"Trifling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... appearances, he anticipated another tempest with its flood. It is true, it was not the season when the last occurred, but the climate might admit of these changes. The difference between summer and winter was very trifling on that reef, and a hurricane, or a gale, was as likely to occur in the ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... dear child; I have nothing else worth telling you at present—at least, the same things don't strike me that used to do; or what perhaps is more true, when things of consequence takes one up, one can't attend to mere trifling. When I say this, you will ask me, where is my philosophy! Even where the best is: I think as coolly as I can, I don't exaggerate what is disagreeable, and I endeavour to lessen it, by undervaluing what I am inclined to think would be a ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... accept alms even from the poor, and so it happened that notwithstanding their own want, the poorest of their neighbours would bring them presents, one of a hen, another of a few eggs, a third of some trifling article of clothing. In their generous charity, the people, not only shared with them all they could spare conveniently, but moreover encroached on absolute necessaries. To complete the distress of the Sisters, the vessels ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... feet. The ride through the deep snow and the bitter December wind had been a hard one; but the woods in their glittering winter shroud, the sharp, refreshing breath of the pure air, and a thousand trifling matters—from the white hats that crowned every stock and stone to the tiny crystals of snow that fell on the green velvet of my fur-lined bodice—were a joy to me, albeit my heart was heavy with care. The evening star had risen or ever we reached the house; and out here, under God's open heavens, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the case of a paranoiac woman who was in litigation with her father over some trifling inheritance left by her mother, and who accused her father of a murder, and insinuated that she had heard her grandfather ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... good sort and Dick wasn't anything but lazy and trifling and sometimes a little tipsy. There wasn't anything mean ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... resumed Baba, "is a trifling thing, and it is very easy, you think, to cast it into the gutter. But I tell you, whoever and whatever you are, that this sparkling and seductive drink is the pygmy that binds the giant to the post with a thread, and lashes him with thongs ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... I detest the blasphemous proverb: 'Zeus pays no heed to lovers' oaths.' Why should an oath touching the best and holiest feelings of humanity be regarded by the Deity, as inferior in importance to asseverations respecting the trifling questions of mine and thine? Keep thy promise then,—hold fast thy love, but ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that dare not offer What I desire to giue; and much lesse take What I shall die to want: But this is trifling, And all the more it seekes to hide it selfe, The bigger bulke it shewes. Hence bashfull cunning, And prompt me plaine and holy innocence. I am your wife, if you will marrie me; If not, Ile die your maid: to be your fellow You may denie me, but Ile be your ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... even on the bravest temper, the ironical mockery, the cruel despotism of trifling circumstances, that have made themselves the masters of our lives, the hewers of our fate, must weigh with a sense of involuntary bondage, against which to strive ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... the workman. Only in their eyes were they alike; both of them had the keen, alert eyes of observers. Perhaps the most curious thing of all was that, in spite of the fact that he had for so much of his life been an idler, trifling away his time in the pursuit of pleasure, except when he had made his expedition to the South Pole, the Duke gave one the impression of being a cleverer man, of a far finer brain, than the detective who had spent so much of his life ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... bear's hug of custom gradually squeezing the life out of a man's soul, had not yet begun for these happy-starred young Belgians. They still knew that the interest they took in their business was a trifling affair compared to their spontaneous, long-suffering affection for nautical sports. To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... take the article under such circumstances, for she had intended it as a bridal gift to a young friend of hers, and would have felt deeply mortified if the discovery had been made after the presentation. After a few more trifling purchases, she turned away, and Guly restored the rejected piece of work to its place, and put the box upon the shelf. As he turned round, his eye fell upon the face of his employer, who stood bolt upright on the ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... the view of occupying the public attention with what relates to myself, that I have determined to relate the circumstances of my ten years' exile; the miseries which I have endured, however bitterly I may have felt them, are so trifling in the midst of the public calamities of which we are witnesses, that I should be ashamed to speak of myself if the events which concern me were not in some degree connected with the great cause of threatened ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... him, clear and blue, and the mussel shells and pebbles, the playthings of his childhood, crunched over his feet. While he thus walked on his nose suddenly began to bleed; it was a trifling occurrence, but trifles sometimes are of great importance. A few large drops of blood fell upon one of his sleeves. He wiped them off and stopped the bleeding, and it seemed to him as if this had cleared and lightened ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... nickname for his brother. Pretty Aufilena had broken a promise and Catullus had vehemently maintained that she was less honest than a loose woman who kept her part of a bargain. It was surprising that a conversation so trifling should recur in this hour, but he could see again before him his brother's smiling face and hear him saying: "My Diogenes, never let your lantern go out. It will light your own feet even if you ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... of sections. A brisk shell fire assailed this battalion as it crossed the rear of the batteries, but, like the Manchester, the Highlanders for a time escaped the notice of the Boer riflemen, and they pushed on with trifling loss. ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... Bohemia. Long and toilsome was this ascent; for though the main road was still beneath our feet, so perfectly had its fabricators set the rules of their art at defiance, that it ran sheer and abrupt, with scarce a trifling deflection, from the base to the summit. The sun, also, beat upon us with a power which we found it extremely uncomfortable to sustain, and our thirst was excessive. And here it may, perhaps, be worth while for the benefit ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... Uncle Sam, the motorcycle, the friend and companion of Tom Slade. I have withheld none of their confidences—or trifling differences. I dare say they were both ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the Times installment system, and they said I was frivolous. They said that to send thirteen eggs as payment for goods supplied to the value of twenty-five pounds one shilling and sixpence was mere trifling. Trifling! when those thirteen eggs were absolutely all we had over that week after Mrs. Beale had taken what she wanted for the kitchen. I tell you what it is, old boy, that ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... situations, for expressing my love of fair play. Once, in particular, I remember I was in the boxes at the theatre at Salisbury, when there was a violent party call for "God save the King." I was one of the loyal who as loudly demanded this tune to be played as any loyal man in the house; after some trifling opposition the call was complied with, and the performers came forward upon the stage and sung it: there was then a call for hats off, and I have no doubt that I was as zealous in this call as any one, because, in the first ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... She said she was glad to meet Mr. Ellery. The young minister affirmed his delight in meeting her. Then she disappeared in the misty twilight and John Ellery surreptitiously wiped his perspiring forehead with his cuff, having in his late desire for the primal necessities forgotten such a trifling ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... if we look upon them from the point of view of their acquired intension, they defy definition by reason of the very complexity of their meaning. We cannot say exactly what 'John' and 'Mary' mean, because those names, to us who know the particular persons denoted by them, suggest all the most trifling accidents of the individual as well as the ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... the Assembly of New York on its refusal to provide quarters for English troops, and resolved to assert British sovereignty by levying import duties of trivial amount at American ports. The Assembly of Massachusetts was dissolved on a trifling quarrel with its Governor, and Boston was occupied for a time by British soldiers. It was without a thought of any effective struggle however that the Cabinet had entered on this course of vexation; and when the remonstrances of the Legislatures of Massachusetts and Virginia, coupled ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... form of the Book was precisely determined by authority of Parliament. The purport of the Act was to enforce the use of the Book in a form otherwise determined. That form was settled, with some measure of ecclesiastical sanction, in the time of Edward VI. What sanction there was for the trifling changes now made is not very clear, and possibly men were not ...
— The Acts of Uniformity - Their Scope and Effect • T.A. Lacey
... reflection, so it becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible, in some instances to point out a defect in an established model without incurring the censure of the multitude. Such, my Lord, is the nature of man, and so trifling and capricious are the circumstances upon ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... strain after all, Watson. But I should be glad that you should add this case to your annals, for there are points in it which make it quite unique in the criminal records of this or, I believe, of any other country. A collection of my trifling achievements would certainly be incomplete which contained no account ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... admired are the Songs and Ballads, which are about 150 in number, and the whole of which are contained in this volume (with the exception of one or two of the former, which have been, on consideration, left out by me owing to their trifling and uninteresting nature). The same may be said of the ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... people, and being determined as far as possible to prevent all plunder, had their boats or stalls guarded by sentries. This, however, did not altogether hinder some of the more daring from getting things on the cheap now and then, but they were so trifling that they are ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... prophetic skill,—to which, I assure you, I make not the slightest claim,—I run the risk of passing for a hare-brained fellow, in case I prove to be mistaken: he plays a bold game who risks his good sense upon his cards, in return for the very trifling and insignificant merit of having divined a ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... material importance of the incidents. To deal with strong and deadly elements, banditti, pirates, war and murder, is to conjure with great names, and, in the event of failure, to double the disgrace. The arrival of Haydn and Consuelo at the Canon's villa is a very trifling incident; yet we may read a dozen boisterous stories from beginning to end, and not receive so fresh and stirring an impression of adventure. It was the scene of Crusoe at the wreck, if I remember rightly, that so bewitched my blacksmith. Nor is the fact surprising. Every single ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Landor, "there is no trickery, no trifling, no delay, no exposition, no garrulity, no dogmatism, no declamation, no prosing, . . . but the loud, clear challenge, the firm, unstealthy step, ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... Dictionary* gives a fairly clear elementary account of the subject. Ruskin also has written an excellent essay on verse-rhythms. With a manual in front of you, you can acquire in a couple of hours a knowledge of the formal principles in which the music of English verse is rooted. The business is trifling. But the business of appreciating the inmost spirit of the greatest verse is tremendous and lifelong. It is not something that can ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... moment; for Warburton forgot that Shakspeare characteristically introduces one in the Tempest's most fanciful scene.[3] Granger, who had not much time to study the manners of the age whose personages he was so well acquainted with, in a note on Milton's Masque, said that "these compositions were trifling and perplexed allegories, the persons of which are fantastical to the last degree. Ben Jonson, in his 'Masque of Christmas,' has introduced 'Minced Pie,' and 'Baby Cake,' who act their parts in the drama.[4] But the most wretched performances of this kind could ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... said young Mr. Cashell, with icy politeness, opening the door one half-inch, "if you still happen to be interested in our trifling experiments. But, should such ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... he is! Formerly the fellow posed as a pessimist, disgusted with life and bent upon airing impossible views of his own; now, he's trifling with animalism." ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... with which this apparently trifling anecdote is given us from antiquity evidently proves that it was one of the household tales of old Greece. It did not seem absurd in those times, when Art was recognized as a great Unity, an elaborate system ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... employment; but at no period of my life, not in the eight years I served the public, have I been obliged to write so much myself, as I have done since my retirement. Was this confined to friendly communication, and to my own business, it would be equally pleasing and trifling; but I have a thousand references to old matters, with which I ought not to be troubled, but which, nevertheless, must ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... many never reached a describable shape; very few reached even partial execution. One of the latter sort was an intended History of the most remarkable Conspiracies and Revolutions in the Middle and Later Ages. A first volume of the work was published in 1787. Schiller's part in it was trifling; scarcely more than that of a translator and editor. St. Real's Conspiracy of Bedmar against Venice, here furnished with an extended introduction, is the best piece in the book. Indeed, St. Real seems first to have set him on this task: the Abbe had already signified his predilection ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... around until it indicated a pressure such as only a strong man could have exerted. Comparing the marks made in the steel in the experiment and by the safe-cracker, it was evident that no such pressure had been necessary. Apparently the lock on the door was only a trifling affair, and the steel itself was not very, tough. The safe-makers had relied on the first line ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... before how that trifling matter could be arranged; and, as he went industriously to work making shavings out of a portion ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... and his relatives are on our kirk rolls as members or adherents, and all we can do is to fence the communion-table against them for a period, and bring them to the stool of repentance. Some here may think a night of squabbling and broken heads in a Highland burgh too trifling an affair for the interference of the kirk or the court of law: I am under no such delusion. There is a valour better than the valour of the beast unreasoning. Your lordship has seen it at its proper place in your younger wars; young Elrigmore, I am sure, has seen it on the Continent, ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... I forward, for thy acceptance, two small volumes, as a trifling testimony of the high estimation in which we have long held thy writings. So great was our desire to see thee when my wife and I were, a few springs ago, making a ramble on foot through some parts of your beautiful country, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... in his heart Bunting looked back to this last night with a feeling of shame and self-rebuke. Whatever had made such horrible thoughts and suspicions as had possessed him suddenly come into his head? And just because of a trifling thing like that blood. No doubt Mr. Sleuth's nose had bled—that was what had happened; though, come to think of it, he had mentioned brushing up against a ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Christian name very well, but he did not choose to have it appear that his august memory had been laden with a thing so trifling. ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... Asti, caldo, frappe!" he said loudly, so that all might hear him give the order. A month in Venice, and he would be able to talk like a native. True, if any Italian spoke to him, he was obliged to shake his head; but that was a trifling matter. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... studying, and who flitted about the room all the time. From the first he regarded them with disfavor. Their frivolous manners and their constant humming were not pleasing to him; but when they became so impertinent as to alight on his back, this trifling with his dignity was past endurance; he hissed, and snapped his beak at the elusive little creatures, and finally worked himself into such a rage that he was found completely exhausted, and almost in a dying condition. These continued excitements, indeed, so wore upon his sensitive ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... course," began Indiman, "that I went off with Estes that May evening with just an apology to you about a family affair. Really, I knew nothing; but the boy's manner struck me as peculiar, and, while the incident of the opal button was trifling in itself, I was sure that there was something behind it. But when I plumped the question squarely at Estes he had nothing to say except that the jewel had been slipped into his hand while he stood looking into a shop-window. Where ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... stands but a step away from the Campo Santo, and our guide ushered us into it with the air of one who had till now held in reserve his great stroke and was ready to deliver it. Yet I think he waited till we had looked at some comparatively trifling sculptures by Nicolo Pisano before he raised his voice, and uttered a melodious species of howl. While we stood in some amazement at this, the conscious structure of the dome caught the sound and prolonged it with a variety ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... scene as the eye could wish to rest upon. As I wheeled my horse and sped upon my way I felt, my dears, that this was a land worth fighting for, and that a man's life was a small thing if he could but aid, in however trifling a degree, in working out its freedom and its happiness. At a little village over the hill I fell in with an outpost of horse, the commander of which rode some distance with me, and set me on my road to Nether Stowey. It seemed strange to my Hampshire eyes to note that the earth is all ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... this trifling transaction occurred, is the locale of an undertaking which will probably outlast all the little diadems of all the little kings. This is the canal by which it is proposed to unite the Rhine, the Mayne, and the Danube; in other words, to make the longest water communication in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... In this local trifling two hours passed, until the party sat down to the long-looked for repast. It was here that the health of Judge Piper was neatly proposed by the editor of the "Argus." The judge responded with great dignity and some emotion. He reminded them that it had been his humble endeavor to promote harmony—that ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... greased with the best watch-maker's oil—selected a ball perfectly round and true—laid the patch upon the muzzle, and placing the bullet exactly in the centre over the bore, buried it with a single rap of a small lignum vita mallet, which hung from his button-hole; and then, with but a trifling effort, drove it home by one steady thrust of the stout copper-headed charging rod. This done, he again inspected the cone, and seeing that the powder was forced quite up into sight, picked out, with the same anxious scrutiny that had marked all of his proceedings, ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... journey of that morning, it had quite passed out of her little head in the usual way of such trifling unpleasantnesses which go so frequently to make up the tally of childhood's days. Jamie had no understanding of it. His Vada was with him again, hectoring, guiding him as was her wont, and, in his babyish ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... tons of it. In Mexico the curious class of miners known as 'gambusinos' rove through the valleys of the Sierra Madre armed with pick and pan, passing their lives in hunting mines, as pigs hunt truffles. If they come upon a mine, they never try to work it, but sell the secret for a trifling sum, and, drinking out the money, start on again to find the mines worked by the Aztecs, till an Apache bullet or arrow stops them, their El Dorado still ahead, or they are found beside their pick ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... clogs are not necessary," he said. "The rain runs off as fast as it falls. Thy boots are all such trifling feet can carry. What can women do on this hard world-road with such impediments as French clogs ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... fill the mind and bar out every minor terror. Its deafening threats demanded the whole of the imagination. Compared with the probability of plunging down an unknown depth into a boiling hell of waters, all other peril seemed too trifling to attract notice. Such a fate is an enhancement ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... bear until I hear from you again. Tell me all about your pretty inconnue across the road. What is her name? Who is she? Who's her father? Where's her mother? Who's her lover? You cannot imagine how this will occupy me. The more trifling, the better. My imprisonment has weakened me intellectually to such a degree that I find your epistolary gifts quite considerable. I am passing into my second childhood. In a week or two I shall take to India rubber rings and prongs of coral. A silver ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of this famous priest, was indeed a very wise man, and his sayings were reckoned of scarcely less authority then the words of his master. Whatever he said had a weight which other men's words had not; and all his actions, however trifling in their nature, were magnified into actions of importance, and became invested with a character, which did not belong to those of men in other respects more gifted than he. Yet the unbounded respect in which his nation held him was not undeserved. Wisdom he possessed, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... by now made these particular defences of the Canal of most trifling importance. Her foot is in Palestine. Work done at Ashton may well be gradually obliterated. Yet a few words can be said of the men who lived and laboured here in June, 1916, in a temperature rising often to 120 ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... are trifling with me, my pretty bird. Take care; I'll not be trifled with," said ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... devoted fanatics became convinced that their gods had deserted them, that victory was not for them, and that no effort, however heroic on their part, could drive us from the Ridge. The enemy's loss was heavy, ours trifling, for our men were admirably steady, well protected by breastworks, and never allowed to show themselves except when the assailants came close up. We had only 1 officer and 9 men killed ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... David do that for? I don't know. It was such a trifling little matter that it was not thought necessary to give any reason. Perhaps he had eaten too much pie and felt cross; and what else were those women for but to be made stand around on such occasions? Weren't they his property? Didn't those ten women belong to David? Hadn't he a ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... 'on this occasion they must go free, and on every occasion. Lord Cockletown, let him be what he may before, is of late a good landlord, and a friend to the people. His niece, too, is—' He then complimented me upon some trifling acts of kindness I had paid to his family when—hem—ahem—in fact, when they stood much in ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... above often "go off rather suddenly," as it is called, from some trifling ailment of a few days, which just makes up the sum of exhaustion necessary to produce death. And everybody cries, who would have thought it? except the observing nurse, if there is one, who had always expected the exhaustion to come, ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... distinctly the purchaser, could identify him. Does he see him in court? Yes, there he is. Points at Sabre. Anything odd about purchaser's manner? Couldn't say exactly odd. Remembered he sat down while making the purchase. Ah, sat down, did he? Was it usual for customers to sit down when making a trifling purchase? No, not in his shop it wasn't usual. Ah, it struck him then as peculiar, this sitting down? As if perhaps the purchaser was under a strain? No, not for that reason—customers didn't as a rule sit in his shop, because he didn't ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... the danger we escaped; nothing but a case of extreme necessity could have justified the attempt, and Providence was our guide;[17] at the same time warning us of the danger we ran, having actually seen the breakers, and escaped them by a trifling distance; and this was performed late at night, all the ships following and guided ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... that Weelum MacLure drove across Sir George in safety, because the bridge was not for use that day. Whether that bridge was really built by Marshall Wade in his great work of pacifying the Highlands is very far from certain, but Drumtochty did not relish any trifling with its traditions, and had a wonderful pride in its solitary bridge, as well it might, since from the Beeches nothing could well be more picturesque. Its plan came nearly to an inverted V, and the apex was just long enough to allow the horses to rest after the ascent, before they precipitated ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... method of dressing this fruit for the table at Pompeii, for large quantities of figs so treated have been unearthed in shops and kitchens. Such grains of information as the wearing of hoods and the preserving of figs may appear trifling enough at first sight, yet it is from a number of petty details such as these that we are assisted to an intimate understanding of a state of society extinct ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... that critical moment there occurred one of those trifling incidents which so often produce results ridiculously disproportionate to their apparent importance. Through the open door to which his back was turned, a little snake had made its way into the room, and having ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... ye trifling, self-assuming elves, Brimful of pride, of nothing, of yourselves, Survey Eugenio, view him o'er and o'er, Then sink into yourselves, and ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... much-called-upon but sadly unsusceptible Edward. There is something grimly humorous in the idea of Mary Wollstonecraft, destined as she was from all eternity to sound an alarum call to arouse women from their lethargy, spending her days behind a counter attending to their trifling temporal wants! A Roland might as well have been asked to become cook, a Sir Galahad to turn scullion. Honest work is never disgraceful in itself. Indeed, "Better do to no end, than nothing!" But one regrets the pain and the waste when circumstances ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... highest standing on each side,—making eleven in all; Dr. Schmidt a little way off, anxious that I should prove true all that he had said in praise of me; and the rest of the class in the background, filling up the large hall. It was terrible. The trifling honor of being considered capable was rather dearly purchased. I went through the whole hour bravely, without missing a single question; until finally the clock struck twelve, when every thing suddenly ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... a chariot-race (spectaculum) drives out morality and invites the most trifling contentions; it is the emptier of honourable conduct, the ever-flowing spring of squabbles: a thing which Antiquity commenced as a matter of religion, but which a quarrelsome posterity has turned into ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... that portion of them which could be converted to the state of civilization. In the practice of European States, before our Revolution, they had been considered as children to be governed; as tenants at discretion, to be dispossessed as occasion might require; as hunters to be indemnified by trifling concessions for removal from the grounds from which their game was extirpated. In changing the system it would seem as if a full contemplation of the consequences of the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams • John Quincy Adams
... other. You will meet with many of these writers, who will give you a fine heroic long preface, that makes you hope for something extraordinary to follow, when after all, the body of the history shall be idle, weak, and trifling, such as puts you in mind of a sporting Cupid, who covers his head with the mask of a Hercules or Titan. The reader immediately cries out, "The mountain {39} has brought forth!" Certainly it ought not to be so; everything should be alike and of the same ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... like a certain account of the heroine’s adventures; all I knew was, that in one of the drawers which were the delight of my childhood, along with attar of roses and fragrant wonders from Hindustan, there were letters carefully treasured, and trifling presents which I was taught to think valuable because they had come from the queen of the desert, who dwelt in tents, and ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... added to the fatigue of these repeated journeys, all conspired to produce feelings of intense sadness, which was reflected on almost all the countenances of the Imperial household; while the officers said among themselves that the combats in the North were trifling compared with those which ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... she kneeled, and, by the aid of her notes, she told off to the good Father and receptacle of the queen's trifling sins, Fernando de Talavera, how wicked she had been. When it was over and the queen had risen to go, Fernando came forth, and with ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... You are desirous of engaging in the management of an Academy. Are you in low circumstances? Are you a broken attorney, or excise-man? A disbanded Frenchman, or superannuated clerk? Offer your service for a trifling consideration; declaim on the roguery of requiring large sums, and make yourself amends in the inferior articles; quills, paper, ink, books, candles, fire, extraordinary expences, taylors and shoe-maker's bills, are excellent items in academy-accounts. You may charge them ...
— The Academy Keeper • Anonymous
... a dead weight on this market only; whereas other branches of manufactures, practically enjoying no protection, in the case of depressed trade at home, had an opportunity of immediate relief, by spreading the surplus thereby created, at a very trifling sacrifice, over the ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... as I found out afterwards). One evening I was playing at whist, one of my opponents being a momentarily discarded lover of my young lady; I thought he was looking very distrait; however, things went off quietly enough for some time, till on some trifling question arising concerning the rules of the game, the young man suddenly and quite gratuitously insulted me most grossly, ending his insolent conduct by throwing his cards in my face. This was more than I could put up with, so I called him out, ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... clarionet; those of the middle and high, to the vox humana of some organs; lastly, the harmonical sounds are exactly like those of the harmonica. It is conceived, that this diversity of tones affords already a great variety in the execution, which is always looked upon as being feeble and trifling, on account of the smallness of the instrument. It was not thought possible to derive much pleasure from any attempt which could be made to conquer the difficulties of so limited an instrument; because, in the extent of these octaves, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... Neapolitans, with a little gossamer veil dropping daintily on the shoulder of one of those exquisite balzarines, to be seen any day at Stewart's and elsewhere. Well, you know (this you must know) that shopkeepers have the impertinence to demand a trifling exchange for these things, even of a lady; and also that some people have a remarkably small purse, and a remarkably small portion of the yellow "root" in that. And now, to bring the matter home, I am one of that ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... critics, Dickens, looking about superciliously, or Anthony Trollope, breathing hard, or Trollope mere, or Harriet Martineau, or Captain Marryat, or Mayne Reid, or Samuel Lover. For in a case like this a trifling matter like an anachronism or a misstatement ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... the professor said earnestly, "let me point out to you that this is a wonderful position in which you have been placed. You ought to be most proud and grateful. Any trifling inconveniences which may result should be, I venture to say, utterly ignored by you. Now come, let me ask you a question. Are you feeling absolutely your—how shall ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... for half an hour. When he returned his suit-case was closed. He thought nothing of a matter so trifling till he looked inside, and then he underwent a feeling as if it had been rifled. But nothing was gone, so far as he could see. Then he noticed the folding-pocket, for its fastening cord was undone. How well he remembered placing there the letter from Ailsa, months ago! ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... to be fairly inaugurated. Jenkins' idea, excellent in theory, was extremely difficult, almost impracticable, in practice. And yet God knows that the affair had been carried through with an excess of zeal as to every detail, even the most trifling, and that all the money and attendants necessary were forthcoming. At the head of the establishment was one of the most skilful men in the profession, M. Pondevez, a graduate of the Paris hospitals; and associated with him, to take more direct charge of the children, ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... river was immense, and ever on the increase. Limehouse, it would seem, had nothing to do but to go to Deptford, and that Deptford consumed all its time in returning the visit. Little children were sent across continually on the most trifling errands, going and coming for one halfpenny. An immense income was made by the owners of the ferry. No two adjacent streets in London had more to do with each other than had the lanes of Rotherhithe and the lanes of Limehouse. Westminster and Lambeth were further ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... the writings of Dr. West, "he might have omitted doing the thing if he would," and he is perplexed to ascertain its meaning. "To say that if a man had chosen not to go to a debauch, (for that is the case put by Dr. West,) he would, indeed, have chosen not to go to it, is too great trifling to be ascribed to Dr. West." "Yet to say," he continues, "that the man could have avoided the external action of going, &c., if he would, would be equally trifling; for the question before us is concerning the liberty ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... probably trifling, but may be considered worth recording. Facing the title-page to The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, London, W. Bowyer, for Bernard Lintot, &c., 1717, 8vo., no date at end of preface, is in (no ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... which is greater than the things man accumulates, the deeds he accomplishes, the theories he builds; the soul whose onward course is never checked by death or dissolution. Man's mistakes and failures have by no means been trifling or small, they have strewn his path with colossal ruins; his sufferings have been immense, like birth-pangs for a giant child; they are the prelude of a fulfilment whose scope is infinite. Man has gone through and is still undergoing martyrdoms in various ways, ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... between the shallowest routineer and the deepest thinker appears, to the latter, trifling; to the ...
— Maxims for Revolutionists • George Bernard Shaw
... smoothly before the wind. But in the midst of our debate, we plainly heard a voice calling out for help, in our own tongue, like a person in great distress. I then insisted on going, and not suffering a fellow-creature to perish for the sake of a trifling delay. In compliance with my resolute demand, he slackened sail; and hoisting out the boat, myself and seven others made to the cry, and soon found it to come from an elderly man, labouring for life, with his arms across several long poles, of equal size ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... altogether upon the caprice of superhuman powers, the moral elements of a drama are but faintly discernible. Thus the central action of Sakoontala hinges on the fact that the heroine, absorbed in thoughts of love, neglects to welcome with due respect the great saint Durvasas—certainly a trifling and venial fault—but he is represented as blighting her with a curse which results in all the unhappiness of the drama, and which is only ended at last by the intervention of a more powerful being. By this principle of construction the characters are reduced to mere shadow creations: ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... the dust smooth around our shanty each night to make a sort of visitors' book. Then each morning I could go out and by study of the tracks get an exact idea of who had called. Of course there were many blank nights; on others the happenings were trifling, but some were full of interest. In this way I learned of the Coyote's visits to the garbage pail and of the Skunk establishment under the house, and other interesting facts as in the diagram. I have always used this method of study in my mountain trips, and recall ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... over while dressing, and trying hard to believe herself a very ill-used, instead of naughty, child. It was a burning shame that she had been scolded and left behind for such a trifling fault; but she would let "papa" and everybody else see that she didn't care; she wouldn't ask one word about what kind of a time they had had (she hoped it hadn't been so very nice); and she would show papa, too, that she could do very well without ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... and nation—and especially those who consider themselves as good, and even better perhaps, than he who became a cura, while they do not become anything better than bilango or servant? How severely the good cura will chastise them, and for trifling offenses! [305] as we see the Indians do when they act as gobernadorcillos of their villages for even a single year—when the first thing that they do, and in which they most delight, is immediately to place the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... way? or would you do him these services and yet not give him anything?" Here I will draw a distinction, or at any rate endeavour to do so. A benefit is a useful service, yet all useful service is not a benefit; for some are so trifling as not to claim the title of benefits. To produce a benefit two conditions must concur. First, the importance of the thing given; for some things fall short of the dignity of a benefit. Who ever called a hunch ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... Of course you have heard that matters have already become strained between the civil government and myself. Only last week my head aide-de-camp sent for a barber who was attached to a neighboring regiment, using as a messenger the orderly whom I had stationed at the door. For this trifling order there has been ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... still holding to the bars, for she somehow felt quite unaccountably weak. "It wasn't very bad. There's hardly any scar at all—or won't be, when it's fully healed. But all this is trifling, compared to what you've suffered and are suffering. Oh, what a horrible affair! What frightful accusations! Tell me ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... pleasure and not a little wisdom; at any rate a direction for which she would all her life be thankful. It would have been surprising if her presence in the doctor's house had not after some time made changes in it, but there was no great difference outwardly except that she gathered some trifling possessions which sometimes harmonized, and as often did not, with the household gods of the doctor and Marilla. There was a shy sort of intercourse between Nan and Mrs. Graham's grandchildren, but it was not very valuable to ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Certain trifling symptoms aroused the suspicions of the French, who soon found themselves in a cul-de-sac, where the natives persisted in declaring that fresh water was to be found. Labbe, in spite of all the persuasions of the natives, did not wish to imperil his boats in two or three feet of ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... acknowledged that "if the property were of great value, as, for instance, if it were a vessel employed for smuggling or other illegal purposes, it would be * * * dangerous * * * to permit * * * [an officer] to sell or destroy it as a public nuisance, * * * But where the property is of trifling value, * * * we think it is within the power of the legislature to order its ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... character of the prisoner's antecedents. We went back to Mayfair—Charles, well satisfied that the man he dreaded was under lock and key; myself, not too well pleased to think that the man I dreaded was no longer at large, and that the trifling little episode of the ten per cent commission ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... wild night, but she did not speak of Edna's visit to her room. Afterward she went up to prepare for her ride, but during the next hour Richard noticed she was not in her usual spirits, and questioned her kindly as to the cause of her depression. Bessie made some trifling excuse; she had slept badly, and her head ached; but in reality she could find no ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... king and his good wife, Sweetbine, were very much grieved at the foolish trifling of their daughter, Dewbell—for they were well assured that Dewbell loved the noble knight, Sir Timothy, and that it was only a spirit of mere wantonness that led her to vex and torment him. Long into ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... organism placed under new conditions [often] sometimes varies in a small degree and in very trifling respects such as stature, fatness, sometimes colour, health, habits in animals and probably disposition. Also habits of life develope certain parts. Disuse atrophies. [Most of these slight ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... more duty on a given article in one year, but, if so, he would pay a little less in another, and in a series of years these would counterbalance each other and amount to the same thing so far as his interest is concerned. This inconvenience would be trifling when contrasted with the additional security thus afforded against frauds upon the revenue, in which every consumer ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... that's the matter?' he returned pettishly (this being the first time of his showing such a mood). 'Upon my heart and life such trifling is trying to any man's temper, Baptista! Sending me about from here to yond, and then when I come back saying 'ee don't like the place that I have sunk so much money and words to get for 'ee. 'Od dang it all, 'tis enough to—But I won't say any more at present, mee deer, though it is ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... sector would not make interesting reading as it was a quiet time. The enemy shelling was not heavy and was confined to a few favourite spots. At night he sent over a few gas shells, but never in great numbers, and the damage done was trifling. On the other hand, night after night he received thousands of shells of all sizes from our gunners, especially from 6-inch howitzers, ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... be had in any thing like the plenty we expected, from the account given of this country by the natives of Senegal, who, being themselves extremely poor, consider that to be a large quantity which we think very trifling. The Negroes value their gold as a very precious thing, even at a higher rate than the Portuguese, yet we got it in barter very reasonably for things of very small value. We continued here eleven days, during which the caravels were continually resorted to by great numbers of Negroes from ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... he, with a look at once stern and disappointed, "again thou failest me? what wanton trifling! why shouldst thou thus elate a worn-out mind, only to make it feel its lingering credulity? or why, teaching me to think I had found an angel, so unkindly ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... visit to the camp of Satanta a trifling incident comes to my mind. Crossing Red river which was considerably swollen due to the heavy thaws—the river at this point was only about nine feet across and about two and a half feet deep—but it was a treacherous place because it was ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... Archbishop, who was against the restoration—for entirely insufficient reasons, it was true. 'Put a roof,' Father Oliver said, 'on the abbey, and it will look like any other church, and another link will be broken. "Which is the better—a great memory or some trifling comfort?"' A few moments after the car turned the corner and he caught sight of Father Moran, 'out for his morning's walk,' he said; and he compared Moran's walk up and down the highroad with his own rambles along the lake shores and through ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... the children of Israel to sprinkle their lintels and door-posts with blood, they might have been foolish enough to say, "No; we shall do better. We shall not be content with doing so trifling a thing; we shall rather build up great walls around our houses, so that the destroying angel may not get in." Do you think, if they had done so, their first-born would have been saved? No; there would have been death in every such household; ...
— The Cities of Refuge: or, The Name of Jesus - A Sunday book for the young • John Ross Macduff
... Stephen Arnold to Crooked Lane is hardly ours to examine. It must have been strong, since going up to Mrs. Sand involved certain concessions, doubtless intrinsically trifling, but of exaggerated discomfort to the mind spiritually cloistered, whatever its other latitude. Among them was a distinctly necessary apology, difficult enough to make to a lady of rank so superior and authority so voyant in the Church militant, by a mere fighting soul without ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... frequently the centre of meeting for many, and very distant tribes. The facility of obtaining scraps by begging, small rewards for trifling jobs of work, donations from the charitable, and a variety of broken victuals, offal, etc. enable them to collect in large numbers, and indulge to the uttermost their curiosity in observing the novelties around them, in meeting strange tribes, and joining them ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... cabin. They didn't come back to Nells no more that I herd bout. The man Nells worked for muster been one in that crowd. He lived way over yonder. No I think the Ku Klux was a good thing at that time. The darkies got sassy (saucy), trifling, lazy. They was notorious. They got mean. The men wouldn't work. Their families have to work an' let them roam round over the country. Some of em mean to their families. They woulder starved the white out and their selves too. I seed the Ku Klux heap a times but they didn't bother me no more. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... Other trifling souvenirs are already packed away. Almost everybody that knows me has given me something. Manm-Robert brought me a tiny packet of orange-seeds,—seeds of a "gift- orange": so long as I can keep these in my vest-pocket ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... in milk is so trifling, that it can hardly answer that purpose. I have heard of only one instance of its being used for the production of a spirituous liquor, and this is by the Tartan Arabs; their abundance of horses, as well as their ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... wanted to see them himself and pick out the men he liked); eight days more at Soohaj, then to Siout eight days more, and meanwhile Ismail Pasha has gone back to Cairo and the poor souls may wait indefinitely, for no one will venture to remind the Pasha of their trifling existence. ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... from Fort Severn, the blizzard had been light, and the snowfall trifling. Presently, they uncovered faint tracks leading away southwest, and judged, from the edge of the crust where the sledge had occasionally broken through, that they were not ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... experience, though this disease may not be entirely arrested in its course, and not generally much abridged in its duration, still the use of appropriate medicines will greatly modify it, and render it a comparatively trifling affection. ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... provoked again this ominous flare, poor Susie grasped at her only advantage. "Do you really accuse a man like Sir Luke Strett of trifling ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... are indispensable or desirable qualities, and will cross with animals with a view to establish them. This proceeding will be of the 'give-and-take' kind. He will submit to the introduction of a trifling defect, in order that he may profit by a great excellence; and between excellences perhaps somewhat incompatible he will decide on which is the greatest, and give it the preference. To a person commencing ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... not altogether agreeable decision, which in any other person would probably mean that he had at last made up his mind to call in the sheriff. But Buck was convinced that this was the last thing Lynch intended to do, and gradually there grew up in his mind, fostered by one or two trifling particulars in Tex's manner toward himself, a curious, instinctive feeling of ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... curiosity and astonishment, lifting the legs of our trowsers and opening our shirts, to see if the skin of our bodies resembled that of our faces and hands. We remained some time with them, to make proposals of peace; and having ascertained that this warlike demonstration originated in a trifling offence on the part of the Kreluits, we found them well disposed to arrange matters in an amicable fashion. After having given them, therefore, some looking-glasses, beads, knives, tobacco, and other trifles, we quitted them and pursued ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... about something every school-girl is mistress of! "Or, perhaps, it is because your world is so different from mine! Music, laughter, the traditions of Italian bel canto, you have no room for them, they are too light, too trifling. You are above them," poising her fair ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... interrupted him, and, with a smile, in the presence of all the officers, replied—"Never mind it, Lieutenant—there's no harm done—we never missed you." The effect of this sarcasm is said to have been admirable; and to have resulted in the complete reform of the offender, who, from being a trifling, purposeless, and unscrupulous young man, grew considerate equally of his duties and his word, and, by a career of industry, sobriety and modesty, made ample amends, in future days, for all the errors ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... ticket-offices, etc., one should pay no attention to other people, further than to guard against allowing one's absorbing interest in one's own affairs to make one regardless of the just rights of others in the matter of "turn" at ticket or stamp windows, or in the use of the public desk, pens, etc.—trifling tests of good manners that distinguish the well-bred, and which illustrate very pointedly the truth that selfishness is always vulgar, and that an unfailing habit of considering other people's comfort is ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... British Coffee House in King Street appointing where an Interview may be had will meet with a Person who flatters himself he shall not be thought Disagreeable by any Lady answering the above description. N. B. Profound Secrecy will be observ'd. No Trifling Answers will ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... resistance, captured two companies of infantry and the guns. The captured arms and accouterments served to equip Waller's men, whose rifles were altered flintlocks and worthless, and the prisoners were sent to the Teche to be guarded by Fournet's Acadians. This trifling success, the first in the State since the loss of New Orleans, attracted attention, and the people rejoiced at the capture of the Des Allemands garrison as might those of Greece at the unearthing of the accomplished and classic thief Cacus. Indeed, the den of that worthy never contained ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... was too much in earnest to be daunted by anything so trifling as the misplacing of a mask. He studied hard, despite a youthful liking for the jolly joys of Bacchus, and soon made for himself an enviable position upon the Dublin stage. For the youth had all the qualities that went toward the formation of a ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... had mentioned Lindsay's offer to Dresser, who was rising at laborious hours and toiling in the McNamara and Hill's offices, he realized how unmentionable and trifling were his grounds for hesitation. Dresser's enthusiasm almost persuaded him that Lindsay had given him something valuable. And if he found it difficult to explain his distaste for the thing to Dresser, what would he have to say to other people—to the Hitchcocks? Yet he made his reservations ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... of the soil within the boundaries of the great Commonwealth of New York, there were many small remnants scattered over the western part of this State in a condition of wretched vagrancy; reduced by idleness and intemperance to poverty, and ready, for a trifling compensation, to have their names attached to any memorial, without regard to its objects, for a small sum of money they would lend themselves to the service of any artful intriguer whose designs were to defraud ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... colonists and the travellers—the American plants would cost too much. But the rocks were possible, as well as the shattered trees, the immortelles, and the moss; and in their enthusiasm for new ideas, after many experiments, with the assistance of a single man-servant, and for a trifling sum, they made for themselves a residence which had no analogy to ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... father!" retorted the Commandant's wife, "are not husband and wife the same flesh and spirit? Ivan Kouzmitch, are you trifling? Lock them up separately, and keep them on broad and water till this ridiculous idea goes out of their heads. And Father Garasim shall make them do penance that they may ask pardon of heaven ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... possible to him. The world was rose-colored as it always was when he looked at it, glass in hand, near to Uncle Caragol. All obstacles would turn out to be trifling: everything would arrange itself with wonderful facility. Men were able to progress ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... strong, and prudently retired into West Virginia. 2. On the night that the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan, General Butler, with thirty thousand men, ascended the James River, under the protection of gunboats, and landed at Bermuda Hundred. After some trifling successes, he was surprised in a dense fog by Beauregard, and driven back into his defences with considerable loss. Beauregard then threw intrenchments across the narrow strip which connects Bermuda Hundred with the main land, and, as Grant tersely said, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... where the latter, imbued with a wholesome fear of the penalty for contravening the law, refrains from giving it, the agency of degraded whites is readily secured by the Indian, and, with their connivance, the unlawful object compassed. Of course the white abettor in these cases risks trifling, if any, publicity in the matter, and is inspired with the less fear of detection. There are some few hotel-keepers who, though they more than suspect the purpose to which the liquor these whites are demanding is to be applied, permit ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... me? I will stand no trifling! A nice commencement of the term. Taking advantage of the absence of Dr. Colville, eh?" came the stern voice of the science master, as his eyes went round the group. Dr. Colville, the Head of Garfield, had been taken ill during the vacation, and ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... General Gordon declined one post for which he appeared to be well suited, I have to describe how it was that he accepted another for which neither by training nor by character was he in the least degree fitted. The exact train of trifling circumstances that led up to the proposal that Gordon should accompany the newly-appointed Viceroy, the Marquis of Ripon, to India cannot be traced, because it is impossible to assign to each its correct importance. But it may be said generally, that the prevalent idea was that Lord ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... reasons why I always feel myself at a disadvantage with Aunt Caroline. The first of these brings me to a trifling matter that I should have set down before, but which I have made a habit of ignoring so far as possible in both thought and speech. As was Lord Byron, I am slightly lame. I admit that is the only quality in common; still, I like the romantic association. Now, my limp is very slight, and I never ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... "You shall live, Alexandra Andreevna; I will cure you; we will ask your mother's blessing ... we will be united—we will be happy." "No, no, I have your word; I must die ... you have promised me ... you have told me." ... It was cruel for me—cruel for many reasons. And see what trifling things can do sometimes; it seems nothing at all, but it's painful. It occurred to her to ask me, what is my name; not my surname, but my first name. I must needs be so unlucky as to be called Trifon. Yes, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... to impress you with the importance of the event. The past five months of trooper life have not passed unpleasantly. There have been the inconveniences and hardships of the moment, "les petites miseres de la vie militaire," which sound trifling enough, but are rather a tax on one's endurance sometimes. The life of a trooper, and especially of a scout, is often a sort of struggle for existence in small ways. You have to care for and tend your pony, supplement his ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... the night-mare of my own delinquencies. I should, many a good day, have blown my brains out, but for the recollection that it would have given pleasure to my mother-in-law; and, even then, if I could have been certain to haunt her—but I won't dwell upon these trifling family matters. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore |
