"Trifling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... complaints causeless. Her mother could not have been more careful than her aunt was, that Christie should not put her hand to work beyond her strength. But probably her mother would have felt that a child might become weary, even to disgust, of a never-ending, never-changing routine of trifling duties, that brought no pleasant excitement in their train, that could scarcely be named or numbered when the day was done, yet whose performance required time and strength and patience beyond her power to give. But if her ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... night, Captain Winstanley had heard every syllable that Vixen had said; with some trifling and unconscious exaggerations, hardly to be avoided by a woman of Mrs. Tempest's character, in the narration of ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... civilizes the other races or devotes them to extinction. And yet South America is naturally better than North. It is richer and more productive, and endowed with a system of rivers compared with which that of the Mississippi seems trifling. Had it been settled by Anglo-Saxons and Germans instead of Creoles and mixed breeds, it would long since have worn another aspect; steamboats would have covered the rivers up to the very foot of the Cordilleras, and the vast plains would have been occupied ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... conditions.[14] (b) The stability of social life is being threatened even more seriously by a self-centred individualism. Marriage is considered as a merely temporary arrangement which may be terminated at will. It is contended that divorce should be granted on the easiest terms, and the most trifling reasons are seriously put forward as legitimate grounds for the annulling of the holiest of vows. Without discussing these disintegrating influences, it is enough to say that the trend of history is against any radical tampering with the institution of marriage, and any attempt to disparage ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... Victoria Hotel one looks straight across a flat of trifling width to a lofty mountain barrier, which has a gateway in it shaped like an inverted pyramid. Beyond this gateway arises the vast bulk of the Jungfrau, a spotless mass of gleaming snow, into the sky. The gateway, in the dark-colored barrier, makes a strong frame for the great picture. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ablaze with diamonds and other jewels, it is pleasant to think, that very few losses were sustained, and those were, generally, of trifling value. The only loss of any moment was that sustained by Prince Albert, from the girdle of whose gorgeous dress, is supposed to have dropped a valuable brilliant ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... trust will never be disturbed!—we draw a line. On one side of this line,' said Mr. Micawber, representing it on the desk with the office ruler, 'is the whole range of the human intellect, with a trifling exception; on the other, IS that exception; that is to say, the affairs of Messrs Wickfield and Heep, with all belonging and appertaining thereunto. I trust I give no offence to the companion of my youth, in submitting this ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... when I bear the treasure, Would you very angry be Should I keep a trifling measure That ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... first week the novelty has passed, and the money of some of the improvident families is running low. All are upon short allowance, the problem being to prolong life at the minimum of expense. The man goes without his meat, the mother without her tea, the children without the trifling, inexpensive luxuries with which parental fondness usually treated them. Before the end of the second week a good many are hungry, and the workers begin to pine for employment. Their muscles are as hungry for exercise as their stomachs are for food. The provision dealers are more and more cautious ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... felt there was to be no more trifling, and as I tore his side with my heel he broke at last into his great, fearful stride, and before we reached the lane Harry Dunn's black mare was straining every nerve lengths and lengths behind, and in three minutes more I stood ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... "But how earnest thou here?" "In my clothes." "From whence?" "From behind me." "Where art thou going?" "Before me." "Upon what dost thou travel?" "Upon the earth" Hyjauje, vexed at the pertness of the youth, exclaimed, "Quit this trifling, and inform me whence thou comest." "From Egypt." "Art thou from Cairo?" "Why askest thou?" said the boy? "Because," replied Hyjauje, "her sands are of gold, and her river Nile miraculously fruitful; but her women are wanton, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... last, however, Harvey paid but little attention, allowing the officers from Albany full charge of the case. He was on the trail of a murderer, and all else seemed of but trifling importance. ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... later, by the end of the year 1825, Dinah de la Baudraye was accused of not choosing to have any visitors but men; then it was said that she did not care for women—and that was a crime. Not a thing could she do, not her most trifling action, could escape criticism and misrepresentation. After making every sacrifice that a well-bred woman can make, and placing herself entirely in the right, Madame de la Baudraye was so rash as to say to a false friend who condoled with her on ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... him, a ceremony he performed very gracefully with great dignity. Then he offered me the six feet of sugar-cane, with the remark that it was a small, trifling gift, unworthy of my high-chief notice. I accepted it with a show of great joy and appreciation, though by a turn of the head one could see acres of sugar-cane growing on the ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... but I confess that this was regarded as a work of genius. The ordinary man in training eats only about twice as much as any sane person, or perhaps a little more; and as, of course, the system needs recuperating under the great strains that are put upon it, this trifling ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Ion, some trifling gift to Molly often being the excuse, was sweet and gracious to all, but devoted herself especially to Violet, insisting on sharing her room when she staid over night, coaxing her out for long walks and drives, rowing with her on the lake, ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... should be paid to vested interests, but Grey firmly supported the private remonstrances of the king against such an act of confiscation. In fact, the savings recommended by the committee were so trifling that it was thought better to waive the question for the time, and the first economical essay of the new regime ended ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... that luxury, which custom had made a necessity, filled his daily life full of trifling annoyances and surprises which were often unpleasant and sometimes humorous; but the new and arid order of things kept him so busy that he had little time for the apathy, bitterness, or self-commiseration which, in linked sequence, ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... of this concession will be to enrich, improve, and develop her aptitude and aspiration to serve the high ideals of life and society. Woman will devote less time to dress, fashions, gossip and all the other petty and trifling things that are generally the subject of their conversation and will endeavor to study and discuss the more serious questions of ...
— The Woman and the Right to Vote • Rafael Palma
... summer sunshine. Beauty was his dream; he possessed natural taste, and had cultivated the same without judgment. His intricate disposition and extreme sensitiveness frightened him away from much effort at self-expression; yet not a few trifling scraps and shreds of lyric poetry had fallen from his pen in high moments. These, when the mood changed, he read again, and found dead, and usually destroyed. He was more easily discouraged than a child who sets out to tell its parent a story, and is all silence and shamefaced blushes ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... misery without believing in them: he has been like one busy picking shining stones in a mine, while there was a world dying of plague above him. I spoke, but he listened with scorn. I told him the studies he wished me to live for were either childish trifling—dead toys—or else they must be made warm and living by pulses that beat to worldly ambitions and fleshly lusts, for worldly ambitions and fleshly lusts made all the substance of the poetry and history he wanted me to bend my eyes ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... were Suras for the convenience of travellers, which people in England, when speaking of Eastern lands, call Caravanserais. These are generally open spaces, surrounded by mud walls, with sheds at their sides for people who are willing to pay a very trifling sum for the luxury of sleeping under cover, and, if they like, for having their horses near them. Carts and oxen are always in the open. Sellers of grain and wood are always there with everything native travellers require. ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... very serious loss. As to the Americans themselves, though they complained very loudly, vowing they would bring an action against the river, the steamboats, against every boat, and every thing, for I don't know how many millions of dollars, their losses were very trifling, as it is the custom for a man in the Western States to carry all his money in his pocket-book, and his pocket-book in his pocket; as to luggage, he never has any except a small valise, two feet long, in which are contained a shirt, two bosoms, three ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... cover a multitude of other people's sins and it covered those of Phineas. The latter was to be pitied; as to fearing him, as a consequence of his threat to "get square," Jed never thought of such a thing. If he felt any anxiety at all in the matter it was a trifling uneasiness because his friends, the Hunniwells and the Armstrongs, were included in the threat. But he was inclined to consider Mr. Babbitt's wrath as he had once estimated the speech of a certain Ostable candidate for political office, to be "like a tumbler of ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Grey's which had become part of his pupil's spiritual endowment, and which was perpetually present to him at this crisis of his life, in the spirit, if not in the letter—'Conviction is the Conscience of the Mind.' And with this intellectual conscience he was no more capable of trifling than ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... prompt substitution of employments, I found I had effectually changed places with the cabin-boy; who, instead of waiting on me, was, in future, to receive that trifling attention at my hands. The mates were presented as two rear-admirals at nurse, and the crew was said to be composed of so many post-captains in the navy of Great Britain. To conclude, the audience was given ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... through all their manners reign; Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain; Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue; And e'en ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... from the very height they have fallen. Our enthusiasm for genius or virtue is thus turned into a jest by the very person who has kindled it, and who thus fatally quenches the sparks of both. It is not that Lord Byron is sometimes serious and sometimes trifling, sometimes profligate, and sometimes moral—but when he is most serious and most moral, he is only preparing to mortify the unsuspecting reader by putting a pitiful hoax upon him. This is a most unaccountable anomaly. It ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... new and delightful; and it must have been true, because my informant was a quiet, slow-spoken man of the West, who refrained from laughing at me. I have met very few people who could do that. Next day all the idleness and trifling were at an end, and my friends conveyed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 23, 1892 • Various
... Theodosia and Constance and Winifred, the Pacific does not live up to its name. However, if I could transport my people, chloroformed and by rapid transit, to Greece, I would beg of them to journey from Athens to Patras by rail; and if that exquisite experience did not smooth away all trifling difficulties and make each wish to be the one to apologize first, then I would mark them as doomed from the beginning, by their own insensate and unappreciative natures, as destined to finish their honeymoon ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... to whose desire for harmony we now bear witness; but to every controversy will apply the truth that there are no international controversies so serious that they cannot be settled peaceably if both parties really desire peaceable settlement, while there are few causes of dispute so trifling that they cannot be made the occasion of war if either party really desires war. The matters in dispute between nations are nothing; the spirit which ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... Constitution, who is the most eloquent of the Americans, and stands, in politics, next to Burke: "The Parliament of Great Britain asserted a right to tax the Colonies in all cases whatsoever; and it was precisely on this question that they made the Revolution turn. The amount of taxation was trifling, but the claim itself was inconsistent with liberty, and that was in their eyes enough. It was against the recital of an act of Parliament, rather than against any suffering under its enactment, that they took up arms. ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... fat girl all scarred by small-pox, and our dairymaid, who was blind of an eye, agreed, one fine day, to throw themselves at my mother's feet and accuse the Frenchman of trifling with their ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... satire is nothing less than a quarto volume, resembling, in its form and manner, the Philosophical Transactions themselves; printed as if for the convenience of members to enable them to bind the "Review" with the work reviewed. Voluminous pleasantry incurs the censure of that tedious trifling which it designs to expose. In this literary facetia, however, no inconsiderable knowledge is interspersed with the ridicule. Perhaps Hill might have recollected the successful attempts of Stubbe on the Royal Society, who contributed that curious knowledge ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... "They have rarely been able to resist the fatal facility of the instrument, and have usually addressed themselves to winning the applause of concert audiences by the execution of those brilliant but utterly trifling and inane variations which constitute the great body of existing solos for the flute."* He fretted because "the flute had been the black beast in the orchestra." With his mastery of its technique and his own marvelous ability to bring ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... the facility of casting shells in America, determined me finally to substitute six inch howitzers of French calibre. Experience has proved, on a comparison of their effects with those of the larger sized howitzers, that the difference is trifling, and that the former will answer all the purposes of the latter, while their proportions render them more manageable, and economise ammunition. The French artillerists, enlightened by this discovery, have determined the reform ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... State of the future a few hours' work every day will give boundless prosperity to all, for "Wealth may easily be made as plentiful as water at the expense of trifling toil."[355] "Under Socialism, nineteen-twentieths of the people will be better off materially than they are to-day, for they will be equal partners in all the productive and distributive wealth of the community."[356] "Comparative ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... value of the daily product of the weakest worker. These sums, compared with one hundred dollars, would give us the exact difference between the strongest and the weakest, under the favorable co-operative conditions, existing at Solaris. A difference, so trifling as to be scarcely worthy of consideration, only one-fourth of one per cent. What think you, George! Where now is the injustice of equal wages? Remember, when justice is done, the ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... take life seriously, and to take a cure at sixty-five and regret that one did not have more pleasure in youth is, forgive my saying so, trifling. ...
— The Sea-Gull • Anton Checkov
... life, but it will place you above the risk of the contingencies of fortune in this country. I wish for no thanks," he said, with a wave of his hand as Hector was about to speak. "I have given more for the most trifling favours. I now bid you adieu, and doubt not that I shall hear that you and your regiment have greatly distinguished yourselves in the east, where hostilities will in all probability shortly be commenced. You had ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... are guilty of in pursuing the trade? No—you stir up the harmless Africans to war, and stain their fields with blood: you keep constant hostile ferment in their territories, in order to procure captives for your uses; some you purchase with a few trifling articles, and waft to distant shores to be made the instruments of grandeur, pride ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... will contest things apparently decided by sense and experience, or who disavows clear principles of reason, approved by general consent and the common sense of men, what other hopeful way is there of proceeding with him, than pleasantly to explode his conceits? To dispute seriously with him were trifling; to trifle with him is the proper course. Since he rejecteth the grounds of reasoning, 'tis vain to be in earnest; what then remains but to jest with him? To deal seriously were to yield too much respect to such a baffler, and too much weight to his fancies; to raise the man too high in ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... about his travels. But I don't think they have made him very cosmopolitan. It seems as if he went about with a little imaginary standard, and was chiefly interested in things, to see whether they fitted it or not. Trifling matters annoy him; and when he finds sublimity mixed up with absurdity, it almost makes him angry. One of the oddest and oldest-looking buildings in Quebec is a little one-story house on St. Louis Street, to which poor General Montgomery ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... series of rude jolts. He used to think that his mother's job consisted of traveling in Pullmans, eating delicate viands turned out by the hotel chefs, and strewing Featherloom Petticoats along the path. I gave him plenty of money, and he got into the habit of looking lightly upon anything more trifling than a five-dollar bill. He's changing his mind by great leaps. I'm prepared to spend the night in the coal cellar if you'll just fix him up—not too comfortably. It'll be a great lesson for him. There he is now. Just coming in. Fuzzy coat and ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... you, not blue! It's a trifle; But trifling in stockings won't do; For love has an eye like a rifle (His bandage ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... in very ancient times, two brothers, one of whom was rich, and the other poor. Christmas was approaching, but the poor man had nothing in the house for a Christmas dinner; so he went to his brother and asked him for a trifling gift. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... piece of wheat, a scrap of lucorne, a patch of clover or vetches, a bit of vine with cherry and other fruit trees scattered among all, and the whole cultivated with the spade; it makes a pretty appearance, but must form a poor system of trifling. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... promised land lay before him. Panshin quickly learnt the secret of getting on in the world; he knew how to yield with genuine respect to its decrees; he knew how to take up trifles with half ironical seriousness, and to appear to regard everything serious as trifling; he was a capital dancer; and dressed in the English style. In a short time he gained the reputation of being one of the smartest and most ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... steeled her wavering will; and, as in fancy, he had seen himself in the circus, driving in a race, so she pictured herself seated at the chess-board. She felt herself playing with all her might to win; but not, as with his father, for flowers, trifling presents or mere glory; nay, for a very different stake Life ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... paper, though it is altogether too light and trifling in its treatment of serious subjects. Besides, it never treats of any thing serious. This won't do. The earnest men and women of the nation require something better at your hands. I have an essay on the "Origin of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... That was a trifling question to ask the Duchess; since all the news of her shadowy world came to her ears in some swift ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... the mother's knitting needle, or ball of worsted, when it fell to the ground, stroked the sleek coat of the tortoise-shell cat, and replenished the teapot for the daughter from the bright copper kettle that sang before the fire. All these quiet little offices may seem of trifling import, but when true love is translated into Low Dutch it is in this way that it eloquently expresses itself. They were not lost upon the Webber family. The winning youngster found marvelous favor ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... five hundred men, who were designed not to defend their country only, but to wrest Upper Canada from the Crown of Great Britain. To General Hull's fears of the savage ferocity of the Indians, this bloodless victory must, to some extent, however trifling, be attributed. General Hull was evidently superstitiously afraid of an Indian. While asking the inhabitants of Upper Canada to come to him for protection, he could not help entreating, as it were, protection for himself against the Indians. If you will not ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... an elixir fine Exhilarates like sparkling wine; Where mere existence brings a joy Life's trifling ills ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... Tennesseeans. After the first week or so of arrivals—principally Welsh and English miners, with an occasional Irishman—the trains had returned daily to the Creek without a passenger; and accordingly this one created some trifling sensation. ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Rochefort, where he was sentenced to pass twelve years of his life, he came to Paris, and scarcely had he arrived there, where he had already practised, when, by way of getting his hand in, he committed several trifling robberies, and when, by these preliminary steps, he had proceeded to exploits more worthy of his ancient renown, he conceived the project of stealing a treasure. No one will imagine that this was in the Central Office, now the Prefecture of Police!! It was already ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... seemed to bear it much worse, appeared weary of sitting, and could hardly refrain from tears. Petrea, in whose disposition it lay to impart to others whatever she herself possessed—sometimes overlooking the trifling fact that what she possessed was very little desired by others—and feeling herself now in possession of a considerable degree of prowess, wished to impart some of the same to her companion in misfortune, and seated herself ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... As for the trifling petulance which the rage of party stirs up in little minds, though it should show itself even in this court, it has not made the slightest impression on me. The highest flight of such clamorous birds is winged in an inferior ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... from letters written to her husband, while he was absent in Maine, may be thought by some to go a little too much into the trifling details of daily life and feeling, but do not such details after all form no small part of the moral warp ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... will never be shaken, for the close similarity between man and the lower animals in embryonic development, as well as in innumerable points of structure and constitution, both of high and of the most trifling importance,—the rudiments which he retains and the abnormal reversions to which he is occasionally liable,—are facts which cannot be disputed. Viewed in the light of our knowledge of the whole organic world, their meaning ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... so well trained that they would govern themselves, and there would be very little need of the instrumentality of a political organization. If women understood that it was not only their right, but their duty, to educate themselves to be citizens of the State, we should have, instead of the trifling topics which now occupy their attention in our domestic circles, the consideration of great questions; and doubtless their finer perceptions often would help to settle great questions aright; and they who should ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... indicate that the Pirate is not invariably so lucky as on the last-mentioned occasion. It is his rule never to spend any more money on repairs than what cannot possibly be avoided. There was an unsafe steam-pipe, which might easily have been replaced at a trifling cost; but, of course, the Pirate would spend nothing on it, and relied on his own usual resources. One day the steam-pipe burst, when a number of passengers were on board, and a woman got her legs scalded. After that, the Pirate found it absolutely necessary to get a new ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... had blazed the trail some distance ahead, would return, and, bidding the boy pile brush, would attack the underwood as though it were a personal enemy of his and would cover the ground in a way that would make Wilbur's most strenuous moments seem trifling in comparison. Once he returned and saw the lad laboring for dear life, breathing hard, and showing by his very pose that he was tiring rapidly, although it was not yet noon, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... whole forming an interesting museum of crime and mystery which would have furnished a store of rich material for a fresh Newgate Calendar. It was an axiom of Crewe's that a detective never knew when some old scrap of information or some trifling article of some dead and forgotten crime might not afford a valuable clue. Expert criminals frequently repeated themselves, like people in lesser walks of life, and Crewe's "library and museum," as he called it, had sometimes furnished ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... proportion of suicidal attempts the patient only succeeds in inflicting one or more comparatively superficial wounds across the front of the neck. In many cases the haemorrhage from these is trifling, but if the external jugular and other large superficial veins are divided, it may be fairly profuse, although it is seldom immediately fatal, unless the blood is sucked ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... Loveland in his usual quiet mood and Chance smarting from a recent wound. He had begun to feel that his position was almost secure with Miss Leigh, but that day, on the occasion of a picnic at which he had amused himself by trifling with a silly young girl, he was amazed, mortified, and hurt by receiving the cold shoulder when he proffered his company to Miss Leigh on ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... Westminster Hall to me; she came and undertakes to get her daughter a lodging and nurse at next doore to her, though she dare not, for the parish's sake, whose sexton her husband is, to [have] her into her owne house. Thence home, calling at my bookseller's and other trifling places, and in the evening the mother come and with a nurse she has got, who demanded and I did agree at 10s. per weeke to take her, and so she away, and my house mighty uncouth, having so few in it, and we shall want a servant or two by ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Instead of the profound questions he had somehow expected to hear raised, everybody seemed gossiping, or searching the heart of such topics as where to go this summer, or how to get new servants. Trifling with coffee-cups, they dissected their fellow artists in the same way as his society friends of the other night had dissected the fellow—"smart"; and the varnish on the floor, the pictures, and the piano were reflected on all the faces around. Shelton ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "A trifling task," the attorney smiled easily. "All ready for your signature, too. You sign there, the second line. But wait—we ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... But her mind was so much upset that she trembled at the slightest noise, and her hands shook whenever any trifling disturbance ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... opprobrium on the person of the judge-conservator. Then the father definitor Fray Pedro Barreto spoke. He read a short paper that he had written, saying that he had not been able to commit it to memory. He was followed by father Fray Antonio Gonsalez, who alleged a very trifling defect in the bull. After him Fray Diego Collado spoke. He said that he was the confessor of the president of Castilla when the bishop of Cordoba had a similar suit with the orders in Espana. Father Fray ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... the steamer, and of course required men to operate it. But the boys were not forgotten. They still kept the chemical engines—and the smaller lads the hand-engines—and they were often called on to put out trifling blazes, and help at the ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... At home, she herself prepared the supper, moving indolently about the room, her dressing-gown dragging after her, from table to cupboard, and back again, often with a pause at his side, in which she forgot what she had set out for. Maurice disputed each trifling service with her; he could only think of Louise as made to be waited on, slow ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... inquiry, and Freeman had not been clever enough to shelter himself behind the plea that copies were not originals; he did not know enough about manuscripts to think of it. The blunders he had detected were trifling, and Froude summed up the labours of his antagonists fairly enough in a letter to Skelton from his beloved Derreen.* "I acknowledge to five real mistakes in the whole book- twelve volumes—about twenty trifling slips, equivalent to i's not dotted and t's not crossed; and that ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... or Sinking Fund, for the special purpose of paying off this stock, the effect of which, though not exactly known, must shortly be very considerable. The Tiers Consolide is saleable and transferable at a moment's warning, and at a trifling expense. It is not subject to taxation, nor open to attachments, either on the principal ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... apt to think that men of a great genius are hardly brought to prostitute their pens in a very odious cause; which besides, is more properly undertaken by noise and impudence, by gross railing and scurrility, by calumny and lying, and by little trifling cavils and carpings in the wrong place, which those whifflers use for ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... himself?—and why precisely THEN, immediately on his becoming possessed of them and on leaving the old woman? Strange, indeed, did this coincidence appear to him. This idle conversation was destined to have a fearful influence on his destiny, extending to the most trifling incident and causing him to feel sure he was the instrument of a ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... and two deniers. It is perhaps even more interesting to know that of this vast sum more than three millions went for marble, twenty-one millions for masonry, two and a half millions for the rougher woodwork and a like sum for marquetry. Other additional "trifling" embellishments of Versailles and the Trianon during the same period counted up another six ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... does not come off and is not heard. The small vision in one eye only is separate from the landscape, and practically does not much influence the mind of the person on whom it is inflicted, who continues aware that it is a mere delusion, causing scarcely anything but trifling interruption. This is perhaps only the case with the few, more numerous however amongst the strong nations than amongst the weaker ones, who are impervious to ordinary hypnotism, or could only ...
— Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris
... point in Waverley's character one day while she sat with Miss Bradwardine. 'His genius and elegant taste,' answered Rose, 'cannot be interested in such trifling discussions. What is it to him, for example, whether the Chief of the Macindallaghers, who has brought out only fifty men, should be a colonel or a captain? and how could Mr. Waverley be supposed to interest himself in the violent altercation between your brother ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... mental and moral culture which gives a peculiar charm to the human countenance. It is impossible for me to bring the females of this country before you in so vivid a manner that you can form a correct idea of them. But select from among your acquaintances a lady who is excessively weak, vain and trifling; who has no relish for any intellectual or moral improvement; whose conversation is altogether confined to dress, parties, balls, admiration, marriage; whose temper and faults have never been corrected by her parents, but who is following, ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... as it has done of late years, and especially in this country; and they who affect to speak with supercilious contempt of the publications of the present age in general, or of the Royal Society in particular, are only those who are themselves engaged in the most trifling of all literary pursuits, who are unacquainted with all real science, and are ignorant of the progress and present ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... vague idea that the situation was not felicitous. He retained, however, his presence of mind sufficiently to kick Uncle Billy, who was about to say something, and Uncle Billy was sober enough to recognize in Mr. Oakhurst's kick a superior power that would not bear trifling. He then endeavored to dissuade Tom Simson from delaying further, but in vain. He even pointed out the fact that there was no provision, nor means of making a camp. But, unluckily, "The Innocent" met this objection by assuring the party that he was provided with an extra mule loaded with ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... that would have killed the poor thing outright. But a Kelmscott, you know, should respect his order, and shouldn't shrink for a moment from these trifling sacrifices! ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... the threshold. Bonaparte had only to glance at him to recognize a perfect gentleman. A trifling emaciation, a slight pallor, gave Sir John the characteristics of great distinction. He bowed, awaiting the formal introduction, like ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... infinite variety!" I scoffed. "Just fifty-two Poor trifling bits of pasteboard!—their combinations few Compared to what there is in ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... on open forest land in lat. 26 deg. 54' 16" S. It was only during the last two days that I could perceive in the barometer, any indication that we were rising to any higher level above the sea than that of the great basin, in which we had journeyed so long, and the difference was still but trifling, as indicated by not more than six or seven millimetres of the Syphon barometer; our actual height above the sea being 737 feet. Thermometer, at sunrise, 19 deg.; at 4 P. ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... likely that we shot at a woman? You are trifling. It will be the worse for you. Forgive me—but we are in such a ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... that the selection of a home for ourselves and families is a matter of the very highest moment to all who desire to prolong life and enjoy the full possession of all their powers. Very trifling attention has been given this question, as a rule, since we see on all hands multitudes crowding into unhealthy precincts, to say nothing of those more pestilential-breeding apartments which are everywhere inhabited by the poorer class, as well as by thousands of the well-to-do and intelligent ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... brain. By this it must not be imagined that he was an idiot, or lacking in intelligence in any way, but he had some curious mental twists that marked him as something out of the normal. His chief peculiarity lay in his dread of pain to himself. An ache, a trifling bruise, a mere scratch upon himself, would hurl him into a paroxysm of terror which frequently terminated in a fit, or, at least, convulsions of a serious nature. This drove the girl, who was his only living relative, ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... officers sprang to their feet. "Keep seated, gentlemen! We must not break up the Council," said the Governor. "We are sure to have the Intendant here in a few minutes and to learn the cause of this uproar. It is some trifling affair of noisy ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... my usual practice, I send you this letter, containing a trifling biographical sketch, and an offer of my literary services. I don't suppose you will accept them, treating me as for forty-three years past all the journals of this empire have done; for I have offered my contributions to them all—all. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... manifest not only bodily infirmities, but the relaxing and enfeebling influences proceeding from the lower portions of the brain. They totter about in their second childhood, mentally and physically enervated. Those who become dissipated by the use of intoxicating beverages are not only weak, trifling, and foolish, but walk with an unsteadiness which betrays their condition. These illustrations show that this part of the brain is destitute of energy. Diseases of the digestive organs also indicate it. Cholera, whether induced by invisible ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... mean. You refer to that rascally apprentice, Dick Taverner," cried James. "Call ye his attack upon you a trifling outrage—a mere nothing, Count. I call it a riot—almost a ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... black Misfortune beckons When upon himself he reckons, Marshals Faith among his assets, Blinks his nature's many facets. This dull gem is an ascetic, Bloodless, pulseless, apathetic: Shift the light—a trifling matter— Fra Anselmo turns a satyr! ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... living mind 550 Should have such mighty sway! yet so it was), A weight of ages did at once descend Upon my heart; no thought embodied, no Distinct remembrances, but weight and power,— Power growing under weight: alas! I feel 555 That I am trifling: 'twas a moment's pause,— All that took place within me came and went As in a moment; yet with Time it dwells, And grateful memory, as a ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... most deeply interested; and his gentle teachings and fervent prayers were eagerly listened to by the youthful prisoner. Mr. W——, his counsel, came often, also, but in his endeavors to keep up the spirits of Lewie and his sister, his manner was so trifling and flippant that it grated on their feelings painfully. He was working as laboriously it seemed, as the enormous fee promised him would warrant, leaving no stone unturned which would throw some ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... subject went into abeyance; and has so remained, with trifling exception, through an interval in which far more than a million, in England alone, of the children who were at that time within that stage of their life on which chiefly a general scheme would have acted, have grown up to animal maturity, destitute of all that can, ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... when the routed posse, with Race Moran in the lead, his left arm tied up in a blood-stained handkerchief, rode into Crawling Water. A bullet had pierced the fleshy part of the agent's wrist, a trifling wound, but one which gave him more pain than he might have suffered from a serious injury. None of the members of the posse had been dangerously wounded; indeed, they had suffered more in the spirit ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... mind to reap the fruits of a crime which was already half executed, he hesitated to carry out his designs. For him, as for many men of mixed character in whom weakness and strength are equally blended, the least trifling consideration determines whether they shall continue to lead blameless lives or become actively criminal. In the vast masses of men enrolled in Napoleon's armies there were many who, like Castanier, possessed the purely ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... world who do not, first or last, desire to be fathers. If it be said, that marriage ought not to be for life, but that its duration ought to be subject to the will, the mutual will at least, of the parties; the answer is, that it would seldom be of long duration. Every trifling dispute would lead to a separation; a hasty word would be enough. Knowing that the engagement is for life, prevents disputes too; it checks anger in its beginnings. Put a rigging horse into a field with a weak fence, and with captivating pasture on the other side, and he is continually ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... with little self-denial, in the business of all times except their own. We are very uncorrupt and tolerably enlightened judges of the transactions of past ages; where no passions deceive, and where the whole train of circumstances, from the trifling cause to the tragical event, is set in an orderly series before us. Few are the partisans of departed tyranny; and to be a Whig on the business of an hundred years ago, is very consistent with every advantage of present servility. This retrospective wisdom, and historical patriotism, are things of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to those friends who wish to see a monthly list of stock phrases, with their English meaning, we beg to remind them that the Frazlibro de la Turisto contains 400 such phrases, each in 6 languages, for the trifling cost of 6d. We are not disposed to sacrifice our limited space as suggested, unless, after mastering the 400 phrases named, which deal with a great diversity of subjects, our friends still feel the need for a ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 2 • Various
... roughly repulsed, and feelings of resentment and revenge are kindled. This, I am persuaded, is the cause and origin of many of the affrays with the natives, which are apparently inexplicable to us. Nor ought we to wonder, that a slight insult, or a trifling injury, should sometimes hurry them to an act apparently not warranted by the provocation. Who can tell how long their feelings had been rankling in their bosoms; how long, or how much they had borne; a single drop will ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... very well," said Hugh; "little pets are very nice in their place, and no one appreciates them better than faithfully yours, for an hour or so. But when you get 'em for breakfast and lunch and dinner. And they even insist upon trifling with the holies of your smoking times, trying to light up cigarettes themselves, and jabbering all the time, why then you seize on a civil offer to risk your neck in a racing car as a drowning man would catch at a torpedo if he found ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... surrendered. She thought, darkly, of his fiery manner that day, of his burning looks, his hot, impulsive words, of his confidences. Hypocrisy all! For while they had been together he must have been thinking of sending for Hester! He had been trifling with her! Faith in an ideal is a sacred thing, and shattered, it lights the fires of hate and scorn, and the emotions that seethed through Rosalind's veins as in her room she considered Trevison's unworthiness, finally developed ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... married, will set her above making such a trifling accident, such an involuntary suffering ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... occasion, it is said, he was so lucky that he came to a fellow student with his pockets full of money; and was induced to resolve never to play again—a resolution broken about as soon as made. Of course he lost all his winnings, and more; and had to borrow a trifling sum to get himself out of the place. Then an incident occurs which is highly characteristic of the better side of Goldsmith's nature. He had just got this money, and was about to leave Leyden, when, as Mr. Forster ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... half-past eight or nine, and it was now hard on one o'clock. Jean was "making a night of it," that seemed very clear. But what was the business or pleasure that engaged him? I admit that I was extremely annoyed. My darling scheme, on which I had prided myself so much, was tripped up by the trifling accident of ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... efforts to destroy it, without interfering too much with the free movement of the army. When the army is numerically very superior to the enemy, or when the river is passed just after a great victory gained, the difficulty mentioned is trifling; but when the campaign is just opening, and the two opposing armies are about equal, the ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... to her "dearest lord and father," as she used affectionately to call Galileo, were almost invariably accompanied by some gift, trifling it may be, but always the best the poor nun had to bestow. The tender grace of these endearing communications was all the more precious to him from the fact that the rest of Galileo's relatives were of quite ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... not become as ingenious, as humane, as industrious, and as capable of arts, manufactures, and trades, as even the bulk of Europeans—Whether, if it were abolished, a much more profitable trade might not be substituted, and this to the very centre of their extended country, instead of the trifling portion which now subsists upon their coasts—And whether the great hindrance to such a new and advantageous commerce has not wholly proceeded from that unjust, inhuman, unchristianlike traffic, called the Slave Trade, which is carried on by the Europeans." The public proposal of these and other ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... Second-year Medicine, hoping the more to impress the Professors, I entered my name for honours—and they rejected me in the preliminary pass. It seems that in the examination in Materia Medica, I had among other trifling lapses prescribed a dose of Oleum Crotonis of "one half to two drachms carefully increased." I confess that I had never heard of the wretched stuff; the question was taken from far on in the text book and, unfortunately, my reading ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... back, and kicked Jack brutally in the ribs. Jack expected the blow, and managed to relax so that no bones were broken by the kick, though he was sore for hours. Moreover he fortified himself so that, although the pain of the kick was far from trifling, ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... planters and others for twenty-five cents a day to work out the fine and cost, and which provide that for every day lost from sickness he shall work another to pay for his board while sick. Under these laws they allege that a colored man may be fined $500 for some trifling misdemeanor, and be compelled to work five or six years to pay the fine; and that it is not uncommon for colored men thus hired out to be worked in a chain gang upon the plantations under overseers, with whip in hand, precisely as in the days of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... "You are trifling with me; you are very shrewd, and you must allow that a man may be suspicious of you.—You have sold more than one man by tying him up in a sack after making him go into it of his own accord. I know all your great victories—the ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... formed, that the bystander thinks; but Lucy thought of young Montjoie only with an instinctive dislike, which would have been contempt in a less calm and tolerant mind. That Bice, with all her gifts, a creature so full of life and sweetness and strength, should be handed over to this trifling commonplace lad, was in itself terrible to think of. Lucy did not think of the girl's beauty, or of that newly-developed gift of song which had taken her by surprise, but only and simply of herself, the warm-hearted ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... existence, but rather every thing to perplex such a sentiment, and to confound such an expectation. There is nothing in its aspect which seems to foretel life—nothing to predict resuscitation. In general, however desperate the case, hope is sustained by the most trifling circumstances, the feeblest glimmerings of the yet unextinguished lamp; if there be the gentlest breath, or the slightest motion, the solicitude of wakeful tenderness is still maintained, and the possibility at least ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... he was to discover almost immediately, was a trifling disaster. It distressed him, but it did not affect his material welfare. Tragedy really began when he turned to the magazine section. Scarcely had he started to glance at it when this headline struck him ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... here to make amends for past neglect and sinfulness. I have a debt there, sir"—and she pointed solemnly towards the sky—"which must be paid. I have been an unfaithful steward, and must be reconciled to my good master ere I die. You may trust me. You know my income and my means. It is trifling; comparatively speaking—nothing. Yet, less than half of it must suffice for my support. The rest is for your flock. You shall distribute it, and you shall teach me how to minister to their temporal necessities—how to labour for their eternal glory. The world and I have parted, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... to make some trifling purchases of her, I heard a sound of quarreling in the back shop. There were the voices of several women, among which I distinguished that of Genevieve, broken by sobs. On looking further in, I perceived the fruit-woman with a child in her arms, and kissing ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... much annoyed. I should be moved to say that if that was the only way of cutting my grass I would not cut my grass, but continue to cut my neighbour. Or suppose the difference were even less defensible; suppose a man had suffered from a trifling shindy with his wife. And suppose somebody told him that the introduction of an entirely new vacuum-cleaner would compel him to a reluctant reconciliation with his wife. It would be found, I fancy, that human nature abhors that vacuum. Reasonably spirited human beings will not ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... their magnificent apparatus of bridges, causeways, of uplifted hollows and levelled heights, were constructed at an enormous cost of manual labour and of personal oppression and suffering, and with comparatively a trifling amount of science. But the railroad is the idea of the philosopher embodied by the free and cheerfully accorded toil of the labourer and artizan. When an Appius Claudius or a Marcus Flaminius determined to mark the year of his consulship ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... enormous. It is not conceivable that the Arctic Sea of itself could contribute anything of importance to this rainfall; for, in the first place, it is for the most part covered with drift-ice, from which the evaporation is but trifling; and, in the next place, the comparatively low temperature in these regions prevents any considerable evaporation taking place even from open surfaces of water. The moisture that produces this rainfall must consequently in a great measure come from elsewhere, principally ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... we have above remarked, for the hopes of the restoration of truth, and honour, and principle, in France, we must turn to the lower orders, it will not, I trust, be thought too trifling to observe, that any thing like real excellence in music, another favourite national propensity, is, as far as we could observe, to be found in the peasantry alone. The music of the capital, the modern compositions performed at ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... vicious men, who cannot come so far as their natural intention leadeth and almost compelleth them. And what if they were destitute of this so great and almost invincible help of the direction of nature? Ponder likewise the immense impotency of wicked men. For they are no light or trifling rewards[145] which they desire, and cannot obtain: but they fail in the very sum and top of things: neither can the poor wretches compass that which they only labour for nights and days: in which thing the ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... Herbert, and had his volumes lying beside me, I made hundreds, perhaps thousands, of petty corrections, and many from books which he had not had an opportunity of seeing, and of which he could only reprint incorrect descriptions. All of these, though trifling in themselves, are things which should be noticed in case of a reprint; but how much time and trouble would it cost an editor to find and collate the necessary books? That, to be sure, is his business; ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various
... assassinate the Duke of Wellington. His violence of temper, as in the murder of the Duke d'Enghien, hurried him into acts that were not less impolitic than criminal. His tyrannical will would brook no contradiction, even in matters oL trifling importance. He broke away from engagements when he thought it advantageous to do so. It is not an injustice to say, that he was habitually untruthful: his bulletins were disfigured by flagrant falsehoods, as well as gross exaggerations. In a letter to Talleyrand from Italy ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... among the snows of winter, and clasping together in its true embrace the loveless ruin; and the vine that maketh glad the heart of man amidst the miseries of life. I must not be mistaken, though, for Devereux's talk was only a tender sort of trifling, and Lilias had said nothing to encourage him to risk more; but she now felt sure that Devereux liked her—that, indeed, he took a deep interest in her—and somehow she ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... little thing, but it should be borne in mind that it is nevertheless of the greatest importance. We know what effect comity or international politeness has on the relations or intercourse between nations. The most trifling acts, such as congratulations on a birth or marriage in the reigning family, are wonderfully efficacious in keeping up that feeling of amity which is so necessary to peace and continued friendship between states. To ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... my child, we must fulfill, The scoundrel see depart! Yet once! 'tis but a moment's chill, 'Tis but a trifling smart!" ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld
... is, gentlemen will force the colonists to take the teas. You will force them? Has seven years' struggle been yet able to force them? Oh, but it seems "we are in the right. The tax is trifling,—in effect it is rather an exoneration than an imposition; three fourths of the duty formerly payable on teas exported to America is taken off,—the place of collection is only shifted; instead ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... respectively to 1 pounds a year, attached to them. Several of the pews are let, the owners caring little for them, or having removed to other towns; many have been re-sold at intervals; and three have been forfeited through their proprietors having neglected to pay certain trifling rates laid upon them. The pews have deteriorated much in price. Once upon a time, when nearly all the fashionable families of Preston went to Trinity Church, neither Platonic love nor current coin could secure a pew. It was a la mode in its most respectable ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... hear you are so confident," Peter Ruff said. "Of course, if I have to take this thing on, I shall do my best, but if I might venture to allude, for a moment, to anything so trifling as my own domestic affairs, I am very anxious to know about ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the previous evening that Mrs. Travilla herself had learned that she was assailed by more than a trifling ailment. What seemed to her but a slight one, causing discomfort, and at times quite a good deal of pain, she had been conscious of for some weeks or months, but had not thought it necessary to speak of it ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... exactitude which at the least is amazing. Twenty-five years ago I did a great wrong to a human creature who was innocent, and who absolutely trusted me. There is no crime worse than this, yet it seemed to me quite a trifling affair,—an amusement—a nothing! I was perfectly aware that by some excessively straightlaced people it might be termed a sin; but my ideas of sin were as easy and condoning as yours are. I never repented it,—I can hardly say I ever thought of it,—if I did I excused ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... market only; whereas other branches of manufactures, practically enjoying no protection, in the case of depressed trade at home, had an opportunity of immediate relief, by spreading the surplus thereby created, at a very trifling sacrifice, over the wide markets ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... what I hear, poor Mr. Bertram has a bad chance of ultimate recovery. I thought little of his illness at first. I looked upon him as the sort of person to be made a fuss with, and to make a fuss himself in any trifling disorder, and was chiefly concerned for those who had to nurse him; but now it is confidently asserted that he is really in a decline, that the symptoms are most alarming, and that part of the family, at least, are aware of it. If it be so, I am sure you must ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... and tyranny of landlords, is usually set down as a principal cause of the great poverty and misery of the Irish people, during a long period. If we examine the rents paid one hundred and fifty, or even one hundred years ago, they will appear trifling when compared with the rents of the present day; so that, at first, one is inclined to question the accuracy of those writers who denounce the avarice and rack-renting propensities of the landlords of their time. But when we examine the question more closely, ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... party was ever tried, for General John E. Wool the department commander, had not at command a sufficient number of officers of appropriate rank to constitute a court in the case of Rains, and the charges against Ord were very properly ignored on account of their trifling character. ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... music of the hymn in question. "C'est egal, il faut chanter," ["No matter for that, they must sing."] resounded from all the patriots in the house. At last, finding the thing impossible, they agreed to a compromise; and one of the actors promised to sing it on the morrow, as well as the trifling impediment of having no voice would permit him.—You think your galleries despotic when they call for an epilogue that is forgotten, and the actress who should speak it is undrest; or when they insist upon enlivening the last acts of Jane Shore with Roast Beef! What would you think if they would ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady |
