the year are added together and the 5 per cent. taken off the whole, it comes to something. With our fishermen, as a rule, I consider that these accounts are perfectly ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... in all but name. That her purse was often empty was a matter to smile at; that she had to act as "breadwinner" to her family, and was at times reduced to such straits that she was obliged to pawn some of her small stock of jewellery in order to provide her lover with a supper, was a bagatelle. She was the happiest ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... pleaded the curiosity-trader, turning his head in agonized fear to see if the vivandiere's pistol was behind him. "The things will be worth a great deal to me where I shall send them, and though they are but bagatelles, what is Paris itself but one bagatelle? Pouf! They are all children there—they will love the toys. Take the money, I pray you; ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... Flora, you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs," said I; "and it is no bagatelle to escape from Edinburgh Castle. One of us, I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have something that was human in him. He passed many a joke on that pitiful journey in an attempt to break our despondency, urging us not to be downcast, and reminding us that the last gentleman he had taken from Pall Mall was in over a thousand pounds, and that our amount was a bagatelle. And when we had gone through Temple Bar, instead of keeping on down Fleet Street, we jolted into ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... good old times of duels, and bagatelle-clubs, and theatre-balls, and Cayetano's circus, Kristian Koppig rooming as described, there lived in the portion of this house, partly overhanging the archway, a palish handsome woman, by the name—or going by the ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... apparently incapable of hurry under any circumstances, it meant a good week's bludgeoning the protesting waves before the grim outliers of the Three Kings came into view. Even then, although the distance was a mere bagatelle, it was another two days before we arrived off that magnificent harbour where reposes the oldest township in New Zealand—Russell, where rest the mortal remains of the first really Pakeha Maori, but which, for some unaccountable reason, is still left undeveloped ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... many rivals. There were young girls in myriads, beauties by the drove, sirens in herds, millionaires in packs. The country was so prosperous with the privilege of selling Europe the weapons of suicide that the vast destructiveness of the German submarines was a bagatelle. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... out of one is a mere bagatelle, of course, and I have forgotten it in another moment under the spur of excitement. A Harvard player has the ball, and no one seems to be able to stop him. He throws off his antagonist and dodges two others, and races down the field like a deer, while ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... their own business. However, I accept your expressions of regret; I reciprocate your 'Good-evening'; and I trust to find you improved in temper, dress, manners, and appearance the next time I have the honor of meeting you. Adieu, Monsieur Guillaume, and! Vive la bagatelle!" ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... Armine,' said Mr. Sharpe with a slight smile, 'if we were talking of a sum of any importance, why, one might be a little more punctilious, but for such a bagatelle we have already wasted too much time in its discussion. I am happy ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The cession of that kind of property (for so it is misnamed) is a bagatelle which would not cost me a second thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected: and, gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... know.... I'm comparatively indifferent to all that concerns love. Here my time's so completely filled ... physical exercise ... my cares of watch-dog, I ... hardly give a thought to the bagatelle. ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... exhibition should meet the eye of any foreign ship upon entering the harbour of Kyrenia, and I was informed "that it was the only flag that was possessed by the authorities." As all the revenue of the island was handed over to the Porte excepting a bagatelle insufficient for the requirements of the country, the really overworked and energetic servants of the Crown were absolutely obliged to practise a most rigid economy, commencing with their own salaries, equally vexatious ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... daylight glimmering through the tops of the trees that grew upon the banks of the river. As soon as day broke, they began to consider how they would reach those trees. Although swimming a river of that width would have been to any of the four a mere bagatelle, they saw that it was not to be so easy an affair. Had they been upon either bank, they could have crossed to the other without difficulty—as they would have chosen a place where the water was comparatively ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... were, indeed, sent to restore peace, but no proclamations were issued from the secretary of state's office until some days elapsed, and then the reward offered for discovering and apprehending a chief rioter was a mere bagatelle. In the whole, seventeen were arrested and tried, five of whom only were found guilty; three were executed. The losses sustained by the sufferers were made good by the hundred, in the way which the law directs; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the greatness of His power, this was the only serious study to which men could devote themselves; machinery, the discoveries of the positive sciences, in fact everything which did not treat of divinity and the future life, was only a bagatelle for the amusement of fools and ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... bagatelle!" eagerly laughed lady Feng. "Even I can afford to stand you such a small treat!" Then turning her head round, "Tell them in the cook-house," she said to a married woman, "to please make an extra supply, and that they'll get the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... of his poetry directly religious or devotional, but on publishing the 'Task' he assures Newton that he has admitted none but Scriptural images, and kept as closely as possible to Scriptural language. Elsewhere he quotes Swift's motto, Vive la bagatelle! as a justification of 'John Gilpin.' Fox is recorded to have said that Swift must have been fundamentally a good-natured man because he wrote so much nonsense. To me the explanation seems to be very ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... the rolled-up cloak from under Darduraka's arm.] Look, gentlemen, look! The man in the ragged cloak calls ten gold-pieces a mere bagatelle. ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... joint in my body and covered me all over with scars and livid spots, so that I was unlovely to look upon. A smart knock on the ankle joint from the splinter of a shell that burst in my face, in itself a mere bagatelle of a wound, had been of necessity neglected under the pressing and insistent calls upon me, and had grown worse and worse until the whole foot below the ankle became a black mass and seemed to threaten mortification. I insisted, however, on being allowed to use it until the place was taken, mortification ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton
... She laughed, but her voice still quivered. "Some good-for-nothing who took me for some one else, whom he had seen somewhere else, and knew—something—about. Nothing at all, a bagatelle, that might happen to any one. But I thank you so ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... luxuries; it had gilded everything, but she had never known where the gilt came from. When she engaged herself to Jasper, he told her that, for the present at least, he was a comparatively poor man; he had three hundred a year of his own. This he assured her was a mere bagatelle, but as he was almost certain to earn as much more in his profession, and as Hilda had money, he thought they might marry if she did not mind living very prudently. Of course Hilda did not mind—she knew nothing at all of the money part. The whole thing meant ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... a coronet at one corner, "'Tis true, Sir, I see now it is one of mine: but such a trifle was not worthy of being brought by such a gentleman as you seem to be; nor of my trouble to receive it in person. Your servant, Sir, might have delivered the bagatelle to mine."—"Nothing should be called so that belongs to the Countess of ——"—"She was no Countess, Sir, that dropt that handkerchief, and a gentleman would not attempt to penetrate, unbecomingly, through the disguises a lady thinks proper to assume; especially at such a place where ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... George, I can't say fine things to them; they freeze, they petrify me. They may talk of a comet, or a burning mountain, or some such bagatelle; but, to me, a modest woman, drest out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object of ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... not be less than forty millions and the issue of such a suit as the one Woodman had brought and on which he had spent so much of his time and money was to Bivens a mere bagatelle. ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... at them from without. A second glance showed me, that among some children, were the heir presumptive, and his sister Mademoiselle d'Artois. The exhibition could merely be an attempt to feel the public pulse, for the country-house of La Bagatelle, to which the children go two or three times a week, is much better suited to taking the air. I could not believe in the indifference that was manifested, had I not seen it. The children are both engaging, particularly the daughter, ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... He met her at the station, and they drove thence straight to the hospital, to pick up Noel. Leila came to them in the waiting-room, and Pierson, thinking they would talk more freely about Noel's health if he left them alone, went into the recreation room, and stood watching a game of bagatelle between two convalescents. When he returned to the little sitting-room they were still standing by the hearth, talking in low voices. Gratian must surely have been stooping over the fire, for her face was red, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... would disapoint either of us in our expectations, since I dow assure you that I dont look upon anything I tuch upon such journeys as solid, for it does not long stick in my pockets. I will drop this point, being fully perswaded if my correspondence proves anything amusing, such Bagatelle will not be grudged, but if I go forward, I beg credit be sent me either upon this place or Paris, any mony I receve passes for being remitted by the order of Baron Kenady {175} [Newcastle]. All this is fully submitted to your better judgement, only I beg ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... case of a citizen of the middle class, who somehow or other finds himself in possession of L20,000. He could, of course, spend his money at the rate of L2,000 a year, a mere bagatelle in these days of fantastic, senseless luxury. But then he would have nothing left at the end of ten years. So, being a "practical person," he prefers to keep his fortune intact, and win for himself a snug ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... is, my lord; and upon honour I am determined it shall never be changed with my consent. Weel I vow—ha, ha, ha! Vive la Bagatelle would be a most brilliant motto for the chariot of a belle of fashion. What say you ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... office. At Paris, crouds of inferior clerks, who could not purchase, found means to get lodged in the most superb national edifices: Monceaux was the villa of Robespierre—St. Just occasionally amused himself at Raincy—Couthon succeed the Comte d'Artois at Bagatelle-and Vliatte, a juryman of the Revolutionary Tribunal, was lodged at the pavillion of Flora, in the Tuilleries, which he seems to have occupied as a sort of Maitre d'Hotel to the Comite de ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... flew. It entered Ned's tortured mind that if his chum had wanted speed, he was getting it now! He realized that two miles a minute was a mere bagatelle to the pace now accomplished ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... little bit of money, your Excellency; my modest little fortune—a mere bagatelle," said ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... covered our political relations with President Kruger and his party, and to show the firm foundations on which the hatred of the Boer for the Briton had been built for years. The question of the franchise was a bagatelle: a soap-bubble would have been pretext enough for war when the right hour and moment arrived. As allowed by this candid writer, whose valuable avowals cannot afford to be ignored, for many years treachery ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... you will spare yourself and your sister," said the Captain, "by being reasonable. What, after all, is the sum I have named? To your wealthy father a bagatelle. I repeat, I have been too modest. But since I have said twenty thousand pieces of eight, twenty thousand pieces ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... in a great measure cast upon their own resources. Taking but little interest in public affairs, they beguiled their time chiefly with such amusements as the Peacock afforded, which were limited to a bagatelle-board in the first floor, and a sequestered skittle-ground in the back yard. In the science and nicety of both these recreations, which are far more abstruse than ordinary men suppose, they were gradually initiated ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... is an elongated variety of the butt hinge, known in the trade as "strap hinge," "desk hinge," or "bagatelle hinge." As its name indicates, it is used on folding bagatelle tables, small writing desks, and other types of work that have but a narrow margin on which to fix the hinges. The long, narrow plates are sunk flush into the wood, the knuckle or ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... for fear of the evening dew, the company retired to the apartments, lit by a multitude of candles, and there tables were prepared for every sort of game: lansquenet, billiards, reversi, bagatelle, pigeon-holes, turnstile, porch, beast, hoca, brelan, draughts, backgammon, dice, basset, and calbas. Bluebeard was uniformly unfortunate in these various games, at which he lost large sums every night. He could console himself for his continuous ...
— The Seven Wives Of Bluebeard - 1920 • Anatole France
... refused and afterwards took possession of the Queen's pleasure-house. Malmaison was a suitable country residence for Bonaparte as long as he remained content with his town apartments in the little Luxembourg; but that Consular 'bagatelle' was too confined in comparison with the spacious apartments in the Tuileries. The inhabitants of St. Cloud, well-advised, addressed a petition to the Legislative Body, praying that their deserted chateau might be made the summer residence of the First Consul. The petition was referred ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... only a beginning. When you have sat a half score of times on the wooden horse, or stood on the stake, then you will think this sort of thing is a mere bagatelle. (Montanus ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... yourself, are the totality of being, and with your mind alone create, preserve and destroy the universe, which is your own mental product." And again the last mentioned teacher states: "the entire universe is a bagatelle illustration of your own creative power, which you are now exhibiting for your own inspection." "By their fruits shall you know them," is a safe rule to apply to all teachings. The philosophy that teaches that the Universe is an illusion perpetrated by you (God) to amuse, ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... often been stopped," it might well have served as a centre of operations, and as the authors of these outrages remained undiscovered, they credited them all to Mme. de Combray's inspiration, and this accusation without proof is none too bold. The theft of state funds was a bagatelle to people whom ten years of implacable warfare had rendered blase about all brigandage. Moreover, it was easily conceivable that the snare laid by Bonaparte for Frotte, who was so popular in Normandy, ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... the summit of bliss, when an old marchioness who had been mistress to the Prince, my husband, invited him to drink chocolate with her. He died in less than two hours of most terrible convulsions. But this is only a bagatelle. My mother, in despair, and scarcely less afflicted than myself, determined to absent herself for some time from so fatal a place. She had a very fine estate in the neighbourhood of Gaeta. We embarked on ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... some sort—this outlaw, we say, having made three days' journey before arriving upon the ground where he now was, thought nothing of a few hours, less or more, spent in expectation. In the desert, he who has travelled a hundred leagues, will consider it a mere bagatelle to wait for a hundred hours: unlike to him who keeps an appointment in the midst of a great city, where a delay of a quarter of an hour will be endured with ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... tart, tripping wight, And still his precious self his dear delight; Who loves his own smart shadow in the streets Better than e'er the fairest she he meets: A man of fashion, too, he made his tour, Learn'd vive la bagatelle, et vive l'amour: So travell'd monkeys their grimace improve, Polish their grin, nay, sigh for ladies' love. Much specious lore, but little understood; Veneering oft outshines the solid wood: His solid sense—by inches you must tell. But mete his cunning by the old Scots ell; His meddling vanity, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... no observations upon political affairs. The town fascinated him more than any other in Europe; he notes that the city is rapidly beautifying under the emperor, that the people seem gay and happy, and Vive la bagatelle! is again the burden of their song. His excuse for remissness in correspondence was, "I am a young ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... swimming 'rari in gurgite vasto'—Palmyra columns, reared in the midst of a desert of sentences. And Coleridge—than whom in the mines of mental science few have dug deeper, and though Xerxes-hosts of word-slaves waited on his pen—often wrote apparently mere bagatelle—the most transcendental nonsense. Yet he who takes the pains to husk away his obscurity of style will find solid ears of thought to recompense his labor. Bentham and Kant required interpreters—Dumont and Cousin—to make understood what was well worth understanding. These two kinds ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... men. There nearly a dozen different games are in full swing, all at the same time. Each one is designed to help the patient recover his health. Here are badminton, tennis, volley ball, indoor baseball, quoits, deck billiards, bagatelle, ping-pong, and other games. The front of this platform forms a grandstand for ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... as he went down town, was of Jim Hegan. "Come and see me sometime," Hegan had said, and Montague had never accepted the invitation. The Northern Mississippi would, of course, be a mere bagatelle to a man like Hegan, but who could tell what new plans he might be able to fit it into? Montague knew by the rumours in the street that the great financier had sold out all his holdings in two or three ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... in a homely manner, and the condescension of Mr Blandois was infinite. It seemed to fill to inconvenience the little bar in which the widow landlady and her two daughters received him; it was much too big for the narrow wainscoted room with a bagatelle-board in it, that was first proposed for his reception; it perfectly swamped the little private holiday sitting-room of the family, which was finally given up to him. Here, in dry clothes and scented linen, with sleeked hair, a great ring on each forefinger and a massive ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... du tout, c'est a dire pour une bagatelle; but what can you expect from such animals? For what are you imprisoned? Did I not hear say ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... touch (it was this act of his, I think, that had most to do with my displeasure), and merely bidding him observe that the enormous price of the kettle-supporter had been reduced for me by his exhibition to a bagatelle, I left the shop of the screaming anatomist—or Afropath, or whatever it may seem most fitting that ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... mind a hundred or two, more or less. What is this loss at cards? A mere bagatelle! You are playing for a principality. You want your kingdom in Virginia; and if you listen to my opinion, the little misfortune which has happened to your swain is a piece of great good-fortune ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for it could not have been above one-eighth part of the invading force, counting the reinforcements that arrived while the siege was going on. Compared with the enormous losses of life and limb that characterize our war, it is a mere bagatelle; and the magnitude of the prize is to be set off in contrast to the price which it cost. Some of the regiments employed, however, were destined to suffer severely from the effects of their visit to Cuba; for, being sent to New York, the severity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... with whom he could play, and every cent of his income now went for food and lodging. But one day, about six months before his visit to Geary's office, Vandover saw that the proprietor of the Reno House had set up a great bagatelle board in a corner of the reading-room. A group of men, sailors, ranchmen, and fruit venders were already playing. Vandover approached and watched the game, very interested in watching the uncertain ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... lore, but little understood, (Veneering oft outshines the solid wood), His solid sense, by inches you must tell, But mete his cunning by the Scottish ell! A man of fashion too, he made his tour, Learn'd "vive la bagatelle et vive l'amour;" So travell'd monkeys their grimace improve, Polish their grin—nay, sigh for ladies' love! His meddling vanity, a busy fiend, Still making work his ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... welcomed with the kindest hospitality, that I received my first impressions of "life in the clearings." My hosts were only recovering from the fatigues of a "thrashing-bee" of the day before, and, while we were playing at bagatelle, one of the gentlemen assistants came to the door, and asked if the "Boss" were at home. A lady told me that, when she first came out, a servant asked her "How the boss liked his shirts done?" As Mrs. Moodie had not then enlightened the world on the subject of settlers' slang, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... sit in your easy-chair, you may fancy that this is a mere bagatelle—a little bewilderment that one may easily escape from who has a good horse between his thighs. It is only to strike boldly out, and by riding on in a straight line, you must in ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... exactly,' replied the sculptor. 'What one does in one's art, that is the breath of one's being. What one does in one's life, that is a bagatelle for ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... no idea what prices men are willing to pay for what they desire. Faery even with my means would seem a mere bagatelle to most ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... for would have made me supremely happy, but vive la bagatelle! I want to know when I am to tie ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... "I'm ridiculous, I know that. I haven't got anything to found my hopes on but the fact that there's nothing in my way to the one insuperable obstacle: to the fact that she doesn't and can't really care a straw for me. But just now that seems a mere bagatelle." He laughed with a nervous joy, and he kept talking, as he walked up and down Wade's study. "I don't know that I have the hope of anything; and I don't see how I'm to find out whether I have or not, for the present. You know, Wade," he ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... her brother—and I have no doubt her price for assistance has been high—has informed me more than once that her brother desires to do me so much honor. The count, perhaps, thinks that he can manage such a bagatelle without any aid from his sister; and my dearest Sophie seems to feel that she can do better with me herself in my widowed state, than if I were to take another husband. They are so kind and so ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... of Dunkirk with a huge gun or guns, doing considerable damage and killing several persons; Germans make further gains on the west bank of the Ypres Canal; French repulse Germans in the Argonne, near Bagatelle; French take trenches in the Forest of Le Pretre; French artillery bombards fortifications of Altkirch, in ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... can tell you a man who feels nervous before a fight is all right, because he has some idea of what he is going to meet. It is the reckless recruit that often proves a coward. He fancies it a mere bagatelle, and finds out his mistake ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... that he had been most inhumanly cast adrift at sixteen among the shoals and quicksands of London. Nor was this quite the case as yet; there was still old Miss Harbottle in Wellington Road. But to her he was not going until decency compelled him; he was going to have another game of bagatelle with Guy Knaggs first. It will be seen that with all his sensibilities the youngest Upton was a most casual and sanguine youth. He took a great deal for granted, prepared only for the best, and although inclined ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... am lost in the South Sea. The roaring of the waves and the madness of the people are justly put together. It is all wilder than St. Anthony's dream, and the bagatelle is more solid than anything that has been endeavoured here ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... little thing—a mere trifle—a bagatelle. I suppose there's a couple of millions in it, possibly three, but not more, I think; still, for a ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a commercial affair. Massachusetts has expended many times the cost of the repairs of "Old Ironsides" in preserving for the nation the revolutionary sites and monuments upon our soil. Payment for the repair and restoration of "Old Ironsides" would be a bagatelle if the people of the United States were to demand that this monument also shall be purchased by the people of Massachusetts under threat of ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... with the diet of New England settlers for weeks at a time, seems such a bagatelle as to be scarce worth the mention of Peter Martyr. By tradition, still commemorated at Forefathers' Dinners, the ration of Indian corn supplied to each person in the colony in time of ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... stated on June 30 that the German attempt to divert the attention of the French from the latter's offensive in the region north of Arras has been productive of gains in the Argonne, where a three-days' bombardment of the French trenches was followed by the capture of French positions near Bagatelle. Elsewhere, particularly on the Yser, to the north of Arras, north of Verdun and near Metzeral in Alsace, there have been artillery ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... grand whispering friendship with the two girls, and set her little cap strongly at Mervyn, but that young gentleman was contemptuous and bored when he found no entertainment in Miss Charlecote's stud, and was only to be kept placable by the bagatelle-board and the strawberry-bed. Robert followed his lead more than was satisfactory, but with visible predilections for the Holt ladies, old and young. Honor talked to him about little Phoebe, and he lighted up and began to detail her accomplishments, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... armed frontiersmen seated or standing about Richard Henderson, the man with the imperial dream, the ready speaker whose flashing eyes and glowing oratory won the hearts of all who came under their sway. What though the Cherokee title be a flimsy one at best and the price offered for it a bagatelle! The spirit of Forward March! is there in that great canvas framed by forest and sky. The somber note that tones its lustrous color, as by a sweep of the brush, is the figure of the Chickamaugan chief, Dragging ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... fact, as I have reason to believe, a mere bagatelle, but the chairman of the Indian Committee in the Senate was rather on the lookout for something, or anything, to embarrass or disoblige General Jackson and his agents, having fallen out with him, and being then, indeed, a candidate ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... to be dissipated or deepened, as the case might be, while he remained, in the strictest sense of the world, uncommitted. It was a very prudent scheme and not a bad one. He reasoned justly: "This selecting a wife is no bagatelle. A man wishes to know something more about a woman than he can learn in a drawing-room or at a ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... that what you are driving at? But you misunderstood. Bagatelle is near the polo ground in the Bois, and, as Number One in my team, I shall have to hustle. Four stiff chukkers at polo are downright hard work, Miss Vernon. By teatime I shall be a limp rag. I promised to play nearly a month ago, and I ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... she cannot quote in a personal sense of the "heavy cloak of the body still as weighed against a cultivated intellect, roundness of form is a mere bagatelle." ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... it to him in a casual way," related, for example, Mr. Lucullus Fyshe, "casually, but quite frankly. I said, 'See here, this is just a bagatelle to you, no doubt, but to me it might be of some use. T. C. bonds,' I said, 'have risen twenty-two and a half in a week. You know as well as I do that they are only collateral trust, and that the stock underneath never could ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... "Reminiscence of Chopin" is an interesting and skilful chain of partial themes and suggestions from Chopin. The "Etude" is a monotonous study in a somewhat Schumannesque manner, with a graceful finish. The "Congratulation" is a cheerful bagatelle; the "Irish Melody" is sturdy, simple, and fetching; but the "Scherzino" is a hard bit of humor with Beethoven mannerisms lacking ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... just as Jack had said; what would have been a heavy weight for one to carry was a mere bagatelle for both, thanks to that pole, which was some ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... Bagatelle yesterday with the Duchesse de G——. Here the Duc de Bordeaux and Mademoiselle, his sister, pass much of their time. It is a very pleasant villa, and contains many proofs of the taste and industry of these very ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... you are used to handling money. I didn't come out here for a bagatelle. My uncle wanted me to stay East and go in on the Mobile custom house, work up the Washington end of it; he said there was a fortune in it for a smart young fellow, but I preferred to take the chances out here. Did I tell you I had an offer from Bobbett and Fanshaw ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner |
