"Trifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a trifle, and he hesitated before he said, "I am not questioning your judgment, Captain, but you and I have camped out enough to know that a good camp-mate is about the scarcest article to be found. If we take in a stranger on this trip, which I surmise from the outfits is going to ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... no harm done. It'll make them understand that we don't mean to trifle with 'em. Clear the boarding-pikes there. Are the ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... from a merchant who had picked them up in the street at Mecca,' said the pedlar. 'I do not know what they may contain, but as they are of no use to me, you are welcome to have them for a trifle.' ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... egg, almost as big as a little house. So they began to knock it about with large stones, but, after all, they couldn't crack the shell. Then the lad came up with his sword to see what all the noise was about, and when he saw the egg, he thought it a trifle to crack it; so he gave it one blow and the egg split, and out came a chicken as ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... the rent—rent on land they had literally created, and for huts they had actually built. Two years ago came a flood; swamped them. Asked landlord to make temporary reduction on rent, to tide over troublesome times. Landlord offered a pitiful trifle. What was thought of this shown by County Court Judge, who, on cases that came before him, permanently reduced rent by thrice amount of temporary reduction proffered. Judge further suggested that arrears should ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... of a good wife, the irrelevant question—whether it is better to marry a virgin or a widow—is inserted, merely in order that it may be answered by a no less irrelevant and, in the mouth of the interlocutrix, altogether absurd commonplace against women. But that is a trifle compared with the following specimen. In Menander's -Plocium- a husband bewails ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Mesurier hurriedly, 'there's no reason that I know of why you shouldn't have asked him, except that it's surely a trifle unusual, isn't it? You don't know ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... a jaunty and yet not ungraceful swing; but it almost seemed to her that this was merely the result of an empty self-sufficiency. There was, she felt, no force behind it which when the strain came would prove that jaunty bearing warranted. He was smiling, and for some reason his smile appeared a trifle inane, while there was certainly a hint of sensuousness in his face. It suggested that the man might sink into self-indulgent coarseness. She, however, remembered that she was still pledged to him, and determinedly brushed these thoughts aside, until she heard his footsteps ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... detestation resembling that with which men regard murder, arson, robbery, nay, even theft. The injury done by the whole body of clippers to the whole society was indeed immense; but each particular act of clipping was a trifle. To pass a halfcrown, after paring a pennyworth of silver from it, seemed a minute, an almost imperceptible, fault. Even while the nation was crying out most loudly under the distress which the state of the currency had produced, every individual who ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... himself, as though his mind had drifted far away, and came back slowly to the present. He was pale with nightwork, and his thoughtful eyes had an old look in serious moments. But his smile was boyish and pleasant, and his manner a trifle shy. ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... to market with a large basket and an umbrella. They do not consider a hat or a stuff gown necessary, for they are not in the least ashamed of being servants. Some years ago they made no attempt to dress like ladies when they went out for themselves, and even now what they do in this way is a trifle compared to the extravagant get-up of an English cook or parlour-maid on a Sunday afternoon. A German girl in service is always saving with might and main to buy her Aussteuer, and as she gets very low wages it takes her a long time. She needs about L30, so husbands are not expensive ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... would be proud and happy to call you brother. Now, then, decide to try again. Clara shall not refuse you; she does not wish to do so; on the contrary, she loves you; but some of her oddness was in the ascendant to-night, and so it happened as it did. At any rate I can no longer trifle with my own safety, and have no authority or means to prevent Don Carlos from exercising unlimited power over my sister's actions. Good-night, senor, you can strike the gong when you wish for a servant and a light. I shall have ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... beautiful," she assented. "He's as handsome as a Greek goddess." Thus did the woman ambiguously praise that famous screen star, J. Harold Armytage. "And the money he makes! His salary is one of them you see compared with the President's so as to make the latter seem a mere trifle. That's a funny thing. I bet at least eighteen million grown people in this country never did know how much they was paying their president till they saw it quoted beside some movie star's salary ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... stop on your way here to trifle with that child?" cried Gorgo wrathfully. "Pah! what men ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... now pass him, and nay, "What an awful wreck!" His eye bleared with frequent carousals. His cheek bruised in the grog-shop fight. His lip swollen with evil indulgences. Look out what you say to him. For a trifle he will take your life. Lower down and lower down, until, outcast of God and man, he lies in the alms-house, a blotch of loathsomeness and pain. Sometimes he calls out for God; and then for more drink. Now he prays; now curses. Now laughs as fiends laugh. Then bites his nails ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... their length. The plug at the top of a stopped pipe is pulled out or pushed in a trifle to flatten or sharpen the note respectively. An open pipe, if large, has a tongue cut in the side at the top, which can be pressed inwards or outwards for the purpose of correcting the tone. Small metal pipes are ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... there arose a tremendous uproar calculated to frighten the three worlds, "Lo! a great fire hath broken out. Rescue us. Do ye speedily fly away. Why do ye fly? Take the heaps of jewels scattered around. All this wealth is a trifle. I do not speak falsely, I tell you again, (exclaimed some one) think on my words, O ye distracted one!" With such exclamation they ran about in fright. And Damayanti awoke in fear and anxiety, while that ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... managed to break the strings and pull up the pegs that fastened my left arm to the ground. Then with a violent tug that caused me much pain I broke the strings that tied down my hair on the left side, and was then able to turn my head a trifle. ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... went on, still talking of retirement, and still refusing to retire; my friends began to laugh at my delays, and I grew ashamed to trifle longer with my own inclinations; an estate was at length purchased, I transferred my stock to a prudent young man who had married my daughter, went down into the country, and commenced lord of a ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... fostered his breath, not a trifle of which had been jolted in violence from his body. Presently he raised his voice and called out, ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... little confidence in him, unwittingly enjoyed the pleasures of hope all that day and the next. On the second evening she was a trifle downhearted. The morning after she awoke with another prospect before her eyes—a beautiful bay, with houses fringing its shores and standing out on its cliffs, and verdure to the water's edge. Mrs. Betts told her ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... thrown out, while Dillon roared and tried to get at him through the flying wedge of waiters. He felt an enormous relaxation on the way back to his office in another cab. He was a trifle battered, but ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... began to carry the plates of sandwiches, sausage rolls, meat pies, bread and butter, cakes and biscuits of every variety from the table to the hand-cart. On the top they balanced carefully the plates of jelly and blanc-mange and dishes of trifle, and round the sides they packed ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... picture in a frame of shells, bearing the inscription, 'Unity Hall, Meeting-Place of the Order of Present Perfection.' On a table, waiting to be hung in place, was an impressive sort of map about four feet square. This, like many of the other ornaments in the room, was a trifle puzzling, and seemed at first, from its plenitude of coloured spots, to be some species of moral propaganda in a state of violent eruption. It proved, however, on closer study, to be an ingenious pictorial representation of the fifty largest cities of the world, ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... ready for him in a corner of the big room set apart for the boys, and with a certain place at the table which was called his—not even his assured position there could keep him from sometimes feeling quite alone, and perhaps a trifle ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... elimination of the Biblical names when he licensed a performance of "Herodiade" at Covent Garden. There was no loss of dramatic quality in calling Herod, Moriame, and Herodias, Hesotade, and changing the scene from Jerusalem to Azoum in Ethiopia; though it must have been a trifle diverting to hear fair-skinned Ethiopians singing Schma Yisroel, Adonai Elohenu in a temple which could only be that of Jerusalem. John the Baptist was only Jean in the original and needed not to be changed, and Salome is not in the Bible, though Salome, a very different woman is—a ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... The attempt has been a very timid one. I have endeavoured to confine myself within my means, or, rather, like the possessor of an extended estate, to hand it down in an unembarrassed condition. I have laid a trifle of timber here and there, and grubbed up a little brushwood, but merely to open the view, and I think I can descry in the eye of the gentleman who is to move the first resolution that he distinctly sees his way. Thanking you for the courtesy with which you ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... and waited. In about five minutes a tiny, timid squeak broke the stillness, then a second a trifle louder, then one away under my feet in some subterranean passage. Hardly daring to breathe, I waited and watched. Finally the chorus became as loud as before, and I caught sight of one of the singers only ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... off thus long, and spending so many years in sin as I had done; still crying out, Oh, that I had turned sooner; Oh, that I had turned seven years ago! It made me also angry with myself, to think that I should have no more wit, but to trifle away my time till my ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... king and all the coast Indians are Mahometans. But those living in the upland and mountains are even pagans. By the above, the ease with which this damnable poison has extended will be apparent. Had God's mercy been retarded a trifle longer in hastening the steps of the Spaniards, the latter would have found no place to settle; for as I have remarked, long experience shows that the Mahometan will not receive the Christian law which is so contrary to his hellish customs. The ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... from one who is himself so beautiful," murmured Scraps, casting down her suspender-button eyes by lowering her head. "But, tell me, good sir, are you not a trifle lumpy?" ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... touching in the madness with which the passing age mischooses the object on which all candles shine and all eyes are turned; the care with which it registers every trifle touching Queen Elizabeth and King James, and the Essexes, Leicesters, Burleighs, and Buckinghams; and lets pass without a single valuable note the founder of another dynasty, which alone will cause the Tudor dynasty to be remembered,—the man who carries ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... her neck shone with a rosy refulgence, ambrosial fragrance breathed from her, her robe flowed down about her feet and revealed the goddess. As she vanished, her son stretched longing hands after her. "Ah, mother, why dost thou thus trifle with me? Why may not I clasp thy loved hands and exchange true ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... PAPRIKA SAUCE.—Chickens that are a trifle older than those used for plain fried chicken may be prepared to make what is known as fried chicken with paprika sauce. If in preparing this dish the chicken does not appear to be tender after frying, it may be made so by simmering it in ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 3 - Volume 3: Soup; Meat; Poultry and Game; Fish and Shell Fish • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... the intermediate time devoted to gossip, would occupy at least two hours and a half, he assented to his wife's proposal, perceiving that she urged it with unusual earnestness, and being unwilling to thwart her, even in a trifle, at a time when she ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... Shanghai the day was pleasant and the rain coats which greeted us in Yokohama were not in evidence but the numbers who had met the steamer in the hope of an opportunity for earning a trifle was far greater and in many ways in strong contrast with the Japanese. We were much surprised to find the men of so large stature, much above the Chinese usually seen in the United States. They were fully the equal of large Americans in frame but ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... marriage. He did not understand the character of the woman he was going to marry. She understood very well that Crane was marrying her for her money; but she felt lonesome, and it suited her to have a husband, and she was willing to overlook such a trifle. ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... on buying a rifle, A chunk of an aeroplane's gear Or other belligerent trifle By way of a small souvenir; I've thought 'twould be fine (and your pardon I beg if this savours of swank) If the grotto that graces my garden ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 14, 1920 • Various
... the way things ran about among the plantations. It was a point of honor among the black men to have wives or sweethearts away from home. This meant running about nightly—consequently cross-currents of gossip lively enough to make the yellowest journal turn green with envy. Mammy was a trifle apologetic over having a husband no further off than the next neighbor's. To make up for it, however, the husbands who came to his house lived from three to five miles away—and one of them worked at the mill, hence was a veritable human chronicle. ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... I think I hear you say—Very easy, certainly! But, perhaps, you will be kind enough to give us a trifle more grounds for admitting your hypothesis than you have yet vouchsafed. Likewise a little explanation of what you exactly mean might be of use, if you seriously hope to reconcile us to this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... him but a footman's tooth, which I observed him to examine with great curiosity, and found he had a fancy for it. He received it with abundance of thanks, more than such a trifle could deserve. It was drawn by an unskillful surgeon, in a mistake, from one of Glumdalclitch's men, who was afflicted with the toothache, but it was as sound as any in his head. I got it cleaned, and put it into my cabinet. It was ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... he going to write, too, Sam?" I asked, a trifle uneasily. "Now, you know, Sam, if somebody had kept Keats alive as a perfectly good lawyer or bank clerk—or farmer—he wouldn't have been half as much to the world as he is as a sadly ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... this young person. Now, Reine is living, as one may say, alone and unprotected. It behooves me, therefore, as her pastor, to defend her against her own weakness. That is the reason why I have taken upon myself to beg you to be more circumspect, and not trifle with her reputation." ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... Guppy, again referring to his paper, "I am coming to that. Dash these notes! Oh! 'Mrs. Chadband.' Yes." Mr. Guppy draws his chair a little forward and seats himself again. My Lady reclines in her chair composedly, though with a trifle less of graceful ease than usual perhaps, and never falters in her steady gaze. "A—stop a minute, though!" Mr. Guppy refers again. "E.S. twice? Oh, yes! Yes, I see my way ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... cry, and I could sometimes go out on the mountain-side and scream it aloud to the winds. I fear I shall be a trifle wild, in fact utterly in pieces, until you come, with that wonderful recipe of yours for binding me together, and making me complete. I think of you in your house, and wish to God I were there, or out in the desert even, ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... clown with an honest face, Ignaz by name, agreed for a trifle to carry our bundles and ample provision of food to the Olm. He made a serious matter of it, however, when he pertinaciously insisted on four in the morning being the hour for starting. The dispute finally ended by the agreement to allow Ignaz to carry ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... money, a liver complaint, and a knowledge of the various customs of humanity. When at a ripe age, he returned to his own country, he rarely strayed from his ancient Rue de Seine, thoroughly enjoying his life, save that it depressed him a trifle to see how little able his contemporaries were to realize the deplorable misunderstandings which for eighteen centuries had kept humanity at cross-purposes ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... vexed me a trifle,—the question whether I had forgotten confession. I have no complaint to make, but I do ask one favor, and that is that you do not think so ill of me! I am fond of merriment, but, believe me, I can also be serious. Since I left Salzburg (and while still ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Three an' an application is the Doctor's invariable rule, an' gin a probationer gied oot a fourth, a' winna undertake tae say what michtna happen. Drumtochty is no a pairish tae trifle wi', an' it disna like new-fangled wys. Power!" and the scorn for this ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... She smiled, a trifle broadly for the occasion, I thought, and patted a pillow here and twitched a curtain there, as she remarked with a ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... have not sent for you to load you with reproaches for your inexplicable conduct. But I must say this: deliberately to deceive and befool an honest gentleman, to trifle with his affections out of mere greedy vanity, is so base that I have no words strong enough ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... people are always pleased with those who partake pleasure with them. But after a man has brought himself to relinquish the great personal pleasure which arises from drinking wine, any other consideration is a trifle. To please others by drinking wine, is something only, if there be nothing against it. I should, however, be sorry ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... like a pretty peasant girl, quite Italian in his style, with a dress that was a trifle ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... when he first arrives, seems limited in his intentions, as well as in his views; but he very suddenly alters his scale; two hundred miles formerly appeared a very great distance, it is now but a trifle; he no sooner breathes our air than he forms schemes, and embarks in designs he never would have thought of in his own country. There the plenitude of society confines many useful ideas, and often extinguishes the most laudable schemes which here ripen into ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... each buys and sells for himself; he has his property there in that tin box, and if nobody is going to rob him what is frightening him? Why is he pale and trembling? Why does he run and shout and weep, and ask people to give him a trifle, only a trifle, for all he ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... Machiavellis with sinister reasons for not answering our despatches or proposals promptly, or as going behind our backs in this or that matter. Believe me, they are just about like what we are here. They go out to lunch as we do; they forget big things and trifle with small things, and for fear of their trivialities being exposed, they talk big as if they had some great and ruthless reasons of state for their official misadventures. When you begin to ask, 'What are they up to? What is their game?' the answer ninety-nine times out of a hundred ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... did not even gulp. He merely closed his tired eyes and at the same time let his lower lip fall a trifle away from the upper, as his ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... dainty foot a little bit, and then saw that her whole shoe was full of blood; but the old porter, who came by just then, comforted the handsome youth, and told him he would stop the blood directly, for the wound was but a trifle. Whereupon he laid a couple of straws over it, murmured some words, and behold, in a moment, the blood is staunched! Then the fair novice thanked him courteously, and prayed him to unlock the wicket, for she would ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... although they invariably disembarked at night. The only annoyance they had was from the musquitoes, which rose in clouds as soon as they landed, and were not to be dispersed until they had lighted a very large fire, accompanied with thick smoke; but this was a trifle compared with their joy at the happy deliverance of the prisoners, and success of their expedition. Most grateful, indeed, were they to God for his mercies, and none more so than Mary Percival and Captain Sinclair, who never left her ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... nights and tired mornings?), and a general air of loving the world and its pleasures, despite a secret suspicion that a hard-hearted bailiff may be lying in wait around the corner. His flowing wig may seem a trifle old, the embroidery on his once resplendent vest look sadly tarnished, and the cloth of his skirted coat exhibit the unmistakable symptoms of age, but, for all that, Captain Farquhar stands forth an honourable, high-spirited ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... how full of unflinching courage and fiery zeal, they marched up hither to fight the great fight, and to give their lives! And each man had his history; each soldier resting here had his interests, his loves, his darling hopes, the same as you or I. All were laid down with his life. It was no trifle to him, it was as great a thing to him as it would be to you, thus to be cut off from all things dear in this world, and to drop at once into a vague eternity. Grown accustomed to the waste of life through years of war, we learn to think ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... orchestra arrived—a trifle late after a six-mile hike through muddy roads and over swollen streams—the company was more delighted than a nursery. The orchestra began the program with the piece entitled "Just One Girl," to which the people sang Visayan words. Vivan, the old clown, ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... the habit of burying their own dead. The only inference which ought to have been drawn from this tragic occurrence was that heathen natives have a keen sense of justice, and that if men will go on the disproportionate principle of a life for a tooth, and shoot a man for a perfect trifle, they must abide by the consequences. It is almost certain to be avenged, and, alas! it is often the case that vengeance falls not on the guilty, but on some unsuspecting visitor who ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... Honora's mother to the servants of both sexes, "now, childre, that you've aite a trifle, you must taste something in the way of dhrink. It would be too bad on this night above all nights we've seen yet, not to have a glass to the stranger's health at all events. Here, Nogher, thry this, avick—you never got a glass wid ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... settled well," said Vargrave to himself, as he was dressing for dinner. "Caroline will manage Doltimore, and I shall manage one vote in the Lords and three in the Commons. I have already talked him into proper politics; a trifle all this, to be sure: but I had nothing else to amuse me, and one must never lose an occasion. Besides, Doltimore is rich, and rich friends are always useful. I have Caroline, too, in my power, and she may be of service with respect to this Evelyn, who, instead ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book III • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... since we are in the simple-minded days of fiction when it was the business of the sensible novelist to make us happy at the close, the low-born lover, assisted by Squire Allworthy, who is a deus ex machina a trifle too good for human nature's daily food, gets his girl (in imitation of Joseph Andrews) and is shown to be close kin to Allworthy—tra-la-la, tra-la-lee, it is all charmingly simple and easy! The beginners of the English novel had ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... at me suddenly with his merry Scotch-terrier eyes, I have caught, I must admit, a line of anxiety, or rather of concentrated cautiousness on his face, which for the moment made me think that perhaps he was looking a trifle older than when I last saw him; but all this was scattered to the winds when I met him an hour afterward swinging up Wall Street with that cheery lift of the heels so peculiarly his own, a lift that the occupants of every office window ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... take her in his arms and lay the little downcast head against his shoulder, but he had to be content with saying: "I am so sorry they blame you. If I could only save you from it." He evidently said it in a comforting voice, for the head was raised a trifle. ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... the Church, the Dialogues form an equally thorough-going and uncompromising attack upon them. This, however, compared with the numerous points of verisimilitude, the reader will, we are sure, deem but a trifle, especially when he has learned further that they represent the same mind, and have employed the same pen—that the Sermon was published by the Rev. Alexander Clark of Inverness in 1840, and the Dialogues by the Rev. Alexander Clark of Inverness ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... received me with the most unaffected cordiality: but from Maria it was something more. She more than fulfilled the promise of her letter; she made me at once her most intimate friend; and in all the serious concerns of life, and in every trifle of the day, treated me with the ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... chives. Having received in good part this intended hospitality, we were rejoiced to hear the Hofbauer express his perfect willingness that we should take up our abode at the mansion. We need merely pay him a trifle, but we must furnish ourselves the extra bedsteads. Moidel, his daughter, could cook for us, for she understood making dishes for bettermost people, having been sent by him to Brixen for a year to learn cooking; for what was a moidel (maiden) good for that could not cook? He should not make any charge ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... sound, the confessed incoherence of a happy mortal who had always many things "on," and who, while waiting at any moment for connections and consummations, had fallen into the way of talking, as they said, all artlessly, and a trifle more betrayingly, against time. He would always be having appointments, and somehow of a high "romantic" order, to keep, and the imperfect punctualities of others to wait for—though who would be of a quality to make such a pampered personage wait very much our young analyst ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... rose to Grace's cheeks at Louise's parting remark. How wonderful it was to feel that one was really useful. Yes; the thirty-four girls under her care really needed her. They needed her far more than did Tom Gray. Grace frowned a trifle impatiently. She had not intended to allow herself to think of Tom, yet there was something in the expression of Louise Sampson's gray eyes that reminded her of him. Resolving to put him completely out of her mind, Grace went into the kitchen to consult with the cook concerning the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... she said. Jane fancied she saw her wink at the others. "Samuel tould ye his poor mother was dead, didn't he, dear? I suppose ye've brought a trifle ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... the house where they had been entertained on their way. Mademoiselle Mouret entreated him not to thank her for the trifle she had sent, and begged him to assure his friends that, should they ever come to the island, it would be her pride and ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston
... was assured that one day's more walk would bring him near to Stockholm. That was a trifle, the shoemaker said. He had walked as far as that to church every Sunday, when he was young, and lived up in the north, where the snow was not to be sneezed at, and the night lasted almost all day, as ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... very happy. I then reminded her how greatly I was beholden to her Highness by what she had done for me, and that I could not show my gratitude better than by taking Madonna Jeronima (Girolama) home. She answered that such a trifle deserved no thanks. She hopes to be of still greater help to me, and says I shall find her so at the right time. Madonna Adriana joined in saying I might be certain that it was through neither the chancellor, Messer Antonio, nor his deputy, but owing ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... bit of rounded wood, and rubs it with the file. As he applies himself to the job, two wrinkles of mighty meditation deepen upon his forehead. Anon he stops, straightens himself, and looks tenderly at the trifle, as though she also were looking ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... out, but the suit could also be seen. That required sometimes intricate advance planning to offset. Also, occasionally, manipulating the field of the grid to permit mechanical contact with the physical world was a trifle cumbersome but never annoyingly so. All it took was a modicum of step-by-step thought and some care not to leave a personal trace for the quantum analyzer to pick up. No actual trouble. And, finally, Moglaut had warned that the compact ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... too shrunken and misshapen for him to wear again, came next. Dismayed, she inspected the battered loot; then was inspired to quick alterations. Pant-legs cut off well above the baggy knees made passable shorts; the sweater bulged a trifle at the shoulders, it fit adequately elsewhere—and something ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... sickly gentleman, who, after all, WAS a gentleman. He stood apparently struggling with conflicting intentions, and not very easy in his mind. "My good fellow," he said at last, in a constrained voice, "I won't forget your bravery. If I could do anything for you—and meanwhile if a trifle like this"—and he ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... is neither very important nor very extensive; but such as it is, happily for the reputation of the writer's taste, if not for her sanity, I believe it is in my power to show the trifle I thought it decorous to write, in reply to your own letter. Here is a copy," she added, opening what in fact was ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... be the care of learning, when she quits her exaltation, to descend with dignity. Nothing is more despicable than the airiness and jocularity of a man bred to severe science, and solitary meditation. To trifle agreeably is a secret which schools cannot impart; that gay negligence and vivacious levity, which charm down resistance whenever they appear, are never attainable by him who, having spent his first years among the dust of libraries, enters late into the gay world with an unpliant ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... uncomfortably away, appearing not to know him, yet conscious that in his affected ignorance he was acting shabbily. Mrs. Stanton did not flinch, but bent a cold gaze of scrutiny upon the unwelcome nephew. Tom looked supercilious, and elevated his pug nose a trifle. Maria, only, looked as if she would like to ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... thought of what Leah might think was like fire in his veins. He turned appealingly to the Maggid; "but there must be some way out of this, surely there must be some way out. I know you Maggidim can split hairs. Can't you make one of your clever distinctions even when there's more than a trifle concerned?" There was a savage impatience about the bridegroom which boded ill ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... seize his hat, handkerchief, or any thing they can lay hold of. This lasts till twelve o'clock. Sometimes old women collect together, and then woe be to the person who does not present them with a trifle, and thus stop their proceedings; for if not, their snuffy beaks might come in contact with their prisoners' lips. They often collect 10 or 12s. and spend ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... landlords turned the few completed houses to the best advantage they could, letting the rooms at very low rentals, and waiting patiently enough for payment. Some needy employees, some poverty-stricken families—had thus installed themselves there, and in the long run contrived to pay a trifle for their accommodation. In consequence, however, of the demolition of the ancient Ghetto and the opening of the new streets by which air had been let into the Trastevere district, perfect hordes of ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... his feet, and began to walk up and down the room. He came to a pause at last, his eyes bent a trifle ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... it sounds very tedious, and like making a great fuss about a trifle; that you have all your life eaten mouthfuls of bread without troubling yourself as to what became of them, and yet have not been stopped growing by your ignorance, any more than the little cat, who knows no more how ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... single woman companion, Miss Jessup, pluckily remained at her post throughout the greater part of the war. The officers who during the war achieved rows of ribbons for having acted as messenger boys between the War Department and the foreign military missions in Washington, would feel a trifle embarrassed, I imagine, if they knew what this little American woman did ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... forty-seven men shall have performed hara-kiri, I beg you to bury us decently. I rely upon your kindness. This is but a trifle that I have to offer; such as it is, let it be spent ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... that if he needlessly provoked trouble again he would be confronted with the stern old army surgeon. Having known Whately from a boy he stood in little fear of him, but was convinced that he could not trifle with Ackley's patience an instant. He now recognized his danger. In his rage he had forgotten the wide difference in rank between the girl he would injure and himself. The courtesy promptly shown to her by Maynard and especially by the surgeon-in-chief taught ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... a trifle shaken by reason of the sudden tensity which had crept into the atmosphere, ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... making-up and found it—these preparations all smell. The hair you described was characteristically that of a wig—worn long to hide the joining and made wavy to minimize the length. All these things are trifles. As yet we have not gone beyond the initial stage of suspicion. I will tell you another trifle. When this man retired to a compartment with his deed-box, he never even opened it. Possibly it contains a brick and a ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... Jim hastily took a hand in the conversation, and he and the doctor chatted until the trolley line was reached. There, when they had descended from the little car Lou turned to Jim and asked a trifle shyly: ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... be excused. I believe if I had the management of things, there would hardly be a murder from year's end to year's end. In fact I'm for virtue, and goodness, and all that sort of thing. And two instances I'll give you to what an extremity I carry my virtue. The first may seem a trifle; but not if you knew my nephew, who was certainly born to be hanged, and would have been so long ago, but for my restraining voice. He is horribly ambitious, and thinks himself a man of cultivated taste in most branches of murder, whereas, in fact, he has not one idea on the subject, ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... gossips of the port, Abhorrent of a calculation crost, Began to chafe as at a personal wrong. Some thought that Philip did but trifle with her; Some that she but held off to draw him on; And others laugh'd at her and Philip too, As simple folks that knew not their own minds; And one, in whom all evil fancies clung Like serpent eggs together, laughingly Would hint ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... the serious face upon the youngster, but the conviction which he threw into his words choked my mirth. Whether it was the little brush with the Kanaka or the gloomy forebodings of the boy I couldn't tell, but I felt a trifle anxious after my ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... was a dear, good, trustworthy lad too; kindly, generous, practical, and industrious; a trifle slow and reserved, perhaps, but full of common sense,—the kind of sense which, after all, ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a trifle, a head of a bard, A trifle scarce worthy your care; But accept it, good Sir, as a mark of regard, Sincere ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... know,' returned Audrey, who could be a trifle dense when she chose. 'I do not think Mr. Blake is a lady's man, if that is what you mean. Don't you detest the ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... my garret, and 7s. a week for my breakfast, 1s. for lighting, and 1s. for my bath. That left me with 28s. 6d. a week for daily lunch and dinner, clothes, boots, tobacco, and the eternal penny outgoings of London life. The purchase of such a trifle as a box of sweets for Sylvia made a week's margin look very small. Already I had begun to note the expensiveness of stamps, laundry work, omnibus fares, and such matters. My training had not been a hopeful one, so far as small economies went. Leslie twitted me with neglecting ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... enable the Secretary of War to keep cavalry and artillery horses, worn-out in long performance of duty. Such horses fetch but a trifle when sold; and rather than turn them out to the misery awaiting them when thus disposed of, it would be better to employ them at light work around the posts, and when necessary to put ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... it weighed out to him at threepence three-farthings! Our space is far more limited than such anecdotes; but they all strike us as pointing the same moral. If one happens on a Caxton or a quarto Shakespeare to-day for a trifle, it is the isolated ignorance of the possessor which befriends one. But till the market came for these things, the price for what very few wanted was naturally low; and an acquirer like George Steevens, Edward Capell, or Edmond Malone was scarcely ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... told him that. In spite of my chagrin I could not help chuckling as I thought of it. To tell Big Jim Colton to go to the devil was, in its way, I imagined, a privilege enjoyed by few. It must have shaken his self-satisfaction a trifle. Well, after all, what did I care? He, and his whole family—including Victor—had my permission to migrate in that direction and I wished Old Nick ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... weird assortment of the youth and | |beauty of the Black Belt, their finery somewhat | |damaged after a night behind the bars—shifted | |uneasily on their respective number nines. A | |cross-eyed mulatto had the courage to speak, albeit | |a trifle morosely. | | | |"Us ain't in no hot water, jedge," she drawled. "Us | |ain't been doin' nothin' but dancin'." | | | |"What's your name, girl?" inquired the clerk. | | | |He was answered by Frogeye, who celebrated his | |latest release from gaol by attending the Potlicker | |Ball. "Dat's ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... a rent of only L36. This lease had been renewed in 1815, nine years after its expiration, at a rent of L2,060; but it was still too low, as the estimated value was L3,500. The pecuniary loss was therefore well worthy of attention: but this was a trifle compared to the political purposes to which the property had been applied. The noble lessee never gave a lease for more than one year, in order to keep the voters under his power; and the petition stated the manner in which this power ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... time to time, fared no better. And as usual, when she was foiled even in a trifle, she ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... long past when the terrifying prophecies of Rev. William Miller began to be preached. He had figured out by Biblical and historical dates that the world was to last six thousand years, and that era would be reached about 1843. The Dorr scare was a trifle compared to the panic which now seized upon many people in the country towns of New England. Even those who disbelieved or scoffed could not conceal their dread. It sobered everybody and banished all joy and gaiety. A sad expectancy and presentiment ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... The hypocrite! the epicure! he reserved all that luxury for himself. Add to this, that he was very ignorant out of the Tutor's Assistant, and that he wrote a most abominably good hand (that usual sign of a poor and trifle-occupied mind), and now you have a very fair picture of Mr Root. I have said that he was a most cruel tyrant: yet Nero himself ought not to be blackened; and I must say this for my master's humanity, that I had been at school two days before I was flogged; and then it was ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... saw there needn't be told just now. Lady Catherine kept the best and most fashionable company, and she was never at home an evening that the house was not full. There was money to be made, and plenty of all things; but I did not like it; and having saved a trifle, one of her ladyship's sons-in-law—he was the best of the two—got me the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... gentlewoman, mild and beautiful! I hope my master's suit will be but cold, Since she respects my mistress' love so much. Alas, how love can trifle with itself! Here is her picture; let me see. I think, If I had such a tire, this face of mine Were full as lovely as is this of hers; And yet the painter flatter'd her a little, Unless I flatter with myself too much. Her hair ...
— The Two Gentlemen of Verona • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... are," Ethel said, recovering, "but you are very beautiful, and, under the circumstances, welcome. Under ordinary conditions, your advent would have been a trifle embarrassing. I must find you a shawl before the canoes ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... a beautiful platter at a dinner recently. The host did not permit a trifle like this to ruffle him ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... the term "locooed" so he was not quite sure what Jeb meant. But he was thankful that he had life enough left even to suffer with the broken arms and legs; for a trifle like that was not to be scorned when he might have been done for completely even as he feared old ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... upon the feast from the high-backed manzanita chair, a faint colour in her cheeks, and starry prisms of light in a pair of eyes that had not sparkled for many a weary month. Hop Yet smiled a trifle himself, wore his cap with a red button on the top to wait upon the table, and ministered to the hungry people with more interest and alacrity than he had shown since he had been dragged from Santa ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... smile, and pressed Mrs G.'s hand. The lady pondered. 'Twas disagreeable to owe such a thing to a mere actress, and one, too, whose reputation was a trifle flyblown. The stage she might have swallowed—being the lady's province and she a queen on the boards. But an entry to the world where she and her daughters had a birthright—Fie! 'twas a very different ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... his own. Out of their poetry he culled three hundred odes and declared that "purity of thought" might be stamped on the whole collection. Into a confused mass of traditional ceremonies be brought something like order, making the Chinese (if a trifle too ceremonious) the politest people on earth. Out of their myths and chronicles he extracted a trustworthy history, and by his treatment of vice he made princes tremble, lest their heads should be exposed on the gibbet of history. ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin |
