"A trifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you think it a good one?' His companion took it, examined it, upside and down, to the light and from it, and replied—'As good as the bank! But we must share?' 'To be sure we must,' said the finder. 'Why should you doubt it? 'Tis a trifle; five guineas a piece; but it will serve to pay ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... afraid; he was innately polite. He talked pleasantly to his vis-a-vis. The Corporal, a trifle abashed at first, listened deferentially, but as the good food enlivened him he ceased to be abashed and became cordial. From cordial he became affable, from affable affectionate, and from affectionate he passed to that degree of friendship ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 19, 1917 • Various
... racing, though he had not long been a motor-boat owner. He adjusted the automatic oiler on the cylinders to give more lubrication, as he intended to get more speed out of his engine. Then he opened the gasoline cock a trifle more and set his timer forward a few notches to get an earlier spark. He was not going to use the maximum speed just yet, but he first wanted to see how the motor of the ARROW would behave under these conditions. To his delight he saw his boat slowly creeping up on Andy's. The latter, ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... body and, standing shoulder to shoulder, made such an imposing array that the young commander was rather daunted for a moment. But she had seen too much of the world lately to be abashed by a trifle, and the desire to see a girlish test gave her courage to face the line of smiling cousins with dignity ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... may experience in securing another husband is of course a trifle beneath anyone's consideration," ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... spoken a trifle rashly; it came over him, quickly, that there were reasons why he had better not have said that. But almost as quickly he covered up his mistake. "I suppose your sister was so good as to ask ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... name was like simple and scriptural Jacob. The elder Dolph was a personable man, certainly; a handsome man, even, who looked to be nearer forty than fifty-two; and he was well dressed—perhaps a trifle out of the mode—and carried himself with a certain genial dignity, and with the lightness of a man who has not forgotten that he has been a buck in his time. But Eustace was distinctly and unmistakably a dandy. There are superficial differences, of course, between the dandy of 1852 and the ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... to him by "priests, good men, whose zeal outstripped their knowledge, and who in consequence spoke confidently, when they would have been wiser had they suspended their adverse judgment of those whom they were soon to welcome as brothers in communion." It is a trifle, but it strikes us as characteristic. Dr. Newman is one of the very few who have carried into his present communion, to a certain degree at least, an English habit of not letting off the blunders and follies of his own side, and of daring to think that a cause is better served by outspoken ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... Squeaking Henry won by reason of the marked cards did him very little good, remaining in his possession barely long enough to cause his vest pocket to sag a trifle. He lost it in a friendly game with the friends who were clever enough to plan the raid on the Bald-faced Kid's bank roll, using Henry as a tool, much as the coastwise Chinaman uses a cormorant in his fishing operations. Stripped of his opulence, Squeaking Henry found himself ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... proudly erect, but a trifle paler than usual perhaps, seemed to be searching for some one in the crowd. When the cart passed slowly in front of the stone cross, he caught sight of the little boy, who had not budged from his ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... and unobtrusively, and a small, insignificant man came in. He was about the size of the average schoolboy of fifteen, and he walked with a slight limp, one leg being a trifle shorter than the other. Notwithstanding this defect, his general appearance was one of extreme neatness, from his colourless but carefully trained moustache and small trim beard to his well-shod feet. His clothes—-like his ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... Attica is—a community of questionable characters. These men were not there to guard their possessions against strangers, but against each other; for strangers seldom visit Athens and the Piraeus, and when they do, they go in daylight, and can buy all the grapes they want for a trifle. The modern inhabitants are confiscators and falsifiers of high repute, if gossip speaks truly concerning them, and I freely believe ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... genuine lyric afflatus; but its author had not yet emerged from that nebulous youthful sentimentalism according to which joy, sympathy, love, friendship, virtue, happiness, God, were all very much the same thing. And the thought is a trifle incoherent. If the good Spirit above the stars is to pardon everybody, what becomes of the incentive to a militant life? Why should one strive and cry and get into a feaze ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... not break my heart; but this, it seems, though it was all they at first demanded, did not prove quite sufficient. Some debts they were obliged to contract,—to no great amount, indeed,—and these must be paid or the scheme relinquished. Having gone so far into the scheme, it was absurd to let a trifle stop me. I must own, had I foreseen all the demands that have been made from time to time, I should never have engaged in it; but I have been led on from one step to another, till I fear it would avail me nothing to hesitate ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... palm-leaves from the river Nilus. The courtier talked of the fair lady who gave him the glove which he wore in his hat as a favour; the poet of the last satire of Marston or Ben Jonson, or volunteered to read a trifle thrown off of late by 'Faith, a learned gentleman, a very worthy friend,' though if we were to enquire, this varlet poet might turn out, after all, to be the mere decoy duck of the hostess, paid to draw gulls and fools thither. The mere dullard sat ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... at Mr. LeFleur's face as he turned away from the window put an end to their nonsense. Gone was his smile, his beaming good-will toward the world. He seemed a little tired, a trifle stooped. "Not here then," he said slowly to himself as he slipped the papers back ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... and fortified his castle. Enraged at the disappointment, Richard relinquished the important affairs in which he was engaged, and laid siege to this castle with all the eagerness of a man who has his heart set upon a trifle. In this siege he received a wound from an arrow, and it proved mortal; but in the last, as in all the other acts of his life, something truly noble shone out amidst the rash and irregular motions of his mind. The castle was taken before he died. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... give up Utica, Caesar will ne'er refuse thee such a trifle. But are thy troops prepared for a revolt? Does the sedition catch from man to man, And ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison
... very civil, merely shrugged his shoulders when he saw our flag, and observed that it was the fortune of war, and that, as we were the most numerous, France had lost no honour, though she lost the dependency. He supplied us for a trifle with a bottle of goat's milk, and as many melons, pines, and mangoes as we could manage to eat. He politely assisted in taking them down to the boat. As he did so he looked round the horizon seaward, and up at the sky. "Messieurs will ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... to disbelieve this tale, there lies the rock to this day, and the marks of the teeth of the Queen's comb are on it still for all to see. The distance that the King hurled this missile is not above a quarter of a mile, and the pebble itself may weigh a trifle of twenty tons ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... the general tumult a Chinese waiter was seen at the door vainly endeavoring to attract the attention of the colonel by signs and interjections. Mr. Hamlin's quick eye first caught sight of the intruder. "Come in, Confucius," said Jack pleasantly; "you're a trifle late for a regular turn, but any little thing in the way ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... liked in him. Someone then commented on the acquaintance and said 'marriage,' and I woke up to the fact that I did not really want him at all. I think he found the friendship too insipid and was glad to be out of it. All these men were a trifle feminine in characteristics, and two played no games. I thought it odd that they should all express admiration for the very boyish qualities in me that other people disliked. A fourth man, something of the same type, told another friend that he always felt surprised at how freely ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... And the even country of the Sava; Servia, too, as far as Ujitz's fortress. Dmitar took the lower fortress'd cities, And Neboisha's tower upon the Danube; Bogdan took the upper fortress'd cities, And the church-possessing town, Rujitza. Then a strife arose about a trifle,— Such a trifle; but a feud soon follow'd,— A black courser and a grey-wing'd falcon! Dmitar claims the steed, as elder brother Claims the steed, and claims the grey-wing'd falcon. Bogdan will not yield or horse or falcon. When the morning of the morrow waken'd, Dmitar flung him on ...
— Serbia in Light and Darkness - With Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, (1916) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... not, it is certain that the gallery had. All the evening they had been stewing in an atmosphere like that of the inner room of a Turkish bath, and they were ready for anything. It needed but a trifle to set them off. The lilt of that unspeakable Yankee melody supplied that trifle. Kay's malcontents, huddled in their seats by the window, were the first to break out. Feet began to stamp in time to the music—softly at first, ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... the church, but died a month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and child in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the time of his birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten years Shakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born. But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage. His mother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson was for a time apprenticed to the trade. As a youth he attracted the attention ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... I live I would do otherwise. I would give a trifle out of beauty, as an example by which men could guess the rest and love it all; one strain from an angel's song; one flower from the distant land, that men might know that such things were. Then, too, I would put common life into loveliness, so that ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... got of doin' business, I do think. He's a trifle the meanest feller I ever seed, Dave is, an' if I don't pay him fur it afore he's a great many weeks older, I'll just play myself out a tryin'. If me an' him works together we kin get them fifty dollars as easy as fallin' off ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... were now alone. To tell the truth, the excitement of the morning had been rather trying for them, but if it left them a trifle nervous they soon forgot their apprehension in making the last of the transfer. There was now another reason for abandoning the car. With headquarters established in the corral they would be near the balloon and its equipment, ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... I reached here and was waiting for you some papers blew out of your daughter's window. When I picked them up I was startled to find that one of them was an exact copy of the letter I had in my pocket. See! Here they are! I don't suppose there is anything to it, but in spite of me I am a trifle uneasy about Miss Earle. I just can't understand how that copy of the letter came ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... satisfied race and faithfully devoted to their masters, and as widely distinct from the miserable negroes of the sugar plantations, which are a disgrace to humanity, as they were in colour. The censurable toleration of pederasty, for which one chiefly reproaches the morality of the ancients, is a trifle compared with the Christian horrors I have cited, and is not so rare among people of to-day as it appears to be. Can you then, taking everything into consideration, maintain that humanity has really become morally ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... physical fact is a trifle. Look at it as you see it in the animals; look at it as you see it in men when they actually come to it. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it is painless and easy, and men sink into slumber. Strange, is it not, that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... shopping she was lured into buying a lot of summer things she would not have needed in the Adirondacks—a mere matter of two hundred and fifty dollars or thereabouts. A little additional economy in the fall would soon make up for such a trifle, and if there is one time more than another when a woman wishes to look well and must look well, that time ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... stowed in there. When all these cases are packed, they will be as full as if they were of solid wood. There is one ready packed; I must see what it contains. Biscuits — 5,400 biscuits is marked on the lid. They say that angels are specially gifted with patience, but theirs must be a trifle compared with Johansen's. There was absolutely not a fraction of an inch left in ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... corsairs, all cut loose, but a trifle giddy, We lands on their trim white decks at last and the bo'sun he whistles us good hot grog, And we tries to confess, but there wasn't a soul from the Admiral's self to the gold-laced middy But says, "They're delirious still, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... looked a trifle astonished at Trent's curt dismissal of the Durward topic, and Sara, who had observed the strange expression that leaped into his eyes—half-guarded, half inimical—felt convinced that he knew more about the Durwards than he had ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... concern for his illness, he laughed at my long face; told me it was a trifle, and he should soon be well again. Alas, he was not a true prophet! In a few weeks I followed my worthy friend to his grave; and found myself at the age of one-and-twenty, my own master, and sole heir to ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... "No," replied Thord, a trifle coldly; "And if it were not that I know your strange vagaries, I should say you wronged your election as one of us, to send any of your ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... head a trifle, and lifted his heavy lids to look at her, which so unnerved Miss Georgie that she turned and ran to the office. When she had sent the message she sat drumming upon the table while she waited ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... from a Maine coast town. He was nineteen, tall, broad-shouldered, dark-complexioned, deliberate in speech and movements. Physically very strong, he had caught on the academy ball team and played guard in football. Mentally he was a trifle slow; but in the whole school there was no squarer, more solid fellow. So far as finances went, he was dependent on his own resources; whatever education he got ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... come to hear about your goods, we want your money." The poor man, astounded at perceiving the nature of his customers, assured them he kept but little money in the house, but proceeded instantly to open his private drawers, and empty their contents, amounting, in fact, to a trifle of some few hundred dollars. Finding that he had indeed no more to give them they prepared to depart, when the monk said, "We must kill him, or he will recognise us." "No," said the officers, "leave him and ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... Aunt Sallie's," cried Ruth, appearing suddenly in the doorway. "It is not such a charming color as your scarlet one, and it may be a trifle large, but it will keep you warm. Coming, ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... friendship, which makes us willingly bear toils and perils to serve a friend. We value our wealth as a trifle and life as a straw, when we can give them for a friend's sake. Fables teach us this and history is full of instances of it; and I will give you an example which my grandmother used to relate to me. So open your ears and shut your mouths ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... nourished. A great outcry has arisen and a number of perfectly conventional men like Lorimer suffer an undeserved humiliation. We say it is a "moral awakening." That is another dodge by which we pretend that we were always wise and just, though a trifle sleepy. In reality we are witnessing a change of conscience, initiated by cranks and fanatics, sustained for a long time by minorities, which has at last infected ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... man's head, well set upon his shoulders, claimed some attention. His nose was hooked and rather large, his eyes were blue, bright as steel, and set a trifle wide. Above a thin-lapped, delicate mouth his reddish mustachios, slightly streaked with grey, stood out, bristling like a cat's. His hair was darker—almost brown save at the temples, where age had faded it to an ashen colour. In general his ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... bagatella, bagata, a trifle), primarily a thing of trifling importance. The name, though French, is given to a game which is probably of English origin, though its connexion with the shovel-board of Cotton's Complete Gamester is very doubtful. Strutt does not mention it. The game is very ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... them at a turn in the trail. When they came up to her she nodded to both men, but her smile was all for Racey Dawson. He felt his pulse begin to beat a trifle faster. How handsome she was with her dark hair and blue eyes. And at the moment those blue eyes that were looking into his were deep enough to drown ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... only audience, and he read it himself to us. A real play, with real characters, individuals, human beings, it is a good deal after the fashion of our old playwrights, and does not disgrace its models. I was delighted with it; it is full of life and originality; a little long, but that's a trifle. There is a want of clearness and coherence in the plot, and the comic part has really no necessary connection with the rest of the piece; but none of that will signify much, or, I think, prevent it from succeeding. I like the woman's part exceedingly, but am ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Senate,—I make no such hypocritical pretense; but I do say to you that in this mighty issue it is nothing to you—nothing to the mass of the people of the nation,—whether or not Judge Douglas or myself shall ever be heard of after this night; it may be a trifle to either of us, but in connection with this mighty question, upon which hang the destinies of the nation, perhaps, it is absolutely nothing: but where will you be placed if you reindorse Judge Douglas? ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... heart. As to pride, I never was prouder of him in one position than in another, in than out, applauded than condemned; and I had learned to know the risks, not to health only or chiefly, for that, precious as it was, seemed a trifle in comparison with other things, but to the power of serving his country, to friendship, to reputation in the highest sense, which are involved in the formation of a Government. These are matters of experience, and in 1846 I was inexperienced and consequently foresaw only good to the country ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... enough for two barges to pass with comfort. Other farms I saw, or thought I saw, and a few more barges lying in side-cuts linked by culverts to the canal, but nothing noteworthy; and mindful that I had to explore the Wittmund side of the railway too, I turned back, already a trifle damped in ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... insurance investment. Where prevalence of fire, difficulty of handling it, etc., make the cost per acre comparatively high, there is equivalent certainty of greater loss if this sum is not spent. Where the owner is warranted in believing his risk small it costs but a trifle to provide sufficient patrol to insure against it. One to 3 cents an acre is spent in the great majority of ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... AND HONOURED Cousin"—The chevalier paused, frowned a trifle, and tapped his lips with his finger in a little lyrical emotion—"My dear and honoured cousin, all is lost. The France we loved is no more. The twentieth of June saw the last vestige of Louis's power pass for ever. That day ten thousand ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of the streets are about on the same level. They are not dependent on proxenetism, but only on their protector and proprietor, which is a trifle less degrading. What degrades them most of all is police inscription, obligatory medical inspection, and the miserable system of solicitation on the pavement. It is necessary to have lost all feeling of modesty, and to possess a cynical audacity ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... identical. "Tenderfeet" were there as tender, and the way as rough, even if a trifle shorter than that over the White Pass. Nor were the tempers of the Chilkoot argonauts better than those ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... passed happily. Sir Arthur was moved and promoted from one little port to another a trifle more frequented by the ships of his country, and after a year or so to yet another still larger; so that, while nothing was too good for Juliet in the eyes of her adopted mother, and to a lesser extent in those of her father, it happened that she ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... protection. Every colonist gets more land than he can possibly cultivate. He has no rent, and scarce any taxes, to pay. No landlord shares with him in its produce, and, the share of the sovereign is commonly but a trifle. He has every motive to render as great as possible a produce which is thus to be almost entirely his own. But his land is commonly so extensive, that, with all his own industry, and with all the industry of other people whom he can get to employ, he can seldom make it produce the tenth ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... the—the things if she will loan them; don't get fussy," said Ernestine, not a trifle abashed. "Who do ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... suffice to save him from the stake. He accepted Catholic baptism with an almost contemptuous indifference. As for Jasper Leigh, it will be conceived that the elasticity of the skipper's conscience was no less than Sir Oliver's, and he was certainly not the man to be roasted for a trifle of faith. ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... he afterwards found out, of her habit to be for ever at extremes; but just now, not knowing how to take her, he sang on all the better for her praise; and he had her next wriggling in an ecstasy over a trifle he made up on the spur of the moment—a snatch wherein roses and a girl's face (Bellaroba's, be sure) took turns to be dominant. At the end of this pretty piece the Countess Lionella fairly took his own face between her hands, crumpled his lips into a bud ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... not rest with Colonel Ross. I follow my own methods, and tell as much or as little as I choose. That is the advantage of being unofficial. I don't know whether you observed it, Watson, but the Colonel's manner has been just a trifle cavalier to me. I am inclined now to have a little amusement at his expense. Say nothing to him about ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Hyades and Pleiades in Taurus. Notice the different colors of stars in them both. Find the cluster Praesepe in Fig. 70, just a trifle above a point midway between Procyon and Regulus. It is equally distant from Procyon and a point a little below Pollux. Sweep along the Milky Way almost anywhere, and observe the distribution of stars; in some places perfect crowds, in others more sparsely scattered. Find with the naked eye the rich ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... corner of that deep mine poor little Abe was found day by day doing the work assigned to him, and earning a trifle of wages which helped to keep bread in the little home at Lockwood Scarr. He went out early in the morning, and came home late at night, with the men who wrought in the same pit, his little hands and feet often benumbed with cold and wet, and he so tired ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... the myrtle-trees it stands,' replied a passer-by; 'but do not intrude. Let him rest. He is weary from doing battle in the arena on behalf of a worn-out Christian. Do not trouble him for alms. If thou art hungry, here is a trifle ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... have been the cell of an anchorite. Beneath the E. window is a railing which marks the former existence of a sacristy (cp. Porlock, N. Petherton, Ilminster). The original doorways communicating with it will be noticed inside. The interior is a trifle disappointing, and contains few features of interest. Observe, however, (1) wooden groining to tower, (2) windows and roof of N. transept, (3) ancient square font on modern base. In the S. transept there ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... verify his farfetched hunch on the pier without further comment. After a few minutes Barney heard Fredericks' steps moving away, and then a door closing softly somewhere, and he shifted his position a trifle so that his right side was now toward the hall door. The little revolver was in the right-hand coat pocket. Even then Barney had no real concern that McAllen or Fredericks would attempt to resort to violence, but when people are acutely disturbed—and McAllen at ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz
... increased of late years by the achievements of his descendant in the cabbage-garden. The monarch is in full burnished plate armour, with scarf and surcoat—all three centuries at least later in fashion than the era attributed to him. But that is a trifle. It would involve much hard and useless work to make war on the anachronisms of historical portraits, and we are not to judge of historical works by their engraved decorations. Here, however, the picture is sober truth itself to what the inquiring reader ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... transported in safety to France: and Menou, perceiving that defence was hopeless and famine at hand, followed, ere long, the same example. Thus, in one brief campaign, was Egypt entirely rescued from the arms of France. But even that great advantage was a trifle, when compared with the stimulus afforded to national confidence at home, by this timely re-assertion of the character of the English army. At sea we had never feared an enemy; but the victories of Abercrombie destroyed a fatal prejudice which ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... old acquaintances on whom he smiles; but I am no longer reckoned among those novices whose passport he exacts. An inclination of his head makes me free of the temple, and says, as plainly as words, "You are one of us, albeit a trifle young. Walk in, sir." ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... Member for Accrington wouldn't stand the smock-frock. Insisted upon coming out in war-like uniform. Trousers a little tight about the knees, and jacket perhaps a trifle too tasselly. But made very ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 20, 1892 • Various
... figure was rather above the medium height, supple and slender. Her feet and hands were small, her wrists well rounded, her fingers long and white, and tipped with pink and glossy almond-shaped nails—if anything a trifle too long. But it was her face that so attracted Ivan as to almost hold him spellbound—the neat and delicately moulded features all in perfect harmony; the daintily cut lips; the white gleaming teeth; the low forehead crowned with golden curls; the long, thick-lashed, blue ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... Do not speak of this again, for both our sakes. And now, good friend," I added, in a lighter tone, "I advise you to get up as soon as may be; we are liable to interruption at any time; and your position, though admirable for a tableau, would be a trifle embarrassing for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... Ha, ha! it works apace. [Aside. Visus, I know 'tis yours; and yet methinks, Auditus, you should have some challenge to it; But that your title, Tactus, is so good, Gustus, I would swear the coronet were yours: What, will you all go brawl about a trifle? View but the pleasant coast of Microcosm, Is't not great pity to be rent with wars? Is't not a shame to stain with brinish tears The smiling cheeks of ever-cheerful peace? Is't not far better to live quietly, Than broil in fury of dissension? ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... "Isn't it a trifle blasphemous, though, to work you in this way?" grunted the Wheel. "I seem to remember something about the Mills of God grinding ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... the corner, could have had two windows, yet only one was visible, and that to the left, at right angles with the doorway. Was it imagination? As I sounded the wall opposite the door, where the other window should be, I fancied that the sound was a trifle less solid and dull. I was becoming excited. I dashed back to the cell on the right, and, forcing open the little window, thrust my ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... twenty minutes there was an eager argument, people citing passages and derivations, and defining shades of meaning with immense animation and brilliant wit, as I now understand, though then it seemed to me a wearisome imbroglio about a trifle. I did not know what real benefit was done by these discussions in purifying the language from much that was coarse and unrefined. Yes, and far more than the language, for Madame de Rambouillet, using her great gifts as a holy trust for the good of her neighbour, conferred ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bag if you'll carry mine, Gerald," cried Standish facetiously, as my brother-in-law, a trifle offended at the Admiral's last pleasantry, proceeded with much dignity ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... days he had been fighting the desert; and in the serene calm of his eyes was the identical indomitability that had been in them when he had set forth. As he peered westward the strong lines around his mouth relaxed, his lips opened a trifle, and a mirthless smile wreathed them. He patted the shoulder of the black horse, and the dead dust ballooned from the animal's coat and floated ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the famous drive in Hyde Park (the King Road) is 2 1/2 miles. There is another road, straight between two gates, 1 1/4 miles in length. "Rotten Bow" (the Ride) is a trifle over ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... side, though a trifle discouraged by the coldness with which any mention of Kettles was received, felt that at least she had taken a step towards her further acquaintance. Very likely her godmother might come in time to approve of the ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... on his new feat, but it was also a reminder to me, a trifle cruel, that he was not my boy. After all, you see, Mary had not given him the whole of his laugh. The watch said that five and twenty minutes had passed, and looking out I saw Irene at one end of the street staring up at my window, and at the other end Mary's husband ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... up her new friend to introduce her to Mrs. Cardew, who for the first moment, remembering what Lady Lysle had said, was a trifle stiff to Maggie Howland, but two minutes afterward was chatting to her in a pleasant and very friendly manner. She even went the length of personally introducing Maggie to Lady Lysle, excusing herself for the act by saying that Lady ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... with no sign that he considered it anything remarkable, with the habit of a man for whom people produced their best: "She's using some very fine language for her warning, but like some other fine language it's a trifle misapplied. She forgets that no doom hangs over the pines. She's the ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... on my right, with the unmistakably Puritan name of McKelway, in the issue of the "Eagle" to-night alluded to me as a Yankeeized Hollander. I am a middling good Yankee. I always felt that at these dinners of the New England Society, to which I come a trifle more readily than to any other like affairs, I and the president of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, who is also invariably in attendance, represent, what you would say, the victims tied to the wheels of the Roman chariot of triumph. You see I am half Irish myself, and, as I told a New England ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... at any rate, the most interesting of that little trio," Wingrave remarked, "but even he was a trifle heavy." ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... eyes in case he should glance into the tent in search of her. There, stretched out on the floor with a pair of scissors and a piece of one of her old linen aprons, she had fashioned herself a mask, in accordance with the directions on the box. The holes cut for the eyes and nose were a trifle irregular, one eye being nearly half an inch higher than the other, and the mouth was decidedly askew. But tapes sewed on at the four corners made it ready for instant use, and when she had put it on and ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... right, Cairn," he said. "I shouldn't have lost my temper for such a trifle, at a time like this. Tell your own tale, ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... doubtless speaks truly when he protests that he is as guiltless as ignorant of the cause of Lear's violent passion. When the King departs, he begins to remonstrate with Goneril, but shrinks in a cowardly manner, which is a trifle comical, from contest with her. She leaves him behind when she goes to join Regan, and he is not further responsible for what follows. When he hears of it, he is struck with horror: the scales drop from his eyes, Goneril becomes hateful to him, he determines ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... floor without making answer, perhaps a trifle ashamed of these wrong-headed tastes of his. "A fine life for those who are fond of the land," he said at last, "but I ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... filled, and the stranger sent the fisherman to sell the fish, insisting that he should bring him half the profits, and give the other half to his own wife. Next day they would go fishing again. This went on day after day, and the stranger regularly received half the proceeds of the work, giving back a trifle to the fisherman in return for the use of the boat and tackle. When everything was arranged, he used to disappear behind a ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... was cruel. That she was fond of admiration was nothing to him, though he was fond of it himself in his own grim way; he was the central figure of this household, and if she was deprived of a natural enjoyment it seemed a trifle to him. In short, their whole philosophy of life was different, their characters unsuited to each other, and their tempers of the order described as "difficult." It is not necessary to blame one or the other ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... administrative departments there ought to be some one permanent responsible head through whom the changing Parliamentary chief always acts, from whom he learns everything, and to whom he communicates everything. The daily work of the Exchequer is a trifle compared with that of the Admiralty or the Home Office, and therefore a single principal head is not there so necessary. But the preponderance of evidence at present is that in all offices of very great work some one ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... cross the Heath, and left us like a couple of Asses, to drive our Horses to the next Town, and carry the Saddles under our Arms; but by the Invention of our Garters, and some other such like Tackle, we halter'd our Steeds till we cou'd refit our selves better. What we lost was but a Trifle, and 'twas done in so small a space of Time, that appear'd like a Dream or passing Thought. It was happy either for us or them, that this happen'd in the Morning when our Heads were cool, for had they attack'd us when warm'd up with ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... I will," he said, a trifle embarrassed that she had taken him at his word. "Of course I will. I tell you it's nothing to me. I only took a glass at the club occasionally when the other men were drinking, and sometimes when I went to banquets, class banquets, ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... was about to despatch a brig in a few days to the coast of Norway for timber, and that, if I pleased, he would send me on board her as an apprentice. Also, as he considered that I was already a seaman, he would give me a trifle of pay. Remembering what my father used to say about not wishing Jack "to become a long-shore lubber," I at once replied that I would thankfully have accepted his offer, but that I could not desert Jim Pulley, who would well-nigh break his heart, if I ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... a trifle, as if to settle himself better for the desperate work that faced him, he remained just ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... mentioned by Brantome. Mantegazza knew a man who kept for many years on his desk the skull of his dead mistress, making it his dearest companion. "Some," he remarks, "have slept for months and years with a book, a garment, a trifle. I once had a friend who would spend long hours of joy and emotion kissing a thread of silk which she had held between her fingers, now the only relic of love." (Mantegazza, Fisiologia dell' Amore, cap. X.) In the same way I knew a lady who in old age ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... round a shanty on a Sunday afternoon, But the bushman isn't always 'trapping brumbies in the night', Nor is he for ever riding when 'the morn is fresh and bright', And he isn't always singing in the humpies on the run — And the camp-fire's 'cheery blazes' are a trifle overdone; We have grumbled with the bushmen round the fire on rainy days, When the smoke would blind a bullock and there wasn't any blaze, Save the blazes of our language, for we cursed the fire in turn Till the atmosphere was heated and the wood ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... them coming, made a sign to Joe, who stood doggedly braced at the wheel. Joe did all he could—it was little enough—to swing the boat's head a trifle so that she would ride more easily, if ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... Mr. Fabian, with a forced laugh, with which he attempted to conceal his uneasiness, "you are a waggish rogue! Your last words have afforded me so much amusement that I have not the heart to injure you for such a trifle. But listen, you little simpleton; you must not suppose that the justice would allow you to say all that. No, he would have sent you away long before you could have had time to utter a word ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... Secretary of State believed it right or reasonable to make war for such a cause. Villeroy replied by asking "whether even admitting the negative, the Ambassador thought it were wisely done for such a trifle, for a formality, to plunge into extremities and to turn all Christendom upside down." Pecquius, not considering honour a trifle or a formality, said that "for nothing in the world would his Highness the Archduke ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... This was a trifle too much for Carroway. Up he jumped with surprising speed, took one stride through the station door, and seizing Cadman by the collar, shook him, wrung his ear with the left hand, which was like a pair of pincers, and then with the other flung him backward as if he were an empty ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... West that characterized the governing authorities in the South was exhibited by eastern men in the North and, correspondingly, the West, Federal and Confederate, was unduly sensitive to the indifference, perhaps, also, a trifle unnecessarily alarmed by symptoms of its own danger. Nevertheless, its danger was real. Each state gave in its adherence to the Confederacy separately and, therefore, every single state in the slavery belt had a problem to ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... 'Oh, we lay a trifle on ourselves for roads and bridges and schools, and such things. There's custom-houses at the ports; but if a man chooses to live without tea or foreign produce, he won't be touched by the indirect taxes either. I guess we've the advantage of you there. You can't ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... moments than those spent on the beach at sunset, whither the school flocked down after tea for half an hour's leisure in the after- glow. There is plenty of amusement for them on this broad reach of sand and shingle. Some are groping for shells or for pebbles, which the lapidary will transform for a trifle into dazzling jewels; others are playing ducks and drakes on the waves, or ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... answered, "or can soon become one." He moved aside a trifle so that none of the Bancroft group should happen to look out and see him. "If you could arrange some company for me...." He fumbled out a C-note, wondering just how such ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson
... am on the mend and only anxious to start home again. I really cannot rest here, and have made arrangements to leave to-morrow. Have taken every precaution against catching cold, and apart from feeling a trifle weak and annoyed by a cough, am all right. Shall come home directly. Say nothing of this to Esther or Ruth; shall apprise them by telegram of my home-coming. Had almost completed the business, and can leave the ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... wearing the beard, a little less of the stern moralist, a little more of the man of the world. A connoisseur of Hughes, who has studied him for nearly twenty years, after a recent observation, pronounced judgment: "It's the same Hughes, a trifle less cold, but just as dry." And the Secretary of State himself, when one of the weeklies contained an article on "The New Mr. Hughes," remarked, "People did not understand me ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous |
