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More "Trifling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "The expense is trifling," said Bascombe. "Grant that it would be better for society that no such—or rather put it this way: grant that it would be well for each individual that goes to make up society that he were neither deformed, ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... greatly surprised, "I really do not comprehend why the king should be so irritated at this trifling deviation from the stipulation of the treaties. You yourself said it would be impossible to find quarters and sustenance for so large a number of troops in the province of Brandenburg. This fact involved the military commanders in difficulties, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... evening, who had the precaution to take their pistols with them. They seemed to crowd round us with more than idle curiosity; but, on presenting the pistols to them, they sheered off. The Captain soon joined us, and brought his servant with him, carrying a bag of nails, and some trifling presents, which he meant to distribute amongst them; but he took the bag from him, and dispatched him with a message to the boat, on which the crowd followed him. As soon as he got out of our sight, they stripped him naked, and robbed him of his cloaths, and every article he had, ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... itself doth it banish everything cowardly; it saith: "Bad—THAT IS cowardly!" Contemptible seem to it the ever-solicitous, the sighing, the complaining, and whoever pick up the most trifling advantage. ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... course I will. Who could refuse such a trifling request! But look, here come the people of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... of principal concern here. The Voyage autour de ma Chambre, its sequel the Expedition Nocturne, and the Lepreux de la Cite d'Aoste, exhibit one branch of the river of Sensibility (if one may be permitted to draw up a new Carte de Tendre), losing itself in agreeable trifling with the surface of life, and in generous, but fleeting, and slightly, though not consciously, insincere indulgence of the emotions. In Adolphe the river rushes violently down a steep place, and in ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... of his visitors about the war with England, and he said, all wars and fightings for freedom were just and right. If so, in what am I wrong? The grievances of which your fathers complained, and which caused the Revolutionary War, were trifling in comparison with the wrongs and sufferings of those who were engaged in the late revolt. Your fathers were never slaves, ours are; your fathers were never bought and sold like cattle, never shut out from the light of knowledge and religion, never subjected to the lash of brutal ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... her mind. Tavia was always getting into some foolish scrape, and kept Dorothy busy getting her out, and it just occurred to Dorothy that it might not be a bad idea to let Tavia try getting herself out, should she repeat her usual indiscretions of risking too much for the sake of some trifling whim. ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... discussions that led to publication. It was not until twelve years later, 1628, that Harvey published in Frankfurt a small quarto volume of seventy-four pages,(27) "De Motu Cordis." In comparison with the sumptuous "Fabrica" of Vesalius this is a trifling booklet; but if not its equal in bulk or typographical beauty (it is in fact very poorly printed), it is its counterpart in physiology, and did for that science what Vesalius had done for anatomy, though not in the same way. The experimental spirit was abroad in the land, and as ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... are married you will experience a change in your ideas. All those vagabond, roving propensities will cease. They are the offspring of idleness of mind and a want of something to fix the feelings. You are like a bark without an anchor, that drifts about at the mercy of every vagrant breeze or trifling eddy. Get a wife, and she'll anchor you. But don't marry a fool because she his a pretty face, and don't seek after a great belle. Get such a girl as Mary——, or get her if you can; though I am afraid she has still an unlucky kindness for poor——-, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... leave us far behind you!"— Tis thus the bright-winged Hours sigh from the Past— "Ye leave us, and the coming ones will find you Still vainly dreaming they will ever last,— Still trifling with the gifts all fresh and glowing, Each in its turn will scatter in your way,— Still chasing airy phantoms, though well-knowing That, ere you grasp them, they ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... remaining where the providences of birth and education have thrown him, but I cannot excuse the first colonists for inflicting such a home upon centuries of descendants. Compare even their physical life—the pure animal satisfaction in existence, for that is not a trifling matter after all—with that of the Nubians, or the Malays, or the Polynesians! It is the difference between a poor hare, hunted and worried year after year by hounds and visions of hounds and the familiar, confiding wren, happiest of creatures, ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... was obliged to make being such as would have alarmed the watchman—I say, having made his way into this stall, he sat still till the watchman returned with the nurse, and all the next day also. But the night following, having contrived to send the watchman another trifling errand, he conveyed himself and all his family out of the house, and left the nurse and the watchman to bury the poor woman, that is, to throw her into the cart and take care of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... marriage, and that, remaining there, he ran through his "little patrimony," in "less than three years." A complete country retirement cannot be assigned to those busy years in the Haymarket; and in 1736 the journey from London to Dorsetshire was no trifling undertaking. But it seems quite possible that Fielding and his wife went down to their small estate in Dorsetshire for part or all of the summer, autumn and winter of both 1736 and 1737. This would cover ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... her gown in satisfaction, "and I can finish my cushion-pin now"; for there was one little corner still untraveled by the remarkable design observed by the worker. But Mr. Hamilton Dyce had protested he didn't care for any such trifling deficiency, for he could put more pins in that quarter, so he should still ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... approbation. I commit to thee the country of Babylonia in trust, that it may, by thy care, be preserved free from robbers, and from other mischiefs. I have kept my faith inviolable to thee, and that not in trifling affairs, but in those that concerned thy safety, and do therefore deserve thou shouldst be kind to me." When he had said this, and given Asineus some presents, he sent him away immediately; who, when he was come home, built fortresses, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... soldiery, who took to flight and murdered one of their generals. The discouragement with which the nation heard of these reverses deepened into sullen indignation against the Court, as weeks and months passed by, and the forces lay idle on the frontier or met the enemy only in trifling skirmishes which left both sides where they were before. If at this crisis of the Revolution, with all the patriotism, all the bravery, all the military genius of France burning for service, the Government conducted the war with results scarcely ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... all the eloquence of Cicero or the tears of O'Neil would have induced him to alter it; and Adelaide, the haughty, self-willed Adelaide, soon found that, of all yokes, the most insupportable is the yoke of an obstinate fool. In the thousand trifling occurances of domestic life (for his Grace was interested in all the minutiae of his establishment), where good sense and good humour on either side would have gracefully yielded to the other, there was a perpetual ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... the matter?' he returned pettishly (this being the first time of his showing such a mood). 'Upon my heart and life such trifling is trying to any man's temper, Baptista! Sending me about from here to yond, and then when I come back saying 'ee don't like the place that I have sunk so much money and words to get for 'ee. 'Od dang it all, 'tis enough to—But I won't say any more at present, mee deer, ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... fear mine will appear too trifling," said Mrs. M., "but as it is the only circumstance of the kind that ever happened to myself, I prefer giving it you to any of the many stories I ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... serpent the devil take all this lying down. He will be there in the cab or at the desk or in the field to remind the Christian that he is giving the better part of his day to the things of this world and allotting to his religious duties only a trifling portion of his time. And unless great care is taken this will create confusion and bring discouragement and ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... beggars. Studious scholars learn many long lessons. Wealthy merchants own large ships. The heavy ships bear large burdens; the lighter ships carry less burdens. Just poets use figurative language. Ungrammatical expressions offend a true critic's ear. Weak critics magnify trifling errors. No composition is perfect. The rabble was tumultuous. The late-washed grass looks green. Shady trees form a delightful arbor. The setting sun makes a beautiful appearance; the variegated rainbow appears more beautiful. Epaminondas was the greatest of the Theban generals; ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... drew him out into the road. The play of her expression as she looked up and laughed into his face was like the dance of sunbeams on moving water. They turned down the narrow street which led to the lake. As was her wont, in every object about her, in every trifling event, the child discovered rich treasures of happiness. The pebbles which she tossed with her bare toes were mines of delight. The pigs, which turned up their snouts expectantly as she stooped to scratch their ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... rather than on his duty to be social towards her,—to be rather sullen whenever she was not quite cheerful. Still, we are not defending a lady for leaving her husband for defects of such inferior magnitude. Few households would be kept together, if the right of transition were exercised on such trifling occasions. We are but suggesting that she may share the excuse which our great satirist has suggested for another unreliable lady: "My mother was an angel; but angels are not ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... seemed to have had no better dancing fortune than herself, but who 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 by her for ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... never solicited praise? Was it on account of some of his tastes, particularly the importance he attached to his superiority in boyish games, in bodily exercises, on those which showed dexterity in swimming, fencing, shooting? But all these tastes were as manly as they were innocent. The really trifling tastes common to the youth of his rank and country Lord Byron did ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... to be frightened on the very brink of hell by nursery-tales? But they shall not prevent me from piercing the darkness; I will know what the gloomy curtain conceals, which a tyrannical hand has drawn before our eyes. And who is to blame, I repeat? Was it I that formed myself so that trifling exertion exhausts my strength? Did I plant in my bosom the seeds of passion? Did I place there that impulse for aggrandisement which never lets me rest? Did I fashion my soul, so that it will not submit, and will not bear contempt? Perhaps ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... also has written an excellent essay on verse-rhythms. With a manual in front of you, you can acquire in a couple of hours a knowledge of the formal principles in which the music of English verse is rooted. The business is trifling. But the business of appreciating the inmost spirit of the greatest verse is tremendous and lifelong. It is not something that ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... most trifling details. A vague uneasiness took possession of them as they neared the end. This uneasiness would have been doubled had they felt how their speed had decreased. It would have seemed to them quite insufficient to carry them to the end. It was ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... fire, and if any man's work is burned he will suffer loss" (I Cor. 3:15). If in tribulation we do not give thanks to God, if by good works we do not redeem our sins, we will remain so long in that fire of purification(268) until the little, trifling sins, as hay, wood, ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... 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
... hazy clouds, scarce ruffled by the breeze, Methought, last night, I saw the man i' th' moon; As in the hollow bowl of silver spoon A broad reflected face the gazer sees; (Who trifling, dinner done, with bread and cheese, Abstractly lifts the spoon aforesaid up;) Or the same thing beholds in polished cup, Or concave snuff-box, whence the vocal sneeze! Sight of the man suggested HOTSPUR'S boast; But the night froze; and to express such ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... omens and portents we are apt to laugh at as vulgar, but it has an enduring basis in the fact that no circumstance can be regarded as absolutely trivial. Events apparently the most trifling lead' to the most tremendous results. The wisest of us know not by what process the casual is transformed into the dreadful, nor how accident is twisted ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... of venomous serpents are frequently attended with fatal results, such are not necessarily invariable. There are times and seasons when all reptiles are sluggish and inactive, and when they inflict comparatively trifling injuries; and the poison is much less virulent at certain periods than others—during chilling weather for instance, or when exhausted by repeated bites in securing sustenance. Young and small serpents, too, are less virile ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... why this is: it is that I should do more harm than good. Anyone looking at me would say (and all the more so because I am dressed in the fashion of the day, and not in some peculiar way, or in a nun's habit, for such trifling things affect many minds), "That person is demented to think that she knows what it is to have Contact with God," and it would seem a scandal to them. But the explanation of the mystery is not so simple as ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley
... could - and did - engage it breath for breath, They could - and did - get wounded unto death. As at all times since time for us began Woman was truly woman, man was man, And joy and sorrow were as much at home In trifling Tunbridge ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... little more of the man than he had learned on the first day of their acquaintance, but that in itself was considerable. Of it he wrote a full report to Miss Hill; and in the next few weeks he added some trifling discoveries. In October that young woman and her aunt returned to town, and to possession of a flat immediately south of Central Park. Often as Larcher called there, he could not draw from Edna the cause of her interest in Davenport. ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... are these details, they serve to show what value was then ascribed even by men of real respectability to trifling princely favors. The unction with which Chiabrera relates them, warming his cold style into a glow of satisfaction, is a practical satire upon his endeavor to resuscitate the virtues of antique republics in that Italy. To do this was his principal ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... will excuse my long silence, which has been owing to several causes, and having had nothing new to entertain you with: and yet this last is but a poor excuse to you, who think every trifling subject agreeable from ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... wonderfully refined with strong emotion, "at least, the picture was not painted in vain. Even as it is in the play, Banquo died that his issue might reign after him; and this lesson of ours will bear fruit far mightier than the trifling pains of its parturition. Ay, Clarian, your picture has not been vainly painted.—And now, Ned," said he, rising, "we must put our baby to bed; for he is to wake early to-morrow, and know himself ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... blocks were still intact for the most part, for old Van Amburg had builded with endless care and with no remotest regard for cost. Here a vine, there a sapling had managed to insinuate a tap-root in some crack made by the frost, but the damage was trifling. Except for the falling of a part of a cornice, the building was complete. But it was hidden in vines and mold. Moss, lichens and weeds grew on the steps, flourishing in ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... definite public opinion; but their partisanship is that of official proclamation rather than that of overworked and underpaid reporters striving to please their employers with all the desperation of servants working for a tip. The yelping after spies, the heaping of adjectives on every trifling achievement of British arms, the ill-timed talk of snatching the enemy's trade in a war theoretically fought for a high principle, all that journalistic vulgarity—which might be as characteristic ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... Ascough agreed. "I had never seen him before in my life. I did a little trifling business for him in ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... moment her intention was changed, and her subsequent action was determined in her by a trifling event, one of those events which teach the world to believe in Fate. A door, the door of Mrs. Birchington's flat, clicked behind her. ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... unimportant details. Now if we bear in mind the numerous points of structure having no relation to expression, in which all the races of man closely agree, and then add to them the numerous points, some of the highest importance and many of the most trifling value, on which the movements of expression directly or indirectly depend, it seems to me improbable in the highest degree that so much similarity, or rather identity of structure, could have been acquired by independent means. Yet this must have been the case if the races of man are descended ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... habit in such moments of perplexity, and sharply clicking his teeth together. I, too, was very thoughtful. Clews were few enough in those days of our war with that giant antagonist. The mere thought that our trifling error of judgment tonight in tarrying a moment too long might mean the victory of Fu-Manchu, might mean the turning of the balance which a wise providence had adjusted between the white and yellow races, ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... said I, "and all I can say is, you've come to the right place. If you have the least use for a hundred pounds, or any such trifling sum as that, please mention it. It's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dinner sixteen sous; his food cost him twenty sous a day; which made three hundred and sixty-five francs a year. Add the thirty francs for rent, and the thirty-six francs to the old woman, plus a few trifling expenses; for four hundred and fifty francs, Marius was fed, lodged, and waited on. His clothing cost him a hundred francs, his linen fifty francs, his washing fifty francs; the whole did not exceed ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... written many grave and learned dissertations on the curious position of this little kingdom shut up in a greater one; and, though they differ in some trifling respects, they all coincide in concluding, that the king of Yvetot, being independent of any other potentate, was never obliged to engage in quarrels which did not concern him, and accordingly lived in peace with his neighbours, whom he never pretended to frighten. Moreover, in spite ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... to maintain a furnished bedroom and a single presentable suit of clothes, see everything worth seeing that a millionaire can see, and know everybody worth knowing that he can know. Long before I reached this point myself, a very trifling accomplishment gave me glimpses of the sort of fashionable life a peasant never sees. Thus I remember one evening during the novel-writing period when nobody would pay a farthing for a stroke of my pen, walking along Sloane Street in that blessed ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... the Candidate, and, on this favour being granted, informed me in a confidential and husky whisper that he knew of ten good men and true, fully qualified voters, who were prepared to go to the poll on my behalf for the trifling fee of two pound ten a-head and no questions asked. He was politely but firmly shown into the street. One has to be on the look-out against ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... us; they are we, ourselves; they are precisely what those who have them not should envy in those who have. The more we emerge from the animal, and approach what seems the surest ideal of our race, the more evident does it become that these things, trifling as they well may appear by the side of nature's stupendous laws, do yet constitute our sole inheritance; and that, happen what may to the end of time, they are the hearth, the centre of light, to which mankind will draw ever ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... matter of trifling difficulty, except on one particular day—that devoted to the rivetting of the chaine. A surgeon, however, belonging to the establishment, promised to procure me admission, and on receiving his summons, I started one forenoon for Bicetre. Mortifying news awaited ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... "of Salome." If Mr. Laing's precise mind had looked for a moment at the text he was criticizing he would have seen that Salome is a common name in the nominative case. St. Luke does not give the names of the women at all. These points are trifling in themselves, but important as evidencing Mr. Laing's standard ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... that is a trifling sum for the son of a very rich man. Some persons would charge you for the little service I have done this afternoon, but that I only did at the bidding ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... true, some wretches, whom I'd scratched, no doubt, Professed to find—but that's a trifling matter. Now, when the flood of noble books was out I raised o'er all that land a joyous shout, Till I was thought ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... bring back to this hour the events of one hundred years ago, it is certain that the small armies and the smaller appliances of force then in use will seem trifling, in contrast with those which have so recently wearied science and have tasked invention in the work ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... of the innumerable and trifling causes which keep many of the best of men and the strongest opponents of woman suffrage from the polls upon important occasions, it is difficult to be tolerant of the objection that woman by reason of motherhood ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... contributions a calf of gold, before which the multitude fell down and worshipped. Whether this image was a solid figure of gold, or a wooden effigy merely, coated with metal, is uncertain. To suppose the former,—knowing the size of the image made from such trifling articles as rings, we must presuppose the Israelites to have spoiled the Egyptians most unmercifully: the figure, however, is of more consequence than the weight or size of the idol. That the Israelite brought away more from Goshen than the plunder ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... two, except of the shortest, coming together of the same length. Its stanza is its own: I do not know another poem written in the same; and its music is exquisite. The probability is that, if the reader note any fact in the poem, however trifling it might seem to the careless eye, it will repay him by unfolding both individual and related beauty. Then let him ponder the pictures given: the sudden arraying of the shame-faced night in long beams; the amazed kings silent on their thrones; ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... and delicacy were in this lovely creature deliciously combined with an appearance of health and abounding physical vitality too often lacking in the maidens with whom alone I could compare her. It was a coincidence trifling in comparison with the general strangeness of the situation, but still striking, that ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... grave and substantial talk in Greek or Latin with their husbands in godly matters. It is now no news in England to see young damsels in noble houses and in the courts of princes, instead of cards and other instruments of vain trifling, to have continually in their hands either Psalms, "Omelies" and other devout meditations, or else Paul's Epistles or some book of Holy Scripture matters, and as familiarly both to read and reason thereof in Greek, Latin, French or Italian as in English. It is now a common ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... excluding women from the exercise of the franchise. It is the denial of the right of which they complain. There are multitudes of men whose vote can be purchased at an election for the smallest and most trifling consideration. Yet all such would spurn with scorn and unutterable contempt a proposition to purchase their right to vote, and no consideration would be deemed an equivalent for such a surrender. Women are more sensitive upon this question than men, and so long as this right, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... limited, and there are certain subjects which are tabooed completely; so the trifling event, the ridiculous side of Parisian life, have come to the fore. Two special types, the slacker and the profiteer, or nouveau riche, are very generally and very thoroughly maltreated. If I am any judge, it is the embusque, who is the special pet, ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... Christian aera. Few things, in my opinion, can be more improbable; and Mr. Payne Knight, opposed as he is to the Wolfian hypothesis, admits this no less than Wolf himself. The traces of writing in Greece, even in the seventh century before the Christian aera, are exceedingly trifling. We have no remaining inscription earlier than the fortieth Olympiad, and the early inscriptions are rude and unskilfully executed; nor can we even assure ourselves whether Archilochus, Simonides of Amorgus, Kallinus Tyrtaeus, Xanthus, and the other early elegiac and lyric ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... London bobby is a spoke when I went to what is the very hub of the wheel of the common law—a police court. I understood then what gave the policeman in the street his authority and his dignity—and his humility—when I saw how carefully the magistrate on the bench weighed each trifling cause and each petty case; how surely he winnowed out the small grain of truth from the gross and tare of surmise and fiction; how particular he was to give of the abundant store of his patience to any whining ragpicker or street beggar who faced him, whether as defendant at ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... you to take them round," said Mr. Dosson; and with much agreeable trifling of this kind it was agreed that they should sally forth for the evening meal under ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... Nature Displayed, &c.,' Dr. T. has shown how mindful he is on all occasions of his engagements to those who confide in him. He has also occasionally moved other engines, which it would be tedious and might appear too trifling to mention. Dr. T. is not ignorant that uncommon charges have happened in the course of this last year, that is, the year preceding May, 1789. Instead of 100l., therefore, he will be satisfied with 50l for that year, provided that this abatement shall not form a precedent against ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... shade better. Ed was peeved at this; so Ben tried to soothe him. He said, yes, indeed, all hands had been lucky—especially the company. He said if them two cars hadn't happened to strike soft ground that took the wheels they'd been smashed to kindling; whereas the damage was trifling. This sounded pretty cold to Ed. He said this railroad company didn't seem to set any exaggerated value on human life. Ben said no railroad company could let mere sentiment interfere with business if it wanted to pay dividends, ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... inexpressible thought. By sheer contemplation of the things about me I discerned an expression and a character in each. If the setting sun happened to steal in through my narrow window, they would take new colors, fade or shine, grow dull or gay, and always amaze me with some new effect. These trifling incidents of a solitary life, which escape those preoccupied with outward affairs, make the solace of prisoners. And what was I but the captive of an idea, imprisoned in my system, but sustained also by the prospect of a brilliant future? At each obstacle ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... for $1,000 would then sell for more than $1,000, and bills would be said to be at a premium. The premium, however, could not exceed the cost and risk of making the remittance in gold, together with a trifling profit; because, if it did, the debtor would send the gold itself, in ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... part of the coast is a poacher. Far from it. But the majority of the best men were against the reindeer experiment from the moment that the first trouble arose. A new obligation of social life was introduced. This implied restraint in such trifling things as their having to fence their tiny gardens, protect small stray hay-pooks, and discriminate into what they discharged ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... boyish-looking governor. Mrs. Rogers is the daughter of a German trader who lived in Jolo and died there with his boots on. A year or so prior to her marriage she was sitting with her parents at tiffin when a Moro, with whom her father had had a trifling business disagreement, knocked at the door and asked for a moment's conversation. Telling the native that he would talk with him after he had finished his meal, the trader returned to the table. Scarcely had he seated himself when the Moro, ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... Public, where the Irishman made ready oath that the British seaman was as much American born as himself. The business was now as good as done, for on the strength of this lying affidavit any Collector of Customs on the Atlantic coast would for a trifling fee grant the sailor a certificate of citizenship. Riley created American citizens in this way at the rate, it is said, of a dozen a day, [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1523-Deposition of Zacharias Pasco, 20 Jan. 1800.] ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... were not best, I should not urge it," was the reply, and Ruth seemed so positive that Agnes yielded. Weeks rolled on and to every inquiry made by Agnes as to the time when Ruth meant to buy herself a dress for winter, there was some trifling excuse made. Finally she told Agnes there was no necessity for her waiting, it would be better if she bought hers now before school commenced, and she could get her own ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... task for what I considered a foolish mental attitude,—but do what I would, the attitude remained unchanged. It was helped, perhaps, in a trifling way by the apparently fadeless quality of the pink bell-heather which had been given me by the weird-looking Highland fellow who called himself Jamie, for though three or four days had now passed ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... on the run. Something in Persis' voice made him aware that the occasion did not admit of trifling. ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... mentioned Lindsay's offer to Dresser, who was rising at laborious hours and toiling in the McNamara and Hill's offices, he realized how unmentionable and trifling were his grounds for hesitation. Dresser's enthusiasm almost persuaded him that Lindsay had given him something valuable. And if he found it difficult to explain his distaste for the thing to Dresser, what would he have to say to other people—to ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... wonderful narration fully. I feel a great curiosity to hear it. It behoveth thee to recite it, therefore, in full. I am not satisfied with hearing in a nutshell the great history. That could never have been a trifling cause for which the virtuous ones could slay those whom they should not have slain, and for which they are yet applauded by men. Why also did those tigers among men, innocent and capable of avenging themselves upon their enemies, calmly suffer the persecution ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... the blue sky—starlight over the houses of this great city, when I look out at the night from my garret window—a child's voice coming suddenly, I don't know where from—the piping of my neighbor's linnet in his little cage—now one trifling thing, now another—wakes up that want in me in a moment. Rascal as I am, those few simple words your sister spoke to the judge went through and through me like a knife. Strange, in a man like me, isn't it? I am amazed at it myself. My life? Bah! I've let it ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... Certificates of deposit may, by indorsement, be made transferable as promissory notes and other negotiable paper, (Chap. LX., Sec.2,) and are often remitted, instead of money, to distant places, where, by presenting them at a bank, they may, for a trifling ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... into which minds, very much tired or very much concentrated, occasionally fall, in which the most trifling things take on them an appearance of great significance. A man in great anxiety, for example, will regard as omens or warnings such things as the ringing of a bell or the flight of a bird. I have heard ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... along at all. We were now seventy-two miles from the water, and had, in all probability, as much further to go before we came to any more, and I saw that unless something was done to lighten the loads of the pack-animals (trifling as were the burdens they carried) we never could hope to get them on. Leaving the natives to enjoy a sleep, the overseer and I opened and re-sorted all our baggage, throwing away every thing that we could at all dispense ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... have some important news for Parrawhite," mused Eldrick, as he put the message in his pocket and went off to his club. "Inquiry agents don't set off on long journeys at a moment's notice for a matter of a trifling ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... looked calmly on the approaching gentlemen, who, soon perceiving the solemnity of her occupation, stood still midst the multitude, whilst Elizabeth Fry resumed her office and the women their quietude. In an impressive tone she told them she never permitted any trifling circumstance to interrupt the very solemn and important engagement of reading the Holy Scriptures; but in this instance it appeared unavoidable from the unexpected entrance of so many persons, besides which, when ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... held his hand on the wound, and said he could feel the warm blood trickling clear down to his boots. I told Pa to stuff some tar into the wound, such as he told me to put on my lip to make my mustache grow, and Pa said, 'My boy, this is no time for trifling. Your Pa is on his last legs. When I came up stairs I met six burglars, and I attacked them, and forced four of them down, and was going to hold them and send for the police, when two more, that I did not know about, ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... Fernando Wood, to cut down the wise Protective duties imposed by the Tariff Act, about 15 per cent.,—together with the cold-blooded Free-Trade declaration of Mr. Wood, touching his ruinous Bill, that "Its reductions are trifling as compared with what they should be. * * * If I had the power to commence de novo, I should reduce the duties 50 per cent., instead of less than 15 per cent., upon an average as now proposed,"—an ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... am somewhat afraid," said the baroness, anxiously. "He was of late so nervous and irritable, you know, that the most trifling occurrence caused him to tremble and covered his brow with perspiration. I am afraid these stirring communications may make too powerful an ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... guard,—alone, in the depth and silence of the night;—''twas bitter cold, and they were sick at heart, and not a mouse stirring.' The attention to minute sounds,—naturally associated with the recollection of minute objects, and the more familiar and trifling, the more impressive from the unusualness of their producing any impression at all—gives a philosophic pertinency to this last image; but it has likewise its dramatic use and purpose. For its commonness in ordinary conversation tends to produce ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... prevent all plunder, had their boats or stalls guarded by sentries. This, however, did not altogether hinder some of the more daring from getting things on the cheap now and then, but they were so trifling that they ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... the first volume, and which I still consider the only principles in accordance with the requirements of sound scholarship. The very reason why I chose the hymns to the Maruts was because I thought it was high time to put an end to the mere trifling with Vedic translation. They are, no doubt, the most difficult, the most rugged, and, it may be, the least attractive hymns, but they are on that very account an excellent introduction to a scholarlike study of the Veda. Mere guessing and skipping will not avail us here. There ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... no objection was raised. The podesta turned aside, and observing Ghita, who had visited his niece, and of whose intelligence he entertained a favorable opinion, he drew nearer to the girl, determined to lose a moment in dignified trifling. ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to the window ledge, felt for the nails that Abel had hammered in to hold his feet and soon ascended through a large gap under the eaves of the store. Some shock had thrown out a piece of brickwork here. Seen from the ground the aperture looked trifling and had indeed challenged no attention; but it was large ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... Such trifling, and at the time such seemingly unimportant, little happenings are often those which long afterwards leap out from the past, bringing with them poignant memories of joy, of sorrow, of pain, and ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... 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 ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... blind. They are such as have been through their eight years' contract, and have been brought to their present condition by ill-treatment, insufficient food, and the troubles incident to the climate. In the majority of cases these coolies have been cheated out of the trifling amount of wages promised to them, for there is no law in Cuba to which they can appeal. There are laws which will afford the negro justice if resorted to under certain circumstances, but none for the coolies. There ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... piece of work you are making there." Frederick looked round in alarm; but when he looked into the dark friendly eyes of the young stranger, he felt as if he had known him for a long time. Smiling, he replied, "Oh! my dear sir, how can you notice such trifling? it only serves me for pastime on my journey." "Well then," went on the stranger youth, "if you call that delicately formed flower, which is so faithful a reproduction of Nature, trifling, you must be a skilful practised modeller. You have afforded me ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... their trifling weight Through all my frame a weary aching leaves; For long I struggled with my hapless fate, And staid and toiled till it was dark and late,— Yet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... long, that there was a tolerably broad and visible one—nothing less than our human nature, recognized as such. For by degrees I came to give myself to know them. I sat and talked to them, smoked with them, gave them tobacco, lent them small moneys, made them an occasional trifling present of some article of dress, of which I had more than I wanted; in short, gained their confidence. It was strange, but without any reproof from me, nothing more direct than simple silence, they soon ceased to utter a word that could offend me; and before long, ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... school, and well advanced in years, he was strongly prejudiced against all "fashionable follies," as he called nearly every form of social recreation. Life was, in his eyes, too solemn a thing to be wasted in any kind of trifling. In preaching and praying, in pious meditation, and in going about to do good, much of his time was passed; and another portion of it was spent in reflecting upon and mourning over the thoughtless follies of the world. He had no time for pleasure-taking; ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... Things are so out of his Road, and so foreign to his Calling, that it shocks our Faith in them, and seems to clash with all the just Notions we have of him, and of his Business in the World. The like is to be said of those little merry Turns we bring him in acting with us, and upon us, upon trifling and simple Occasions, such as tumbling Chairs and Stools about House, setting Pots and Vessels Bottom upward, tossing the Glass and Crokery Ware about without breaking; and such like mean foolish Things, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... haunts; and any one else whom it pleases me to see; our foreign guests and critics, Dickens, looking about superciliously, or Anthony Trollope, breathing hard, or Trollope mere, or Harriet Martineau, or Captain Marryat, or Mayne Reid, or Samuel Lover. For in a case like this a trifling matter like an anachronism or a misstatement counts ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... petty accusation attests. Neither 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. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... name very well, but he did not choose to have it appear that his august memory had been laden with a thing so trifling. ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... which, at one critical moment very near success, ended in the defeat of Fremont at Cross Keys and of McDowell's advanced troops at Port Republic (June 8-9) and the escape of the daring Confederates with trifling loss. McClellan, deprived of McDowell's corps, felt himself reduced to impotence, and three Federal armies were vainly marching up and down the Valley when Johnston fell with all his forces upon the Army of the Potomac. The Federals lay on both sides of the Chickahominy ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Feeling his responsibility, he had, immediately on arriving at Calais, changed some English money. This was found very convenient. Nobody had any francs except the Member, so we freely borrowed from him to meet trifling exigencies. ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... to me," said the old gentleman, "that this is a very simple case—a very trifling thing to cause you ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... however, betokened such a very trifling portion of satisfaction at the appearance of his lodging, that Mr. Roker looked, for a reciprocity of feeling, into the countenance of Samuel Weller, who, until now, had observed a dignified silence. 'There's a room, young man,' observed ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... was a difficult task to correct it; though perfectly submissive to her, I was with others rebellious and outrageous in my anger. My mother heard continual complaints of me; yet she wisely forbore to lecture or punish me for every trifling misdemeanour; she seized proper occasions to make a strong impression ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... the lacerated arm hurt him and was not easy to manage, he raised it over his head to show that the damage was trifling. ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... seeing, as I think, how impossible it was for a Roman governor to have achieved that impartiality of justice with which a long course of fortunate training has imbued an English judge, he accuses Cicero of "trifling with equity." The marvel to me is that one man such as Cicero—a man single in his purpose—should have been able to raise his own ideas of justice so high above the level prevailing with the best of those around him. It had become the nature of a Roman aristocrat to pillage ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... start a new something else, Henry," said Mrs. Goldsmith with enigmatic cheerfulness. "Trust in me; think of what we have done in less than a dozen years at comparatively trifling costs, thanks to that happy idea of a new synagogue—you the representative of the Kensington synagogue, with a 'Sir' for a colleague and a congregation that from exceptionally small beginnings has sprung up to be the most ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... fellow-creature in distress.' 'A fellow-creature,' said he, laughing louder than before. 'Ay, a fellow-creature,' said I —for the sergeant was an orangeman—'and if he differs from you in matters of religion, sure he's your fellow-creature still.' 'Troth, Doctor, I think there's another trifling difference betune us,' said he. 'Damn your politics,' said I; 'never let them interfere with true humanity.' Wasn't I right, Major? 'Take good care of him, and there's a half-a-crown for ye.' So saying these words, I steered along by the barrack wall, and, after ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... belonged. The boys were up first, and soon had the girls on their feet, some of them speechless from laughter. The four little Blossoms came up smiling, and though Dot had a scratch on her finger from a nail in some one's shoe, it was trifling and did not ...
— Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun • Mabel C. Hawley
... who, though not in extreme need, is yet in considerable distress, but not at the risk of grave inconvenience to himself; (3) a man is not obliged to help another when necessity is slight, even though the risk to himself should be quite trifling.' ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... long ago closed over every member of the Godfrey family who were among the English pioneer settlers of Acadia, and the history of their lives might have slept with them, but for a trifling circumstance. The old documents referred to and copied in the foregoing chapters, are greatly defaced, and time is completing their destruction. Many of them are scarcely legible, and it required the utmost patience and perseverance to gather together the ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... comfortable property, the regular income from which would more than support you. Now all this may be done, by your simply giving up your tobacco, beer and oysters, and your day's holiday once a month. Is not the result worth the trifling sacrifice, Johnson?" ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... expected to get for it. It was a reckless thing to do, for we had no spare tire and it is very like speculating in oil stocks to start for a run of any length under those circumstances. It worked out about as it would have done if we had been trifling with the stock market. A rear tire blew out, and we were put under the disagreeable necessity of giving our purchaser more nearly his money's worth. This was a poor start for a holiday, but being near a delightful ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... circumstances, is a fact beyond any doubt. The extracts from his book and the notes from his diary, brought as charges against him, were only discovered several weeks after many cruelties had been inflicted upon him. But I believe that many small, apparently trifling, incidents combined to make him the first European victim of the Abyssinian monarch. The Emperor could not endure the thought that Europeans in his country should do aught else but work for him. On his first interview with Mr. Stern, after this gentleman's ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... satisfied with myself. Although I was dangerously over forty, and my hair, which had been impressively dark, was conspicuously gray in spots, my figure was good, my dress correct, and my mirror told me that I was still in a position to be in the matrimonial running if I tried. I mention these trifling physical details merely to save my modesty the humiliation and annoyance of referring to them in future, and to prepossess the gentle reader wherever the sex makes it ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... to-morrow night without fail, and see that everything is prepared. Cloth sent with this for packing goods. P—— laid up with professional accident, and safe for a week or two. You must have known this—why not say so last night? No trifling, if ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... has his permission to be away at night. We all believe that it is another case of love laughing at locksmiths and that in some way they contrive to meet. One thing is certain,—Mr. Baker is desperately in love and will permit no trifling with him on the subject." Ordinarily, I suppose, such a letter would have been gall and wormwood to Mrs. Turner, but as young Hunter, a new appointment, was now a devotee, and as it was a piece of romantic news which interested all Camp Sandy, ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... the penalty of his errors and cruelties," says Xerez, "for he was the greatest butcher, as all agree, that the world ever saw; making nothing of razing a whole town to the ground for the most trifling offence, and massacring a thousand persons for the fault of one!" (Conq. del Peru, ap. Barcia, tom. III. p. 234.) Xerez was the private secretary of Pizarro. Sancho, who, on the departure of Xerez for Spain, succeeded him in the same office, pays a more decent tribute to the memory of the ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... flung into one of the Meadow ditches, and solemn secrecy was sworn on all hands; but the remorse and terror of the actor were beyond all bounds, and his apprehensions of the most dreadful character. The wounded hero was for a few days in the Infirmary, the case being only a trifling one. But though inquiry was strongly pressed on him, no argument could make him indicate the person from whom he had received the wound, though he must have been perfectly well known to him. When he recovered, and was dismissed, the author and his brothers opened ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... it, is among the things which are neither false enough nor true enough to be displeasing. But the Abbe Delille has merits of his own. To translate Milton well is more laudable than originality in trifling matters; just as to transport an obelisk from Egypt, and to erect it in one of the squares, must be considered a greater labour than to build a ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... such a progress 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
... well-fill'd page; On the broad back the stubborn ridges roll'd, Where yet the title stands in tarnish'd gold; These all a sage and labour'd work proclaim, A painful candidate for lasting fame: No idle wit, no trifling verse can lurk In the deep bosom of that weighty work; No playful thoughts degrade the solemn style, Nor one light sentence claims a transient smile. Hence, in these times, untouch'd the pages lie, And slumber out their ...
— The Library • George Crabbe
... would consist wholly of a more or less elaborate continuous pattern like Fig. 22, 23, or 25, these last symbolical compositions with a religious signification. (See also Fig. 21, "Interior view," etc.) Curiously enough the remains—mostly very trifling fragments—which have been discovered in various ruins, show that these handsomely finished glazed tiles exhibited the very same colors which are nowadays in such high favor with ourselves for all sorts of decorative purposes: those ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... poetry which Scott was 'born to introduce,' and of which he lived long enough to see the glutting, had a large and immediate sale. The author, not yet aware what a gold mine his copyrights were, parted with this after the first edition, and received in all rather less than L770, a sum trifling in comparison with his after gains; but probably the largest that had as yet been received by any English poet for a single volume not published by subscription. It is curious that, at the estimated rate of three for one in comparing the value ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... Ambassador of France at my right hand and the Minister of Spain at my left, and have arranged the other principal personages; and when I rose from the table I should have said, Messieurs, voudrez vous, etc., or Monsieur or Duc voudrez vous, etc.... How is it possible to reconcile these trifling contemplations of a master of the ceremonies with the vast knowledge of arts, sciences, history, government, etc., possessed by this nobleman?"[202] Sarsfield kept a journal about all the people he met with, from which Adams ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... high-pitched voice, as of a woman speaking with effort between half-suppressed sobs, or like the mournful cry of some wild bird of the marshes. Voice and face were true indications of her anxious mind. She was in a perpetual state of worry over some trifling matter, and when a real trouble came, as when our flock "got mixed" with a neighbour's flock and four or five thousand sheep had to be parted, sheep by sheep, according to their ear-marks, or when her husband came home drunk and tumbled off his horse at the door instead of dismounting in the usual ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... over the main doors. The windows are narrow and deep, with very tiny panes and a great deal of sash. On the roof is a vast quantity of tiles with long curly ears. The woodwork, throughout, is of a dark hue and there is much carving about it, with but a trifling variety of pattern for, time out of mind, the carvers of Vondervotteimittiss have never been able to carve more than two objects—a time-piece and a cabbage. But these they do exceedingly well, and intersperse them, with singular ingenuity, wherever they ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... into the parlor? It is so much pleasanter out here." And as Mrs. Challoner assented, they were soon comfortably established on the tiny lawn; and Archie, very much at his ease, and feeling himself unaccountably happy, proceeded to deliver some trifling message from his sister, that was his ostensible ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... may well say: "Pley not with me, but pley with thi pere." Let us beware of His revenge; it well may happen that "God takith more venjaunce on us than a lord that sodaynly sleeth his servaunt for he pleyide to homely with hym;" and yet the lord's vengeance cannot be considered a trifling one. ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... far north as 3 deg. of north latitude, as far east as 36 deg., and as far west as 26 deg. of east longitude; only afterwards slightly corrected, as I was better able to connect and clear up some trifling ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... extraordinary expenses which should have been borne in common by all the provinces, but which fell solely upon this, was totally exhausted, and without credit, has gained such credit, that it is already known in Europe; and so much cash, that the greater part of the creditors, and they were not few, or for trifling sums, have been so far satisfied, as that their houses have not suffered; that the public servants have no arrears due any more than the military on actual service; that the other provinces that have adhered to the holy cause,—not by force, but from conviction, for I love just liberty,—have been ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... the gallows over this adventure. For my part, I would have him broken on the wheel and tortured in many uncomfortable ways. These Irishmen all the world over are pestilent fellows. But the trouble is this: If her Highness hears of his attempt, she is, as you sagely discovered, a woman, a trivial, trifling thing. She will be absurd enough to imagine her rescue possible; she will again change her mind, and it is precisely that which General Heister fears. He would have her formally betrothed to the Prince of Baden before Charles Wogan is caught and hanged ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... begets only benevolent silence, and thoughtful good-humored observation—I found at the age of twenty all my prospects in life destroyed. I cared not for woman in those days: the calm smoker has a sweet companion in his pipe. I did not drink immoderately of wine; for though a friend to trifling potations, to excessively strong drinks tobacco is abhorrent. I never thought of gambling, for the lover of the pipe has no need of such excitement; but I was considered a monster of dissipation in my family, and bade fair to ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of uneasiness to be detected in the unmoved features of the latter. Mark Heathcote had too long schooled his passions, to suffer an unseemly manifestation of surprise to escape him; and he was by nature a man of far too much nerve, to betray alarm at any trifling exhibition of danger. Returning the parchment to the other, he said with ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... Both bullets struck him. The first, Orlanduccio's, passed through his left arm, which Orso had turned toward him as he aimed. The second shot struck him in the chest, and tore his coat, but coming in contact with the blade of his dagger, it luckily flattened against it, and only inflicted a trifling bruise. Orso's left arm fell helpless at his side, and the barrel of his gun dropped for a moment, but he raised it at once, and aiming his weapon with his right hand only, he fired at Orlanduccio. His enemy's head, which was only exposed to the level of the eyes, disappeared ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... mention, as he had omitted to mention all along, that young gentlemen who win scholarships do not, as a rule, have the money they win put into their hands to do as they like with. But this was a trifling slip of ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... it is well known that strangers, in such circumstances, become more obnoxious to the disease than the inhabitants of the country. Moreover, travellers have superadded to the remote cause of the disease, fatigue and road discomforts, which are not trifling in a country where there are neither inns nor carriages." (p. 89.) Cholera only attacks a certain proportion of a population, and is it wonderful that we should hear more of epidemic on high roads, where the population is greatest? High ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... five hundred yards of the aeroplane linen which is being disposed of to the public will be sold to one purchaser. In the event of the purchaser deciding to use it as a pocket-handkerchief he can have it hemstitched for a trifling sum. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... discreditable to us as a Nation that our merchant marine should be utterly insignificant in comparison to that of other nations which we overtop in other forms of business. We should not longer submit to conditions under which only a trifling portion of our great commerce is carried in our own ships. To remedy this state of things would not .merely serve to build up our shipping interests, but it would also result in benefit to all who ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... to contemplate this respectable matron purely in the light of a chest of drawers, with a black gauze held-dress accidentally left on the top of it? Yes, the mind could be brought to do that. With a comparatively trifling effort, Vendale's mind did it. As he took his place on the old-fashioned window-seat, close by Marguerite and her embroidery, a slight movement appeared in the chest of drawers, but no remark issued from it. Let it be remembered that solid furniture is not easy to move, ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... gentlemen's secrets. It seems that if he has, his success was so trifling that he has thought he had better trust some one ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... plans were well laid. No army that ever took the field was ever so mobile. Thousands of army autos have been in use. Each regiment had its supply. The highways were mapped in advance. There was not a crossroad that was not known. Even the trifling brooks had been located. Nothing had been left to chance and the advance guard was accompanied by enormous automobiles filled with corps of sappers who carried bridge ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... one faculty only increases the vivacity of the others; my eyes and ears always watch like sentinels over the repose of my lips. Careless and indifferent as I seem to all things, nothing ever escapes me: the minutest erreur in a dish or a domestic, the most trifling peculiarity in a criticism or a coat, my glance detects in an instant, and transmits for ever ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... she appealed with a passionate grief that was distressing to witness. All the efforts of her husband and her children failed to sooth her; and, as often happens in a complication of troubles, she seized upon the most trifling as the ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... imbibe prejudices, and are not tenacious in retaining them. As however, scientific books and philosophical instruments are very scarce and difficultly attainable in Chili, their talents have no opportunity of being developed, and are mostly employed in trifling pursuits; and as the expence of printing is enormous, they are discouraged from literary exertion, so that few among them aspire to the reputation of becoming authors. The knowledge of the civil and canon law is held in high estimation, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... his reflections. A sense of bodily uneasiness came upon him, of a curious irritation and contempt, mingled with fear. He at first ascribed it to the coffee he had imprudently drunk at Valentine's flat, and to the strength of the two cigars he had smoked, or to some ordinary, trifling cause of diet. But by the time he crossed Oxford Street, and was in the desert of Vere Street, he felt that there was a reason for his distress, outside ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... sultan what she wanted, but did not wish to seem uninformed, "your majesty knows that women often make complaints on trifles; perhaps she may come to complain that somebody has sold her some bad flour, or some such trifling matter." The sultan was not satisfied with this answer, but replied: "If this woman comes to our next audience, do not fail to call her, that I may hear what she has to say." The grand vizier made answer by lowering his hand, and then lifting it up above his ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... in medicine and surgery, I have never practised either. The study of each continues, nevertheless, to interest me profoundly. Neither idleness nor caprice caused my secession from the honourable calling which I had just entered. The cause was a very trifling scratch inflicted by a dissecting knife. This trifle cost me the loss of two fingers, amputated promptly, and the more painful loss of my health, for I have never been quite well since, and have seldom been twelve months together ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... his pack with its precious contents from his shoulders, listening to McTrigger. They sat down. What McTrigger was saying seemed of trifling consequence beside the fact that Marette was somewhere beyond the other door, alive, and that he would see her again very soon. He did not see why McTrigger should tell him that the older woman was his wife. Even the fact that a splendid chance had thrown Marette ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... words and thought would, after all, be in itself little more than serious trifling, a mere exhibition of mental and verbal ingenuity. It would be a kind of intellectual and linguistical dexterity, which would give the author a singularity and supremacy above the world. It would make ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... be given to the cultivation of one's self. And in proportion as the time was longer the results would be greater. But I prefer to begin with what looks like a trifling effort. ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... the Army," laughed Hal. "The army 'goat' is the very new officer who has a lot of extra duties thrust upon him that the older officers don't want. Those duties of the 'goat' are generally both very trifling and very annoying." ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... Cam Hobhouse (1786-1869), Baron Broughton, was committed to Newgate for two months in 1819 for his anonymous pamphlet, A Trifling Mistake. This was a great advertisement for him, and upon his release he was at once elected to parliament for Westminster. He was a strong supporter of all reform measures, and was Secretary for War in 1832. He was created Baron Broughton de ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... The anxiety I have here shewn to procure the escort from the Meer will perhaps appear uncalled for, but those who delight in numismatological specimens will agree with me that the disappointment was not trifling, as only a few travellers had succeeded in obtaining rare coins, and I had every reason to believe other varieties were ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... think about the right way of women, and began to study how to make themselves appear splendid in the eyes of men. And the end of it was that the Emperor Genso died a pitiful and painful death—all because of your light and trifling mind. Indeed, your real character can easily be seen from your conduct in other matters. There are trees, for example,—such as the evergreen-oak and the pine,—whose leaves do not fade and fall, but remain always green;—these ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... 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 ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... On a trifling point of honour, namely, as to whether Ben were a man likely to lie, tortuously, hypocritically, to be elaborately false about the authorship of the Shakespearean plays, it is hopelessly impossible to bring the Baconians and Mr. Greenwood (who "holds no brief for the Baconians") to ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... a man, let us say something about his genius. That, like his character, was intensely peculiar. It was a compound of infinite ingenuity, with very little poetical imagination—of gigantic strength, with a propensity to incessant trifling—of passionate purpose, with the clearest and coldest expression, as though a furnace were fuelled with snow. A Brobdignagian by size, he was for ever toying with Lilliputian slings and small craft. One of the most ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Hatty thought of her resolution to be patient under trifling discomforts, and a feeling of mortification came over her. Very quietly she brushed away the offending crumbs, gently she removed the half-eaten cracker, and then she knelt to ask forgiveness for this new exhibition of ...
— Hatty and Marcus - or, First Steps in the Better Path • Aunt Friendly
... heats a bar of iron and welds it to the steel so as to form the tang of the blade which goes into the handle. All this is done with the simplest tools and contrivances. A few strokes of the hammer in connexion with some trifling moulds and measures, attached to the anvil, perfect, in two or three minutes the blade and its tang or shank. Two men, the maker and striker, produce about nine blades in an hour, or seven dozen ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various
... Only one trifling incident befell the boys before they found themselves without the city gate. They were proceeding down Coleman Street towards Moor Gate, where they knew they should have to show their pass, and perhaps have some slight trouble in getting ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... atmosphere, and, when combined with low and crude diet, more than decimated the list. These effects of official negligence were early apparent. The second fleet lost nearly one-fifth of the whole, either on the voyage, or shortly after the arrival. Of the previous expedition, the loss was trifling.[68] It was fitted out with integrity, surpassing the custom of the times, or the pioneers of the colony might have perished ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... our approach to a lady be the signal for trifling and nonsense? How long shall there be circles of this sex, from which a man of sense must turn away with ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... a moment's pique, have often brought about historic changes, the real cause whereof lies deep in the secret working of men's hearts and can only be understood by each one to himself. Thus in Wirtemberg's eighteenth-century record, the homely, unpleasant, trifling scene on Christmas Eve wrought a change in the history, destined to influence the affairs of the country ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... lands,[271-1] it was all by conjecture, without confirmation from eyesight, amounting only to this much that the hearers for the most part listened and judged that there was more fable in it than anything actual, however trifling. Since thus our Redeemer has given to our most illustrious King and Queen, and to their famous kingdoms, this victory in so high a matter, Christendom should have rejoicing therein and make great festivals, and give solemn thanks to the Holy Trinity for the ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... embrace all great men of a time. There is Captain Nathaniel Lyon,—name with the fateful ring. Nathaniel Lyon, with the wild red hair and blue eye, born and bred a soldier, ordered to St. Louis, and become subordinate to a wavering officer of ordnance. Lyon was one who brooked no trifling. He had the face of a man who knows his mind and intention; the quick speech and action which go with this. Red tape made by the reel to bind him, he broke. Courts-martial had no terrors for him. He proved the ablest of lieutenants ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... have since learned, not infrequently see, perhaps by instinct, deeper into primal causes than men, and there was more in her words than perhaps she realized, for though the immediate impulse may be trifling or unworthy, it is destiny that has set the task before us, and in spite of the doer's shortcomings it is for the good of many that all thorough work stands. Many a reckless English scrapegrace has driven the big breaker through new Canadian land because he dare not ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... One evening I was playing at whist, one of my opponents being a momentarily discarded lover of my young lady; I thought he was looking very distrait; however, things went off quietly enough for some time, till on some trifling question arising concerning the rules of the game, the young man suddenly and quite gratuitously insulted me most grossly, ending his insolent conduct by throwing his cards in my face. This was more than ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... the poor cowards lest the united South, in the final hour of victory, might include them in its catalogue of the doomed. What would they say if they knew the number and power of the ABOLITIONISTS OF THE SOUTH,—a body of no trifling significance, whose fierce grasp will yet be felt on the throat of rebellion and of slavery? It is grimly amusing to think of the aid which the South counted on receiving from these Northern dough-faces,—little thinking that within itself it contained a counter-revolutionary party, far more dangerous ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... possibly be assigned, than perfect spite, rage, and envy, to find themselves wormed out of all power by a new infant spawn of Independents, sprung from their own bowels. It is true; the differences in religious tenets between them are very few and trifling; the chief quarrel, as far as I remember, relating to congregational and national assemblies. But, wherever interest or power thinks fit to interfere, it little imports what principles the opposite parties think fit to charge upon each other: for, we see, at this day, that the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... talk about the school.[6] And so in many other similar cases. Be very careful not to abuse this privilege, and make slight causes the grounds of your exceptions. It ought to be a very clear case. If a young lady is unwell in a trifling degree, so as to need no assistance, you would evidently do wrong to talk to her. The rule, in fact, is very similar to that which all well-bred people observe at church. They never speak or leave ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... surface, when low, is about fifty yards, but oftener less than this, and seldom more. The fall of the country through which it passes, in that part of its course through the interior, which was first explored by Major Mitchell, is very trifling; and it is the opinion of that officer, that the swiftness of its course never exceeds one mile per hour, but that it is in general much less. At the time of the Major's expedition, the water actually flowing, as seen at one or two shallow places, ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... and the flashing glance. I am an impudent fellow, I suppose. Honest, to boot. I think she need not take offence at what was intended as a friendly help. I am no flatterer, at least. Really, I am hurt that I might not take so trifling a liberty in behalf of my favorite song. I'll walk off as often as she sings it. Can her temper be perfectly good? And yet, one could not expect—I ought not to be surprised. Yet I can't help thinking, suppose—just suppose I had ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... in order. A bright fire blazed on the hearth, the shutters were carefully closed, the furniture shone with cleanliness, the bed had been made after a fashion that showed that Brigitte and the Countess had given their minds to every trifling detail. It was impossible not to read her hopes in the dainty and thoughtful preparations about the room; love and a mother's tenderest caresses seemed to pervade the air in the scent of flowers. None but a mother could have foreseen the requirements of a soldier and arranged ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... ourselves; they are precisely what those who have them not should envy in those who have. The more we emerge from the animal, and approach what seems the surest ideal of our race, the more evident does it become that these things, trifling as they well may appear by the side of nature's stupendous laws, do yet constitute our sole inheritance; and that, happen what may to the end of time, they are the hearth, the centre of light, to which mankind will draw ever more ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... never the object of those laws to grant a monopoly for every trifling device, every shadow of a shade of an idea, which would naturally and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic or operator in the ordinary progress of manufactures. Such an indiscriminate creation of exclusive privileges tends rather to obstruct ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... information is to be obtained. We must, therefore, repress that curiosity, which would naturally incline us to watch the first attempts of so vigorous a mind, to pursue it in its childish inquiries, and see it struggling with rustick prejudices, breaking, on trifling occasions, the shackles of credulity, and giving proofs, in its casual excursions, that it was formed to shake off the yoke of prescription, and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... of your flowers one leaf, Give me of your smiles one smile, Backward roll this tide of grief Just a moment, though, the while, I should feel and almost know You are trifling ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... moment, until by-and-by the art of intrigue and conspiracy begins to lose proportion in their minds. The detail has ever been so important, conspiracy so much second nature, that they must needs be intriguing and conspiring when the occasion is trifling and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... this trifling! The time is short, and much remains to be done before you are fit to proclaim the Gospel of Three Dimensions to your blind benighted ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... commonly used. Over and over again, I have heard the presumed analogy between the surgeon and the soldier advanced as a proof of the absurdity of the English system. I believe that no such analogy exists. Surgery is an exact science. To perform even the most trifling surgical operation requires careful technical training and experience. It is far otherwise with the case of the soldier. I do not suppose that any civilian in his senses would presume, on a purely technical ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... every step. Besides the halls and galleries, the theaters of royal estate, there are mysterious passages and sequestered nooks that whisper a thousand secret histories. The palace has two voices, one grave and one gay and trifling. It is full of truths and fictions, tears and smiles. The personages of its drama are as various as life itself; kings, poets, ministers, courtiers, confessors, courtesans, queens without power, and queens with too ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... when the throw is to the baseman's left, in toward the runner, because of the danger of a collision with the latter. To the average spectator who may never have had much experience on the field, these collisions between players may seem trifling affairs, but they are not so regarded by the players themselves. In the history of the sport many men have been seriously injured in this way, and a few killed outright. For two weeks once I was obliged to sleep nights in a sitting posture ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... differentiation which divides so sharply the sexual activity of the female from that of the male. The serious part in sex belongs to the one who gives life, while in comparison the activity of the male can almost be regarded as trifling. And I believe that this view will be found to be amply supported by facts if we turn now to consider the later and human relation of the sexes. In all cases it is the same, the serious business in sex belongs to the woman. As it was in the beginning, so, ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... at. It is best, however, to take such gibes in good part. Viewing the situation in this light, the ludicrousness of the disconnection struck me so forcibly as very nearly to console me for my loss, which was not trifling, since the next train did not leave for above three hours; too late to push on beyond Takasaki that night, a thing I had most firmly purposed to do. Here I was, the miserable victim of a punctuality my own people had foisted on a land ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... words (from my mouth they had been rare of late), pronounced with a slow, firm coldness, as though I were indifferent to the course he might adopt, made him feel how little capable I believed him of vigorous and sustained action, and what trifling trouble I took to make him adopt my views. Dubois, Argenson, and Law had also spoken to him, urging him to take strong measures against the Parliament; the effect of my speech was ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... it is possible on earth to do it. You will not have brought happiness about. The fallacy-mongers do not frighten us when they preach resignation and paralysis on the plea that no social change can bring happiness, thus trifling with these profound things. Happiness is part of the inner life, it is an intimate and personal paradise; it is a flash of chance or genius which comes sweetly to life among those who elbow each ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... self-adjusting bearings were found of great service. The apparatus, being generally out of convenient reach, is apt to get out of order unless duly attended to. But, whether or not, the saving of friction is in itself a reason for the adoption of such bearings. This may appear a trifling technical matter of detail; but its great practical value must be my excuse for ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... that he loves his Ease, hates to offend, and seldom gives any opinion till obliged to do it. I know also, and it is necessary that you should be informed, that he is overwhelmed with a correspondence from all quarters, most of them upon trifling subjects and in a more trifling style, with unmeaning visits from Multitudes of People, chiefly from the Vanity of having it to say that they have seen him. There is another thing that I am obliged to mention. There are so many private families, Ladies ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... were annoyed at being obliged to imitate an ungrateful fashion, all the merit of which would go to the inventor. It was in vain that Pontchartrain objected to the project, as one from which only trifling benefit could be derived, and which would do great injury to France by acting as a proclamation of its embarrassed state to all the world, at home and abroad. The King would not listen to his reasonings, but declared himself willing ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... left them both behind me on my bed. Not only one note-book, but my whole dozen; which, on leaving London, I had stuffed into a bag with my night-gown. Bag, night-gown, note-books, all were forgotten! However trifling it may appear, this loss of the little note-books was of material consequence. To be sure, it was easy to procure paper and make others; but, because it was so easy, it was delayed from hour to hour, and from day to day; and I went on writing my most ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... the Assembly of New York on its refusal to provide quarters for English troops, and resolved to assert British sovereignty by levying import duties of trivial amount at American ports. The Assembly of Massachusetts was dissolved on a trifling quarrel with its Governor, and Boston was occupied for a time by British soldiers. It was without a thought of any effective struggle however that the Cabinet had entered on this course of vexation; and when ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... bravery. The place was taken by storm, amid horrors which belong to such scenes at all times, but which were doubled by the rapacity of troops who fought even with each other for the greatest share of the pillage. After a few trifling successes, the army of Philip was broken up. The German mercenaries; the lanzknechts and reiters, the pikemen and cavalry, who, at the command of the best paymaster, were the most formidable soldiers of the time. But the Spanish ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... the true etiquette for some occasion. At such a time, there is a regret felt that there is not at hand, in one's own library, a safe guide, an experienced counsellor, who will answer such questions, so trifling in ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... waste is so very trifling, especially with brain-workers, that one may be a vegetarian, fruitarian, or even an eater of pork, without positive violence to practical physiology. There is this further very practical consideration, that when Nature is so fairly ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... instant departure to a point where telegraph-wires were unknown and mails infrequent. He went at once to the Bahamas, passing a month in that delicious climate in absolute inaction; more than another month was consumed in slowly returning; but, though some flesh had been gained, there was only a trifling improvement ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... "I, too, had a trifling share in the business. Let us all agree to be frank and to consider as confidential for some years to come what we hear. I am as curious ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell
... thoroughly, except the bold faced countess. Lady Florimel regarded the affair as undignified at the best, was sorry for the old man, who must be mad, she thought, and was pleased only with the praises of her squire of low degree. The wound in his hand the marquis either thought too trifling to mention, or serious enough to have clouded the clear sky of frolic under which he desired the whole transaction ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... the further back things are those that one remembers the most distinctly. The middle part of my life is hazy compared with the earlier part. I can remember the patterns of some of my dresses as a very little girl—I can remember words said and trifling things done fifty years ago better than little things that happened ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... I had drunk mustard and water. And I would like here to state that there are as good short stories in English as in any language, and that the whole theory of the unsuitability of English soil to that trifling plant the short story is ridiculous. Nearly every novelist of the nineteenth century, from Scott to Stevenson, wrote first-class short stories. There are now working in England to-day at least six writers who can write, and have ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... darling. It is the first wish of my heart to see you happily married. And no trifling obstacle shall stand in the way of its accomplishment. Who is he, Salome?" he inquired, in a low whisper, as he passed his hand around ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... of Poets. I have for years felt this, and as your translations appeared, have read them with the greatest possible interest. I knew not of the publication of the last, and it was to an accidental, yet, with me, habitual outburst of praise of Calderon, as the antidote and cure for the trifling literature of the day, that my friend (the) D—— made me aware ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... her off into this nervous paroxysm. She was in such a state that almost any slight agitation would have brought on the attack, and it was the accident of her transient excitability, very probably, which made a trifling cause the seeming occasion of so much disturbance. The theme was signed, in the same peculiar, sharp, slender hand, E. Venner, and was, of course, written by that wild-looking girl who had excited the master's curiosity and prompted his question, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... seemed interminable. We lived in constant fear of some disaster. This time, it would not be a simple theft or a comparatively harmless assault; it would be a crime, a murder. No one imagined that Arsene Lupin would confine himself to those two trifling offenses. Absolute master of the ship, the authorities powerless, he could do whatever he pleased; our property and lives were ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... a sort of private detective now, and is prepared for a trifling consideration to return the slipper which he stole himself! He must know, though, that we have his severed hand at the Yard to be used ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... Now, I know there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed. By the way, since you are interested in these little problems, and since you are good enough to chronicle one or two of my trifling experiences, you may be interested in this." He threw over a sheet of thick pink-tinted note paper which had been lying open upon the table. "It came by the last post," said he. "Read ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... guard against allowing one's absorbing interest in one's own affairs to make one regardless of the just rights of others in the matter of "turn" at ticket or stamp windows, or in the use of the public desk, pens, etc.—trifling tests of good manners that distinguish the well-bred, and which illustrate very pointedly the truth that selfishness is always vulgar, and that an unfailing habit of considering other people's comfort is a mark of ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... either coast, Bovianum had become the capital of the insurgents instead of Corfinium. Now Bovianum was taken, and Aesernia became its centre. The occupation of the Hirpinian territory cut off the Samnites from the South of Italy, where the Lucanians and Bruttians remained in arms. Except for some trifling operations, which Pompeius had to carry out in order to complete the pacification of his district, all that was now left for the commanders of 88 was to crush the rebels in these two isolated divisions, and the war would be at an end. [Sidenote: B.C. 88. Desperation of the ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... first place the proof that a large number of the peculiarities in the structure of flowers are not useless, but of the greatest significance in pollination must be of considerable importance for the interpretation of adaptations; "The use of each trifling detail of structure is far from a barren search to those who believe in natural selection." ("Fertilisation of Orchids" (1st edition), page 351; (2nd edition 1904) page 286.) Further, if these structural ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... encounters, and in which sensations arise. It would indeed be a useful work of psychological analysis if the conditions of exertional action were carefully and systematically investigated—much more useful than most of the trifling experiments to which psychological laboratories are ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... me keep you," said Bertha, with a glance towards Allchin, who was making parcels at the back of the shop. "I only want some—some matches, and one or two trifling things." ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... exclaimed the marquis, his countenance becoming flushed with rage: for he imagined that the robber chief was trifling with him. "Far as you are beneath me—wide as is the gulf that separates the Marquis of Orsini from the proscribed bravo—yet will I condescend to wreak upon thee, base-born as thou art, that vengeance which the law has not yet ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... timid boy pusillanimous, while it made the fierce more indignant and resentful. What could be the feelings of the master who could inflict almost agony on seventeen mere children, let the offence be what it might? Yet the offence was trifling; troublesome behaviour to an old woman in the street. A slight reprimand, or trivial fine, would have properly finished the affair; but then comes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... cottage fireside at The Crooks. As a man's real disposition usually displays itself most strikingly in small matters—like light, which gleams the most brightly when seen through narrow chinks—it will probably be admitted that this trait, trifling though it may appear, was truly characteristic of the simple and affectionate nature of the hero of ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... dating from childhood, of the apparent smallness of distant things, of the connexion between the impression given to the touch by solids and their effect on the eye. He had all these things to learn. A thousand trifling associations, of which those with normal senses are scarcely conscious, had to be stumblingly acquired, as a child learns to connect sound and sight, ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... away for a day or two on a matter of business when Virgie's imploring epistle arrived—a circumstance for which his sister was most thankful, for it was no trifling matter for her to be always on the alert to intercept the letters that passed, through the bag at Heathdale. But she had succeeded in accomplishing this by having had an extra key made for the lock and always accompanying the carriage when it ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... said Scipio, happened during periods of peace and tranquillity, for license is wont to prevail when there is little to fear, as in a calm voyage or a trifling disease. But as we observe the voyager and the invalid implore the aid of some one competent director, as soon as the sea grows stormy and the disease alarming, so our nation in peace and security commands, threatens, resists, appeals from, and insults its magistrates, but in war obeys them as ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... in my life was that at Will's coffeehouse, where the wits (as they were called) used formerly to assemble; that is to say, five or six men, who had writ plays, or at least prologues, or had share in a miscellany, came thither, and entertained one another with their trifling composures, in so important an air, as if they had been the noblest efforts of human nature, or that the fate of kingdoms depended on them; and they were usually attended with an humble audience of young students from the inns of court, or the ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... of dollars than there were bills drawn by persons to whom money was due. A bill on England for $1,000 would then sell for more than $1,000, and bills would be said to be at a premium. The premium, however, could not exceed the cost and risk of making the remittance in gold, together with a trifling profit; because, if it did, the debtor would send the gold itself, in preference to buying ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... celebrated grandfather Bishop Berkeley's genius. Farmer had some cleverness, but no leading talent. He collected an immense quantity of rare and forgotten old English books—especially poetry and the drama—at a trifling price. Todd, the learned editor of Milton, Spencer, &c., was then a member of that cathedral; but as his literary superiority was not pleasant to those above him in that establishment, he was got rid of by promotion, elsewhere, out of their patronage. He wrote ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various
... produced a sound like that from dry leather. While Leon was pointing out these details to his audience and doing the honors of his mummy, he awkwardly broke off the lower part of the right ear, and a little piece of the colonel remained in his hand. This trifling accident might have passed unnoticed had not Clementine, who followed with visible emotion all the movements of her lover, dropped her candle and uttered a cry of affright. All gathered around her. Leon took her in his arms and carried her to a chair. M. Renault ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... His words seemed to imply that neither he nor Rossi meant to do other than maim the journalist whom they regarded as de Courtois's dangerous helper; but he did not urge the plea. Perhaps he felt that when a Hungarian uses a knife, a trifling error in the matter of ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... and far out of sight of stealing, lying, and those other gross evils against which we pray every Sunday, when the Ten Commandments are read. They are not generally considered of dignity enough to be fired at from the pulpit; they seem to us too trifling to be remembered in church; they are like the red spiders on plants,—too small for the perception of the naked eye, and only to be known by the shrivelling and dropping of leaf after leaf that ought to be green ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... to press me close, would be the definition of the word "necessary," for the terms of such definition would have to be those solely and simply of a man's experience. Comforts, even most desirable comforts, are not necessities. A dozen times a day trifling emergencies will seem precisely to call for some little handy contrivance that would be just the thing, were it in the pack rather than at home. A disgorger does the business better than a pocket-knife; a pair of oilskin trousers turns the wet better than does kersey; ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... cogitation. If he had only been fair-haired, she would at once have set him down as an Englishman, for he talked like one. But he had dark hair, a thick black moustache, and a nice little figure. His fingers were remarkably long, and he had a peculiar way of trifling with his bread and ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... naval expeditions fitted out against them by the British colonies. Quebec, Louisbourg, and Port Royal were all threatened; and the two latter were captured by colonial expeditions. From a naval point of view, these expeditions were but trifling. They are of some importance, however, in that they gave the colonists an opportunity to try their prowess on the ocean; and in this irregular service were bred some sailors who fought right valiantly for the rebellious colonies against the king, and others who did ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... as I do, for the restoration of peace at some time or another—was to me not very satisfactory. I think that he would only be acting a more statesmanlike part if, in his speeches, he were at least to abstain from those trifling but still irritating charges which he is constantly making against the Russian Government. I can conceive one nation going to war with another nation; but why should the noble Lord say, 'The Sovereign of that State does not allow Bibles to be circulated—he ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... way, and plunged to their death down the precipitous steep. Onward struggled the distressed host, through appalling dangers and endless difficulties, losing men and animals at every step. But these troubles were trifling compared with those which they were now to endure. They suddenly found that the track before them had entirely disappeared. An avalanche had carried it bodily away for about three hundred yards, leaving only a steep ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... neighbourhood they found but one family, that of Deacon Esteem Elliott, the richest man in the place, which had any molasses. Mistress Elliott, in spite of her wealth, was said to be "none too free with her stuff," and she was not minded to lend any molasses under the circumstances, for "a trifling foolish" cake. Obed's representation of the distress of the Ely baby, however, appealed even to her, and she lent him a large spoonful of ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... deference of an experienced senior. She, however, did not give him comfort. She informed him that something was wrong with Edward; she could not tell what. She spoke of him languidly, as if his letters contained wearisome trifling. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Salemina, Francesca, and I occasionally have our trifling differences of opinion, but in hours of affliction we are as one flesh. An all-wise Providence sent us Jane Grieve for fear that we should be too happy in Pettybaw. Plans made in heaven for the discipline of sinful human flesh are always successful, ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... them, with fearful slaughter. But they did not advance bodies of men to this point or to that, according to the scientific method; they drew their ox waggons into a square, lashing them together with 'reims' or hide-ropes, and from behind this rough defence, with but trifling loss to themselves, rolled back charge after charge ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... offer to Dresser, who was rising at laborious hours and toiling in the McNamara and Hill's offices, he realized how unmentionable and trifling were his grounds for hesitation. Dresser's enthusiasm almost persuaded him that Lindsay had given him something valuable. And if he found it difficult to explain his distaste for the thing to Dresser, what would he have to say to other people—to the Hitchcocks? ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... blazed on the hearth, reappeared, and opened the carriage-door. It was with a difficulty for which they were scarcely prepared that they were enabled to get Fanny from the carriage. No soft words, no whispered prayers could draw her forth; and it was with no trifling address, for her companion sought to be as gentle as the force necessary to employ would allow, that he disengaged her hands from the window-frame, the lining, the cushions, to which they clung; and at last ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... so correctly in proportion to the increase of the obstacle which opposes the ejection of its contents that a very considerable period elapses before the difficulty in making water becomes cognizable to the patient, or it occasions an annoyance so trifling as scarcely to excite his attention. This increase of strength in the bladder frequently renders the formation of stricture so insidious that the urethra at the affected part is very narrow before the individual is aware of the existence of ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... surprise he burst into tears as he took my hand. When he had recovered his composure he explained that he was the father of the younger of the two ladies, and he thanked me, in what I could not but think unnecessarily warm terms, for the trifling service I had rendered to his daughter. His emotion was explained by the fact that she had ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... 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 ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... his name from the peculiar shape of his foot, and he got that from trifling with a gun-trap. You know what that is,—a loaded gun set in such a way that a bear or any game that's curious about it, must come up to it the way it p'ints; a bait is hung before the muzzle, and a string runs from that ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... little ogress! Was she just trifling with him? Could it be possible that she saw through him? As he looked down at her the eyes fastened on him were as calm ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page
... aide-de-camp, little Jacques de Montboron, could easily have reassured them, for he knew those famous thoroughbreds, as he had had to break them in, and had received a thousand trifling instructions about them. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... to put Jimmy up to it. She had told Dion that Jimmy wouldn't see the difference in him. Now she carefully prepared Jimmy to face that difference, and gave him his cue for the part she wished him to play. Jimmy felt very important as he listened to her explanations, trifling seriously with his cigarette, and looking ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... the occurrence which the South has regarded as a piece of wanton mischief. "The ulterior and strategic advantages of the occupation of Columbia are seen now clearly by the result," said Sherman under oath. "The burning of the private dwellings, though never designed by me, was a trifling matter compared with the manifold results that soon followed. Though I never ordered it and never wished it, I have never shed many tears over the event, because I believe it hastened what we all fought for, ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... labor, and was succeeded by such a feeling of prostration as required the morning before I could master sufficient energy to venture upon the needed exercise. The distance to my friend's stable was trifling. Sometimes I would find there the negro man to whose care the horses were entrusted, but more frequently he was absent. A feeling of humiliation at being seen by any one at a loss how to mount a horse of so diminutive ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... acquaintance, in order to improve the appearance and the quality of their own river boats. The clumsy and inelegant long-boat of the earlier times, as replaced, even for ordinary traffic, by a light and graceful fabric, which was evidently a copy from Phoenician models. Modifications, which would seem trifling if described, changed the whole character of the vessels, in which light and graceful curves took the place of straight lines and angles only just rounded off. The stem and stern were raised high above the body of the boat, and were shaped like fishes' ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... have reduced gin to the lowest price; that of the juniper berries being there very trifling, and increasing but little the price of whiskey: still that small addition is almost reduced to nothing, ...
— The Art of Making Whiskey • Anthony Boucherie
... he had silenced the fire of the forts and then sent boarding parties against the Tunisian ships, which were speedily taken and burnt. Then he took his squadron out again, having destroyed the entire Tunisian navy, shattered the forts, and suffered only a trifling loss. This exploit resounded throughout the Mediterranean. Algiers was quick to follow Tunis in yielding to Blake's demands. It is characteristic of this officer that he should have made the attack on Tunis entirely without orders from Cromwell, and it ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... the flattering thing her face was hopeless. The odour of the southernwood on the window-sill changed at once to laurel, rain-drenched, dark, and waving over tombs for the boy spellbound on the floor. All his shameful perturbation vanished, a trifling thing ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... 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
... *Even so trifling an occurrence as that of resting with another person under the shadow of a tree, or drinking from the same spring with another person, is caused by the karma-relations of some ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... be the case if it were part of a settlement which was of great and obvious advantage to Germany. A loan to Germany, on Germany's own credit, yielding, say, 8 to 10 per cent., would not in my opinion be an investor's proposition in any part of the world, except on a most trifling scale. I do not mean that a larger anticipatory loan of a different character—issued, for example, in Allied countries with the guarantees of the Allied Government, the proceeds in each such country being handed over to the guaranteeing ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... impersonal that every capacity of his mind, save the working, slept soundly. By now, he had his department in perfect running order; and his successors have accepted his legacy, with its infinitude of detail, its unvarying practicality, with gratitude and trifling alterations. When Jefferson disposed himself in the Chair of State, in 1801, he appointed Albert Gallatin—the ablest financier, after Hamilton, the country has produced—Secretary of the Treasury, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... it remains fixed for the next nine or ten months, unless when slightly affected by showers." "No well below the sea level becomes dry of itself," even in seasons of extreme and continued drought. But the contents do not vary with the tides, the rise of which is so trifling that the distance from the ocean, and the slowness of filtration, ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... able to tell it all, she would even in his estimation have been completely white-washed. In her perfect absolution from the terrible sin of which he now accused her he would have forgiven and forgotten altogether the small, the trifling fault, which ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... House. The formidable power he had created in the North was no small part of them. On several occasions he sought a quarrel with Iyeyasu; sought to humiliate him in small ways, to lower his prestige and provoke an outbreak. Such was the trifling incident of the lavish donation required of Iyeyasu to the Hachiman shrine at Kamakura. But Hideyoshi, as with Elizabeth of England, looked rather to the balance of cost against result, always with possibility of failure in view. When he died in 1598, and left Tokugawa Iyeyasu ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... far from causing Ninon any tears of regret, nerved her up to a philosophy different from that of other women, and makes it impossible to judge her by the same standard. She can not be considered a woman subject to a thousand fantasies and whims, a thousand trifling concealed proprieties of position and custom. Her morals became the same as those of the wisest and noblest men of the period in which she lived, and raised her to their rank instead of maintaining her in the category of the intriguing coquettes of ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... to screen her countenance, but he was in no mood for trifling, and putting his palm under her chin, forced her ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... courts are not quite so respectfully mentioned in books as they were formerly. The following few examples are taken from Mr. du Laure's Curiosities of Paris, in two volumes, 1791, third edition. [17] "Louis XIV. has his bust in almost every street in Paris. After the most trifling reparation of a street it was customary to place his great wig-block (tete a perruque) there. The saints have never obtained such multiplied statues. That bully (Fanfaron) as Christina, Queen of Sweden, used to call him, wanted to be adored even in turn-again ...
— A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 • Richard Twiss
... Mr. Pen showed a most praiseworthy regularity in performing one part of the law-student's course of duty, and eating his dinners in Hall. Indeed, that Hall of the Upper Temple is a sight not uninteresting, and with the exception of some trifling improvements and anachronisms which have been introduced into the practice there, a man may sit down and fancy that he joins in a meal of the seventeenth century. The bar have their messes, the students their tables apart; the benchers sit at the high table on the raised platform surrounded ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... afford against the unknown author of the dastardly outrage upon his rudder-line. By an easy effort of imagination he included the whole schoolhouse, root and branch, in his anathemas, and by a very trifling additional effort he discovered that the objects of his censure were guilty, every one of them, not only of this particular crime, but of every crime in the Newgate Calendar, from picking pockets to murder. He fully agreed with the decision of his chiefs to have nothing more to do with ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... she suggested that, as there were only a few hours left for the business of the convention, they should not be frittered away in trifling discussions, saying, "if she were a man she would be ashamed to consume the time in telling how much she loved women and in fulsome flattery of other men." She moved also that they set aside the proposed ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... landed property animated the poor emigrants to industry and perseverance. The different townships yearly increased in numbers. Every one upon his arrival obtained his grant of land, and sat down on his freehold with no taxes, or very trifling ones, no tythes, no poor rates, with full liberty of hunting and fishing, and many other advantages and privileges he never knew in Europe. It is true the unhealthiness of the climate was a great bar to his progress, and proved fatal to many ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... Diarmaid, who succeeded him on the throne. It is recorded that, in the following year, the sea cast ashore a whale under the mountains of Mourne, to the great wonder of those who dwelt by the hill of Rudraige. Thus do the Chronicles establish their good faith, by putting on record things trifling or grave, ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... ichthyosaur lecturing on the human skull. 'You will at once perceive,' said the lecturer, 'that the skull before us belonged to one of the lower order of animals. The teeth are very insignificant, the power of the jaws trifling, and altogether it seems wonderful how the creature could have procured food.' Armed with modern weapons, and in this machine, we are, of course, superior to the most powerful monster; but it is not likely that, had man been so surrounded during the whole of his evolution, he could ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... a supply of money must be instantly sent to Madras. But even these measures would be insufficient, unless the war, hitherto so grossly mismanaged, were placed under the direction of a vigorous mind. It was no time for trifling. Hastings determined to resort to an extreme exercise of power, to suspend the incapable governor of Fort St. George, to send Sir Eyre Coote to oppose Hyder, and to entrust that distinguished general with the whole administration ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... education? Too pretty and too frail, with his curls and his dainty little frock, he had an air de princesse. His father felt that a mistake was being made, and that this excess of tenderness must be promptly ended. He took the child on his knees; a scene as trifling as it was decisive was about ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... been with other cases of ichthyosis, with supernumerary digits, with a deficiency of digits and phalanges, and in a lesser degree with various diseases, especially with colour-blindness, and a haemorrhagic diathesis, that is, an extreme liability to profuse and uncontrollable bleeding from trifling wounds. On the other hand, mothers have transmitted, during several generations, to their daughters alone, supernumerary and deficient digits, colour-blindness, and other peculiarities. So that we see that the very same ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... old capcase on his head, an old pail about his hips for harness, a scummer and a potlid by his side, and a rake on his shoulder'; and the same scuffling and horseplay when the comic element is uppermost. Incident follows incident as rapidly and with as trifling motives as before. In the course of a short play we see Cambyses, king of Persia, set off for his conquests in Egypt; return; execute Sisamnes, his unjust deputy; prove a far worse ruler himself; shoot through the heart the young son of Praxaspes, to prove to that too-frank ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... "No trifling, young man. Come this way," and collaring the refractory Rick, Sid led him into the closet. The governor was not to be wholly suppressed, and kept protruding a red pug-nose ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... faithful chosen sort, In the Heavens above, to his most high discomfort. You therefore, good friends, I lovingly exhort, To weigh such matters as will be uttered here, Of whom ye may look to have no trifling sport In fantasies feigned, nor such-like gaudy gear, But the things that shall your inward stomach cheer. To rejoice in God for your justification, And alone in Christ to hope for your salvation. Yea first ye shall have the eternal ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... wear no ornaments in the nose or ears, and have no breast-cloth. They are tattooed with dots on the face and patterns of animals on the right arm, but not on the left arm or legs. A liaison between a youth and maiden of the caste is considered a trifling matter, being punished only with a fine of two to four annas or pence. A married woman detected in an intrigue is mulcted in a sum of four or five rupees, and if her partner be a man of another caste ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... of the Silver Fox Patrol had reason to feel proud, because each one of them was at that time wearing a trifling little badge that proved their right to call themselves assistant fire wardens, employed by the great State of Maine to forever keep an eye out for dangerous conflagrations, and labor to extinguish the same before they could ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... of an action is all its consequences near and remote, certain and probable, direct and collateral. A petty theft, or the evasion of a trifling tax, may be insignificant, or even good, in the direct and immediate consequences; but before the full tendency can be weighed, we must resolve the question:—What would be the probable effect on the general happiness or good, if similar acts, or ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... retreated, flourishing his bushy tail as I made a step towards him, but soon came forth and surveyed me with a keen and intelligent eye. The Canadians bartered their fish and drank their whiskey, and were loquacious on trifling subjects, and merry at simple jests, with as little regard to the scenery as they could have to the flattest part of the Grand Canal. Nor was I entitled to despise them; for I amused myself with all those foolish matters of fishermen, and dogs, and fox, just as if ...
— Fragments From The Journal of a Solitary Man - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the two great Catholic powers had been wrestling with but brief interruption. The advantage to either had been as trifling as the causes of their quarrel were insignificant. Their revenues were anticipated, their credit was exhausted, yet year after year languid armies struggled into collision. Across the Alps in Italy, and along the frontiers of Burgundy and the Low Countries, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... pathetic in the thought of "poor Milly," whose birthplace and home this beautiful and strangely perfect old house had been. It was Milly—not that sinister figure that Pegler thought she had seen—whose form ought to haunt Wyndfell Hall. But there survived no trace, no trifling memento even, of the dead woman's evidently ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... for half an hour. When he returned his suit-case was closed. He thought nothing of a matter so trifling till he looked inside, and then he underwent a feeling as if it had been rifled. But nothing was gone, so far as he could see. Then he noticed the folding-pocket, for its fastening cord was undone. How well he remembered placing there the letter from Ailsa, months ago! ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... out of sight of the two sentries so long as they stayed at their posts; but, as anyone who knows Myddelton Hall, which is little altered since that time, will understand, a very trifling extension of his beat would bring one of them into a position to command the carriagedrive which Jack had to cross to get from the shrubbery to the house. However, the boy sauntered off, looking as aimless as a piece of floating thistledown, and gained the house unperceived. Directly he was past ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... time the election was held, and Mayor Hull became Governor Hull by a satisfactory majority for so evenly divided a State. He had spent—in contributions to the machine campaign fund—upwards of one hundred thousand dollars. But that seemed a trifling sacrifice to make for reform principles and for keeping the voice of the people the voice of God. He would have been elected if he had not spent a cent, for the Democratic machine, bent on reorganizing back to a sound basis with all real reformers or reformers tainted with ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... man of morbid tastes, and affects a particular kind of dainty favourite, he may go as far as a thousand. Curly-haired pages and amusing dwarfs are generally dear. It is the business of the house-steward to see that each slave receives his daily or monthly rations of corn, a trifling sum of money for other needs, and perhaps an allowance of thin wine. Many a slave also received a considerable number of "tips" from guests, as well as perquisites and presents from his master. With economy he ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... reading verses, neither she nor her son was able to produce any. Now hearing, from her friend the governess, that there was a poet in the house, she had taken the liberty to send for him, to do some trifling work. What she wanted was an address of filial love, as touching and affectionate as possible; this she would send to her son, and her dear son would return it to her, signed by his own name. She hoped it could be ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... heard her father moan; then she heard groans. At last, unable to endure his sufferings, he called out to his daughter. The marquise went to him. But now her face showed signs of the liveliest anxiety, and it was for M. d'Aubray to try to reassure her about himself! He thought it was only a trifling indisposition, and was not willing that a doctor should be disturbed. But then he was seized by a frightful vomiting, followed by such unendurable pain that he yielded to his daughter's entreaty that she should send for help. A doctor arrived at about eight o'clock in the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... of Spain would lend an ear to these grievances, and move in the matter of attempting to depose Alexander; but an event more important than any other in the whole history of Spain—or of Europe, for that matter—was at the moment claiming its full attention, and the trifling affairs of the King of Naples—trifling by comparison—went all unheeded. For this was the year in which the Genoese navigator, Cristofero Colombo, returned to tell of the new and marvellous world he had discovered beyond the seas, and Ferdinand and Isabella ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... "Blackwood's Magazine," Cooper was a vulgar man, who from having been bred to the sea had been enabled to give some striking descriptions of sea-affairs, and in consequence had unluckily imagined himself a universal genius. It went on to add, that on the strength of the trifling reputation he had acquired by stories descriptive of American life, he had come to Europe, and had since been partly traveling on the Continent to pick up materials for novels, and partly residing in England, actively employed in the effort to introduce himself into society. In ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... times when a sort of exaltation of sacrifice kept her head high, when the thing she was forced to give up seemed trifling compared with the men and boys who, some determinedly, some sheepishly, left the crowd around the borrowed car from which she spoke, and went into the recruiting station. There was sacrifice and sacrifice, and there was some comfort in the thought that both she and Clayton ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that she was "the redeeming genius of her family." Mr. Hawkins, however, was an antiquary of considerable learning, research, and industry; but his temper was sour and jealous, and, throughout his whole and long literary career, from 1782 to 1814, he appears to have been embroiled in trifling disputes and immaterial vindications of his ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... told, is an excellent man and a good tenant; the son had been a miserable scapegrace, and now for some crime—I forget what—had at last been brought to justice. The evidence against him was perfect and the offence was not trifling—there was not the most remote chance of a pardon, but it seemed the poor wretch had been building up his dependence upon that hope and was resting on it; and consequently was altogether indisposed and unfit to ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... him, their cheeks aglow and their eyes dancing. They appeared so full of life, so very gay, that he turned to glance back at them. He found the eyes of the prettier one upon him; she had turned to look at him. It was long since even so trifling an intrigue as this had ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... which under Alberoni had already gained a degree of military power astounding to those who had known her weakness during the last war. She was not yet ready to fight, for only half of the five years asked by the cardinal had passed; but still less was she ready to forego her ambitions. A trifling incident precipitated an outbreak. A high Spanish official, travelling from Rome to Spain by land, and so passing through the Italian States of the emperor, was arrested as a rebellious subject by order of the latter, who still ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... the shade of Miss Merton's dress as the coarser material could copy it; and with all the embarrassment of a novice in such matters, I signified my wish to take it, when the door swung open to admit Annie Bray herself, who had come to make some trifling purchase for her mother. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... she was received and listened to; and to mark the animation and delight with which she seemed to hear again the music in which she had formerly been a distinguished performer. The poor old woman had been in the habit of coming to me annually for a trifling present; and she told me on that occasion that nothing but the severest distress should have compelled her so to expose herself, which after all, did not answer to its end, as she was not paid according to her agreement. She died ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... such a thing," cried Alan, with a start. "There may be a trifling matter of an inch or two; I'm no saying I'm just exactly what ye would call a tall man, whatever; and I dare say," he added, his voice tailing off in a laughable manner, "now when I come to think of it, I dare say ye'll be just about right. Ay, it'll be a foot, or near hand; ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not speaking falsely?—you are not trifling with me? If you are, you can hardly know how cruelly you are adding ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... associated in my mind with my earliest religious impressions and experience, and I don't like to see you lift it out of its sacred associations, for such a trifling occasion." ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... Friend,—Herewith I forward, for thy acceptance, two small volumes, as a trifling testimony of the high estimation in which we have long held thy writings. So great was our desire to see thee when my wife and I were, a few springs ago, making a ramble on foot through some parts of your beautiful country, that nothing but the most ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... to glean some scanty memorial of his personal adventures. As often happens, the labors of the lesser author who pursues but a single object may encounter more success on that score than the writer whose view embraces a prodigious range; and many trifling details, too inconsiderable to find place in the pages of the annals of a state, reward the inquiry that confines itself to the elucidation of the conduct ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... victim of ecclesiastical tyranny and cruelty. He knew that the ascetic young monk had been no favourite with his brethren at Chadwater; and if they could bring against him some charge of heresy, however trifling, it was like enough that he might be silently done to death, as others of his calling had been for less fearful offences. Monastic buildings held their dark secrets, as the world was just beginning to know; and only a short while back he had heard a whisper that it was not wise for a monk to be ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... to-day; and I will then ask you, whether upon the testimony of such a man as this, you will convict one of the most suspicious characters that ever was produced in a court of justice; whether you would in any cause, of ever so trifling importance, give the least consideration to it. "I ask your lordship's pardon of my letter of yesterday, and which was written under the supposition of being treated with silent contempt;" so that this gentlemen put ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... her right mind would refuse their son. Roger was willing, Roger's parents were willing, Rita's parents were eager for the match; every person and everything needful were on his side, save one small girl. Roger thought that trifling obstacle would soon yield to the pressure of circumstances, the persuasion of conditions, and the charm of his own personality. He and the conditions had been warring upon the small obstacle for many months, and still it was as small as ever—but no smaller. The non-aggressive, feather-bed stubbornness ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... them to bury any one. Sir Moses asked them if persons of other religions were also charged for the privilege of burying their dead; they replied in the affirmative, but said the sum that others paid was very trifling as compared to the charges made ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... wretches, whom I'd scratched, no doubt, Professed to find—but that's a trifling matter. Now, when the flood of noble books was out I raised o'er all that land a joyous shout, Till I was thought as mad ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... with apparent earnestness the purveyors of popular fiction and biography, and even patronise poetry and genteel social philosophy. Amongst them are to be found those to whom the sterner actualities of life are unfamiliar and repugnant, for whom the practice of trifling with books is rather an ornament than an occupation, a mode of killing time rather than using it. They, too, read to be distracted, choosing an emasculate literature which panders to their ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... point. Now, I know there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed. By the way, since you are interested in these little problems, and since you are good enough to chronicle one or two of my trifling experiences, you may be interested in this." He threw over a sheet of thick pink-tinted note paper which had been lying open upon the table. "It came by the last post," said ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... writes Mrs. Piozzi (Synonomy, i. 2l7), 'much delighted in by the upper ranks of society, who upon a trifling embarrassment in his affairs hanged himself behind the stable door, to the astonishment of all who knew him as the liveliest companion and most agreeable converser breathing. "What upon earth," said ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... did not think that this small deliverance was all that Christ meant by these great words: 'Of them which Thou gavest Me have I lost none!' He saw that it was one case, a very trifling one, a merely transitory one, yet ruled by the same principles which are at work in the immensely higher region to which the words properly refer. Of course they have their proper fulfilment in the spiritual realm, and are not fulfilled, in the highest sense, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... the village, after my quiet meal at the Black Bull Inn, which poor Branwell Bronte had so often frequented, I stopped to make some trifling purchases at a stationery store, and casually asked the proprietor—a small, delicate-looking man, with a bright eye and a highly intellectual countenance—if he remembered the Bronte sisters. It was a fortunate question, for he knew them well, and was a personal friend of the authoress of ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... moment combined to sit heavily upon poor Schneidekoupon, and to remove his disturbing influence from the scene, at least until other men should get what they wanted. These were merely the trifling incidents that fell within Mrs. Lee's observation. She felt an atmosphere of bargain and intrigue, but she could only imagine how far it extended. Even Carrington, when she spoke to him about it, only laughed and ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... confined entirely to comparisons between different courses, different kinds of clubs and balls, and different scores. Belleair turns up its nose at Palm Beach. It considers the game of golf as played at Palm Beach a trifling game, and it feels that the winter population of Palm Beach wastes a lot of time talking about clothes and the stock market when it might be discussing cleeks, midirons, and mashies. The woman who thinks ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... work was not apparent, were apt to regard the jealous arrangement of his hours as the mere whim of a self-absorbed dilettante. But that troubled Hugh little, because he realised that his only hope of doing sound and worthy work lay in making a sacrifice of the ordinary and trifling occupations of life, of forming definite habits, for the want of which so many capable and ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Mr. Parsons' peculiar proceedings were beginning to arouse my suspicions. I could not fail to notice that he had twice told me to make trifling purchases, and that, although he had received some pennies in exchange for the first florin, he yet brought out a half-crown for the wax lights. My dawning suspicions grew stronger on the way home on a penny omnibus, when he offered ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... had passed over the figure, leaving it through all peacefully asleep. A daughter of a king, with the Douglas Heart to guard her, she would be too noble in her stony slumber to show that she minded losing her features and a few other trifling accessories which might spoil the looks of less ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... blank (I dare say) Italian simplicities. The charm was, as always in Italy, in the tone and the air and the happy hazard of things, which made any positive pretension or claimed importance a comparatively trifling question. We slid, in the steep little place, more or less down hill; we wished, stomachically, we had rather addressed ourselves to a tea-basket; we suffered importunity from unchidden infants who swarmed about ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... wouldn't see the difference in him. Now she carefully prepared Jimmy to face that difference, and gave him his cue for the part she wished him to play. Jimmy felt very important as he listened to her explanations, trifling seriously with his ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... generality. By the strength of her feelings, and the activity of her affections, time was made more comprehensive, and circumstance more weighty than to others. A day would produce changes in her which the impressions of a week would not effect in less passionate natures; and what were trifling incidents to the minds about her, were great ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... and therefore things to be forearmed against in some degree, were serious matters. Dr. Grimstone was a quick-tempered man, with a copious flow of words and a taste for indulging it. He was also strongly prejudiced against many breaches of discipline which others might have considered trifling, and whenever he had discovered any such breach he could not rest until by all the means in his power he had ascertained exactly how many were implicated in the ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... alone, to read a sermon into her happy hours of high 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 ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... feet. This was generally the occasion of much mirth. And this was in all probability a survival of an old Scandinavian custom under which the Norse bride was conducted by her maiden friends to undergo a bath, called the bride's bath, a sort of religious purification. On the marriage day, every trifling circumstance which would have passed without notice at other times was noted and scanned for omens of good or evil. If the morning was clear and shining, this betokened a happy cheerful life; if dull and raining, the contrary result might be anticipated. ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... rendered necessary; and yet, till I was without them, I was in no degree aware of the many pleasurable sensations derived from the little elegancies and refinements enjoyed by the middle classes in Europe. There were many circumstances, too trifling even for my gossiping pages, which pressed themselves daily and hourly upon us, and which forced us to remember painfully that we were not at home. It requires an abler pen than mine to trace the connection which I am persuaded exists between these deficiencies and ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... Marquesan poetry and music was being suffered to die out with a single dispirited generation. The full import is apparent only to one acquainted with other Polynesian races; who knows how the Samoan coins a fresh song for every trifling incident, or who has heard (on Penrhyn, for instance) a band of little stripling maids from eight to twelve keep up their minstrelsy for hours upon a stretch, one song following another without pause. ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... used to ground of all sorts, and was not to be stopped by such trifling impediments as rocks, bushes, ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... Trifling as it may seem, the first measure of the new government pertained to the etiquette to be observed at receptions, dinners, etc., in which there was more pomp and ceremony than at the present time. Washington himself ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... to feed a good pony than it does a bad one, so he now decides to dispose of his hack for a trifling sum, and in its stead to purchase a griffin, which may be a potential winner of the champions. He orders his mafoo to inspect the new season's griffins as they arrive, and arrange with the dealer to bring ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... convincing that differentiation which divides so sharply the sexual activity of the female from that of the male. The serious part in sex belongs to the one who gives life, while in comparison the activity of the male can almost be regarded as trifling. And I believe that this view will be found to be amply supported by facts if we turn now to consider the later and human relation of the sexes. In all cases it is the same, the serious business in sex belongs to the woman. As it was in the beginning, so, it seems to me, ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... Monroe, he appeared much affected, and spoke with some degree of asperity on the subject, which I endeavored to moderate," says Lear, "as I always did on such occasions. On his returning to bed, he appeared to be in perfect health, excepting the cold before mentioned, which he considered as trifling, and had been remarkably ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... The elder aunt, Mrs. Goldbrook, did not share her sister's character as a human rest-cure; most people found her rather disturbing, chiefly, perhaps, from her habit of asking unimportant questions with enormous solemnity. Her manner of enquiring after a trifling ailment gave one the impression that she was more concerned with the fortunes of the malady than with oneself, and when one got rid of a cold one felt that she almost expected to be given its postal address. Probably her manner was merely the defensive outwork ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... not even seasoned with the salt of the philosophers. Neglecting the rules of the Arts and throwing away the standard works of the Makers of the Arts, they catch in their sophisms, as in spiders' webs, the midges of their empty trifling phrases. Philosophy cries out that her garments are rent and torn asunder; she modestly covers her nakedness with certain carefully prepared remnants [but] she is neither consulted by the good man nor does she console the ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... be confessed that the business in hand was nearly always Miss Clegg's business, but since Mrs. Lathrop, in her position of experienced adviser, was deeply interested in Susan's exposition of her own affairs, that trifling circumstance ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... touch of her soft fingers. Then he turned his eyes upon me with a look that seemed an apology for dividing his allegiance, while Grace smiled under lowered lashes, as though she did not wish to meet my gaze. It was a trifling incident, but inwardly I thanked the good horse for it. Later, when we came up out of a roaring ford, through which I carefully led Caesar, with the stream boiling about my waist, into a dim avenue, she looked down ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... angry with me yet! You said you would forgive!" The gentle reproach minimized the crime, and enlarged the punishment. It was Kate's way. The pretty pout on the rosy lips was the same as it used to be when she chided him for some trifling forgetfulness of her wishes. ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... active engagements, like every other natural appetite, may be carried to excess; and men may debauch in amusements, as well as in the use of wine, or other intoxicating liquors. At first, a trifling stake, and the occupation of a moderate passion, may have served to amuse the gamester; but when the drug becomes familiar, it fails to produce its effect: The play is made deep, and the interest increased, to awaken his attention; he is carried on ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... fulfil precisely all the duties of his ministry, down to the humblest. What he would have liked, above all, was to pass his life in studying the Scriptures and meditating on the dogmas—not from a love of trifling with theories, but because he believed such knowledge necessary to whoever gave forth the Word of God. Most of the priests of that age arrived at the priesthood without any previous study. They had to improvise, as quick as they could, a ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... express, which Paul—unhurried yet singularly efficient—did not fail to secure. That done, Honor was confided to the care of an assiduous guard, and was supplied with fruit, chocolate, and more newspapers than she could possibly digest;—trifling services which the girl, in her great loneliness, rated ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... immediate influence on the man; the eventual effect on the race remains to be considered. Now, if the first result be anything, the second must in the end be everything. For however trifling it be in the individual instance, it goes on accumulating with each successive generation, like compound interest. The choosing of a wife by family suffrage is not simply an exponent of the impersonal state of things, it is a power toward bringing ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... her father, hoarsely, and he suddenly caught her to him and kissed her, and bade her run away to her Aunt Ruth with some trifling message or other. I could see her childish question tortured him, by the strained look of his face, as he approached the window. He had not known I was there, but when he saw me he said almost irritably, only it was the irritability of ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... our friend's Christian name very well, but he did not choose to have it appear that his august memory had been laden with a thing so trifling. ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... somewhat afraid," said the baroness, anxiously. "He was of late so nervous and irritable, you know, that the most trifling occurrence caused him to tremble and covered his brow with perspiration. I am afraid these stirring communications may make too powerful an ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... will write a letter to "The Atlantic," to say that these are very trifling uses. The communication of useful information is never trifling. It is as important to save a nice child from mortification on examination-day, as it is to tell Mr. Fremont that he is not elected President. If, however, the reader is distressed, because these illustrations ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... beaten by a trifling body of men, but fatigue and want of time prevent me from giving you any of the details, until I have the happiness of seeing you at Mount Vernon, which I now most earnestly wish for, since we are driven in thus far. A feeble state of health obliges me to halt ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... parish nurse, wearing for the first time her new uniform, followed in his wake. And still the treble shrieks continued—the terrible, childish shrieks. The women in the audience shivered and turned pale. Master Jack! And only a moment before he had been playing at sickness. It was ill-work trifling with serious things. The pretty lamb! What could ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... rightly to come foremost in the provident study of the facts that precede marriage—a subject which craven fear and ignorance combine to keep out of sight, yet which must now see the light of day. For the writer would be false to his task, and guilty of a mere amateur trifling with the subject, who should spend page after page in discussing the choice of marriage, the best age for marriage, and so forth, without declaring that as an absolutely essential preliminary it is necessary that the girl who mates shall at least, whatever else be or be not possible, ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... those who were perfect: but he would not. He determined to know nothing among them but Jesus Christ, and him crucified; and he told them, You disputers of this world, while you are deceiving simple souls with enticing words of man's wisdom and philosophy, falsely so called, you are trifling away your own souls and your hearers' into hell. What you need, and what they need, is not philosophy, but a new heart and a right spirit. Sin is your disease; and you know that it is so, in the depth of your hearts. Then ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... rectory parlour, a few minutes later, Uniacke and Sir Graham discussed this apparently trifling incident. A feeling of unreasonable alarm besieged Uniacke's soul, but he strove to fight ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... of bread and butter, what am I to do? (I was obliged this morning to borrow fifty dollars from Theodore, who remembered gleefully that he has been owing me a trifling sum for the past four years, and in fact has preserved a note to this effect.) Within the last week I have hatched a desperate plan: I have made up my mind to take a wife—a rich one, bien entendu. Why not accept the goods of the gods? It is not ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... into particulars, so that you may comprehend it; and, at the same time, in this trifling digression from the thread of my narrative, I hope, young friends, to teach you a lesson of political wisdom that may benefit both you and your country when you are old enough ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... this duty, and one by one the men were told off into the other boats. They then examined everything that was in the boats; a few trifling articles were suggested as likely to prove useful; we searched for them, and then took our places in the skiff. As we pulled round under the bows, we could see, through the clear water, the immense hole which ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... is strong. I have well thought of that. It drops as fiercely down on us as if We were to be its prey. I've seen a gull That hovered with beak pointing and eyes fixt Where, underneath its swaying flight, some fish Was trifling, fooling in the waves: then, souse! And the gull has fed. And love on us ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... up our slightest human affairs with an 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 ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... She required a regular amount of time given to music study each day. I am so grateful that she was strict with me, for my knowledge of piano and its literature is the greatest joy to me now. To my thinking all children should have piano lessons; the cost is trifling compared to the benefits they receive. They should be made to study, whether they wish to or not. They are not prepared to judge what is good for them, and if they are given this advantage they will be glad ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... and coal that followed it, the car had so protected him that he was not seriously hurt. Had his mule started forward the heavily loaded car must have run over and killed him. Fortunately Harry was too experienced a miner to allow such a trifling thing as a blast to disturb his equanimity, especially as the two false starts already made had placed him at some little distance from it. To be sure, he had shaken his head at the flying bits of coal, and had even kicked out viciously at one large piece that fell ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... intended for transport service ought, as their first duty, to be summoned to attend such a course. If these educational courses were held in the autumn in the training camps of the troops, they would entail little extra cost, and an inestimable advantage would be gained with a very trifling outlay. ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... dread of Napoleon's re-appearance at the head of a fresh one, but also by his plighted faith; for every thing is of a mixed character in the moral as well as the physical world, and even in the most trifling of our actions there is a variety of different motives. But, finally, his good faith yielded to necessity, and his dread to a greater dread. He saw himself, it was said, threatened with a species of forfeiture by his people and ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... her fever and misery. A chilling consolation fell from them upon her, like a cold dew. She felt herself shrink to imperceptible proportions. What did they matter, the struggles of the maggots who crawled about the folds of the globe, itself the most trifling and insignificant of all the countless worlds which people the aimless disorder of the universe? What difference did it make? Anything they did was so soon indistinguishable from anything else. The easiest way . . . to yield to whatever had the strongest present force . . . that was as ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... to one, and attempt to get ahead in this way, taking turns; but at the close of a day of hard toil for themselves and their cattle, they would find themselves a quarter or a half a mile from the place they left in the morning. The heavy rains raised all the watercourses; the most trifling streams were impassable. Wood, fit for bridging, was often not to be had, and in such cases the only resource was to halt for the freshets to subside—a matter in the case of the headwaters of the Chariton, for instance, of over three ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... sufficient in this case, to be learned, since he who would have a collection worthy of the name of a library must of all things have a thorough knowledge of books, that he may distinguish such as are valuable from the trifling. He must likewise understand the price of Books, otherwise he may purchase some at too high a rate, and undervalue others: all which requires no small ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... in this regard. Details seemingly of trifling moment but which may prove important are likely to escape one's memory. Her habit was to note every point of progress in a case and often review every point from the beginning, fitting them into their proper places and giving each its due importance. A digest of such ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... do not recognise your love, or that your love is but a trifling consideration with me, you will not believe. What else should impel me to die if not my devotion to you and to Germany, and the need of proving this devotion to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is apt to want the skirt a little wider and the hem a half-inch deeper than the regular uniform. And she asks to have more buttonholes, which means more buttons, and an extra ruffle on the waist. But she begs me so politely and appears so thankful, if I grant these trifling favors, that I find myself indulging her too frequently. She does the extra work herself, cheerfully and neatly, if not speedily, but closely watched by others. She has learned as if by intuition that variety is the spice of life, but she seems unconscious of ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... Akakievitch. They decided to make a collection for him on the spot, but the officials had already spent a great deal in subscribing for the director's portrait, and for some book, at the suggestion of the head of that division, who was a friend of the author; and so the sum was trifling. ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... circumstances gave him consequence, drew on him general ridicule. Yet against so poor an orator, all the eloquence of the philosophical Girondists, all the terrible powers of his associate Danton, employed in a popular assembly, could not enable them to make an effectual resistance. It may seem trifling to mention, that in a nation where a good deal of prepossession is excited by amiable manners and beauty of external appearance, the person who ascended to the highest power was not only ill-looking, but singularly mean in person, awkward and constrained in his address, ignorant ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... flagging purpose is in want of a stimulant, the most trifling change in the circumstances of the moment often applies the animating influence. Even such a small interruption as the appearance of his cat rendered this service to Ovid. To use the common and expressive phrase, it had ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... strain, weakened, attenuated, diluted as it were in a bucket of water—and I refrained from finishing my speech. I had intended to say: "Crack this brute's head for him." I still felt the conclusion to be sound. But it is no trifling responsibility to counsel parricide to any ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... pick some flaws—very well—but I do it unwillingly. I notice one thing—which one may notice also in my books, and in all books whether written by man or God: trifling carelessness of statement or Expression. If I think that you meant that she took the lizard from the water which she had drawn from the well, it is evidence—it is almost proof—that your words were not as clear as they should have been. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... went to an Island to catch fish, and a disagreement taking place between two of the natives, about some trifling affair, the particulars of which I did not learn, one of them took a spear belonging to the other, and after breaking it across his knee, with one half of it killed his antagonist, and left him. The parents of the man killed, being present, laid him out on some ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... would be comparatively powerless to preserve the streams of justice from pollution. The fee-system poisoned the morality of the law-courts. From the highest judge to the lowest usher, every person connected with a court of justice was educated to receive small sums of money for trifling services, to be always looking out for paltry dues or gratuities, to multiply occasions for demanding, and reasons for pocketing petty coins, to invent devices for legitimate peculation. In time the system produced such complications of custom, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... "this child is a beginner. Is it right for us to refuse so trifling an encouragement? Who knows to what useful ends it may lead? You remember how difficult it was for me to procure the plants, and how keenly you felt my trouble. Will you inflict a keener one on this child, whose heart seems bent on doing something for herself, and on whom disappointment ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... announces that not less than one thousand five hundred yards of the aeroplane linen which is being disposed of to the public will be sold to one purchaser. In the event of the purchaser deciding to use it as a pocket-handkerchief he can have it hemstitched for a trifling sum. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... his daughter answered him. "A trifling affair 'twixt M. la Boulaye and me, with which I ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... gone, than away went her Highness to Madame de Moeurs, "a marvellous wise and well-spoken gentlewoman and a grave," and informed her and the Count, with some trifling exaggeration, that the vile Englishman, secretary to the odious Leicester, had just been there, abusing and calumniating the Countess in most lewd and abominable fashion. He had also, she protested, used "very evil speeches of all the ladies in the country." For her ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... acted two or three parts, Mortimer, Shylock, and some of those little, trifling characters [laughter], with comparative success. But shortly after, and wisely, I went into the ranks to study my profession—not to commence at the top and go to the bottom [laughter]—but to begin at the bottom and go to the top, if possible. As a young man, I sought for pastures ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... young company till midnight; and the thickets of the garden seem to be contrived to all advantages of gallantry; after they have been refreshed with the collation, which is here seldom omitted, at a certain cabaret, in the middle of this paradise, where the forbidden fruits are certain trifling tarts, neats' tongues, salacious meats, and bad Rhenish; for which the gallants pay sauce, as indeed they do at all ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... these matters when the door opened and a handsome young gentleman, arrayed in the height of the fashion, entered the room. I rose to my feet and began to apologize for my intrusion and to explain that I had been brought there by a beggar to whom I had rendered some trifling service in the street. The young gentleman listened, with a smiling face, and then, extending ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... almost certainly be spoilt for them. He realised, with an odd mixture of pleasure and annoyance, that, for the first time in his life, he was so dependent upon another person that his happiness was in her keeping. The days were completely wasted upon trifling, immaterial things, for after three weeks of such intimacy and intensity all the usual occupations were unbearably flat and beside the point. The least intolerable occupation was to talk to St. John about ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... for the dogs, Henri?" asked Jean. "It's only a trifling sprain of the wrist, which Iowaka can cure with ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... of correspondence was a rich store-house for historical as for all other research, and the most faithful mirror of an epoch in which so much of the worth of past times and so much spirit, cleverness, and talent were evaporated and dissipated in trifling. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... It was with no trifling sense of relief that I found the place really picturesque, when we arrived. We had, it is true, to put up with a comfortless drive of three or four miles in a primitive, jolting, yellow omnibus, which crawled at stated hours of the ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... delivered at a certain place and time, against a certain force, will crush it; but does it not require infinite skill and power to select the place and time with certainty? A broken bridge, swollen stream, or even the most trifling incident, which no man can foresee or overrule, may disarrange and render futile the best-laid plans, and lead to defeat and disaster. After a battle we can easily look back and see where mistakes have been made; but it is more difficult, if not impossible, to look ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... bubbles, by the town drawn in, Suffered at first some trifling stakes to win: But what unequal hazards do they run! Each time they write they venture all they've won: The Squire that's buttered still, is sure to be undone. This author, heretofore, has found your favour, But pleads ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... an hour later as he went downstairs to meet her. He had finished his line of figures sedately when the man looked in to say that she was below; and had sat yet a moment longer, trying to remember mechanically what it was he had determined to tell her. Bah! it was trifling and unimportant; words did not affect the question; all the wrecked convents in the world could not touch the one fact that lay in fire at his heart. He would say ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... men and women to have for each other—mysterious, inexplicable, yet real as Nature. It was as it should be. These thoughts passed through Disston's mind swiftly. Up there on top of the world, in the moonlight, any consideration which interfered seemed trifling and indefensible. ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... physical enfeeblement, but that it also impairs the usual activity and energy of the brain. In other words, a high temperature is invariably accompanied by a certain loss of mental power. In most persons this loss is comparatively trifling, and has hardly any perceptible effect on their mode of life and conduct; in others, it assumes more serious proportions. In some who are susceptible to cosmical influences, and for one reason or another are already on the borderland of crime, the decrease ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... I have been inconsiderate in urging you so vigorously," continued her grandmother. "I thought I had observed a tendency to fritter. I wished you to stop trifling with Grant Arkwright—or, rather, to stop his trifling with you. Come, now, my dear, let me put an end to this engagement. And you will marry Grant, and your future ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... people generally, in that region, who did not come under the direct influence of the Johnsons. The inhabitants deposed Alexander White, the Sheriff of Tryon county, who had, from the first, made himself obnoxious. The first shot, in the war west of the Hudson, was fired by Alexander White. On some trifling pretext he arrested a patriot by the name of John Fonda, and committed him to prison. His friends, to the number of fifty, went to the jail and released him; and from the prison they proceeded to the sheriff's lodgings ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... Sarah Fosdick. The rest, with the exception of Jay Fosdick and Wm. H. Eddy, were young, unmarried men, as, for instance, Stanton, Smith, Spitzer, Elliott, Antoine, John Baptiste, and the two Indians. It was comparatively a trifling effort, but it seemed to have the effect of utterly depressing the hopes of several of these men. With no one in the camps dependent upon them, without any ties of relationship, or bonds of affection, ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... curious class of miners known as 'gambusinos' rove through the valleys of the Sierra Madre armed with pick and pan, passing their lives in hunting mines, as pigs hunt truffles. If they come upon a mine, they never try to work it, but sell the secret for a trifling sum, and, drinking out the money, start on again to find the mines worked by the Aztecs, till an Apache bullet or arrow stops them, their El Dorado still ahead, or they are found beside their pick and ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... witches become exposed to contempt. Bunyan never believed that the great and unchangeable principles which the Creator has ordained to govern nature could be disturbed by the freaks of poor old crazy women, for purposes trifling and insignificant. No, such a man could never have circulated a report that a woman was turned into a bay mare, and her chemise into a horse-cloth and saddle! Unbridled sectarian feeling perverted some ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... whose encumbrances were so trifling, sacrifice prospects that were so glorious? Could he not part with a portion of the estate,—with the reversion of half of it, so that the house of Newton, Newton Priory, with its grouse and paddocks and adjacent farms, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... bespeak the existence of a climate at times much more severe than a latitude of 16 degrees 6 minutes south, would lead one to anticipate. The remains of small fires, a well greased bark pillow, a head ornament of seabird's feathers, together with several other trifling articles, strewn upon the floors of these wigwams, proved that they had ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... Catfish of our rivers has been described as a new species not less than twenty-five times, on account of differences real or imaginary, but comparatively trifling in value."[21] ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... of the dread hour—reaches a point beyond which human nature has no power to endure. If he could share his burden with his friend Horatio,—but Marcellus thrusts himself forward, and he checks the half-uttered confidence, and struggles to put aside their curiosity with trifling words. Anything, to be alone and free to think on what he has heard and what he has to do. And then,—as he is swearing them to secrecy before escaping from them,—there, from under their feet and out of the solid earth, comes the voice whose adieu is yet ringing in his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... of this trifling blemish, the writer cannot say that after five hours of such solid music, a Parisian prefers a bit of ribbon to a musical masterpiece. You heard how the work was applauded; it will go through five hundred performances! If the ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... left Port Jackson on the 22nd of December, with a fresh northerly breeze, which continued until the evening of the 24th, when we were abreast of Cape Howe. After this a heavy gale of wind from South-West obliged us to run into Twofold Bay for shelter, and to repair some trifling damage which we had ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... his compassion. He wrote a speech for that unhappy man, when called up to receive judgment of death; besides two petitions, one to the king, and another to the queen; and a sermon to be preached by Dodd to the convicts in Newgate. It may appear trifling to add, that, about the same time, he wrote a prologue to the comedy of a Word to the Wise, written by Hugh Kelly. The play, some years before, had been damned by a party on the first night. It was revived ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... in the tents appeared rather shy, but after accepting of some trifling presents, they became quite communicative, and gave us some of their toys in exchange; then walking round us, surveyed us narrowly, as if we were a new species of animals. Most of them had never before seen an European. Uttakiyok's ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch
... a stone-mason of a humble kind in Alfredston, and as soon as he had found a substitute for himself in his aunt's little business, he offered his services to this man for a trifling wage. Here Jude had the opportunity of learning at least the rudiments of freestone-working. Some time later he went to a church-builder in the same place, and under the architect's direction became handy at restoring the dilapidated masonries of ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... his heart Bunting looked back to this last night with a feeling of shame and self-rebuke. Whatever had made such horrible thoughts and suspicions as had possessed him suddenly come into his head? And just because of a trifling thing like that blood. No doubt Mr. Sleuth's nose had bled—that was what had happened; though, come to think of it, he had mentioned brushing ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... at the head of which stood Frederick IV. of the Palatinate, while a little later a large number of the Catholic princes bound themselves together in the /League/ and accepted Maximilian of Bavaria as their leader (1609). Thus Germany was divided once again into two hostile camps, and only a very trifling incident was required to plunge the country into another civil war. For a time it seemed as if the succession to the Duchy of Cleves was to be the issue that would lead to the catastrophe. Duke John William of Cleves had died without any direct heir, and as the religious issue was still undecided ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... looked about her. With the trifling exception that there was no roof, it was whole. And the roof was not necessary, for the floors of the upper story served instead. There was a narrow passage with a room on either side, and ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to do a trifling service, hung eight pictures of the proper size in the same frames, taking them from among the less valuable pictures ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... do not know why my thoughts should grow more gloomy by reason of the difficulties of mastication. I once read the story of an Englishman who hanged himself because they had brought him his tea without sugar. There are hours in life when the most trifling cross takes the form of a calamity. Our tempers are like an opera-glass, which makes the object small or great according to the end ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... 53: The wolf swims.—Ver. 304. One commentator remarks here, that there was nothing very wonderful in a dead wolf swimming among the sheep without devouring them. Seneca is, however, too severe upon our author in saying that he is trifling here, in troubling himself on so serious an occasion with what sheep and wolves are doing: for he gravely means to say, that the beasts of prey are terrified to that degree that they forget ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... my friend Heraclitus, who had a trifling suit about a petty farm at Rhodes, first showed the judges that his cause was just, and then at the finish cried, "I will not entreat you: nor do I care what sentence you pass. It is you who are on your trial, not I!"—And so he ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
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