"A trifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the stalls I must admit that I trembled. In pre-war days it was occasionally hinted that bazaar prices were a trifle high. What would they be now? How could I face the Bazaar profiteer? Sums, reminding me of schooldays, ran in my head, "If milk be a shilling a quart what will be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... of will and character; but it was in reality only a covering for weakness. He had his will about the inscription—a trifle; but they had their will about the crucifixion. He was strong enough to browbeat them, but he was not strong enough to ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... forgive you," said Mary, affectionately: "the offense to me is but a trifle; it is not that I regret. It is the sin we commit against God, when we give way to improper feelings of any kind, we should mourn over. He has commanded us to be patient and forgiving; and it makes me sad to think how ...
— The Good Resolution • Anonymous
... Count Afflisio. He told me that after dinner there would be a faro bank in which I would have an interest, and he therefore requested me not to play. I accepted the offer. Afflisio won: a captain of the name of Beccaxia threw the cards at his face—a trifle to which the self-styled count was accustomed, and which did not elicit any remark from him. When the game was over, we repaired to the coffee-room, where an officer of gentlemanly appearance, staring at me, began to smile, but not ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the West that characterized the governing authorities in the South was exhibited by eastern men in the North and, correspondingly, the West, Federal and Confederate, was unduly sensitive to the indifference, perhaps, also, a trifle unnecessarily alarmed by symptoms of its own danger. Nevertheless, its danger was real. Each state gave in its adherence to the Confederacy separately and, therefore, every single state in the slavery belt had a problem to solve. The fight ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... and Mrs. Rogers, their daughter Sheila, their guest Carmel, and a chauffeur. Major Rogers was still suffering from the effects of wounds, and was more or less of a semi-invalid, a condition which made him fussy at times, and too independent at others, for directly he felt a trifle better he would immediately begin to break all the rules that the doctors had laid down for his treatment. He was an amusing, humorous sort of man, who would jest between spasms of pain, and generally found something to laugh at in the various episodes of their journey. There ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... occasionally to my private copy whatever more I can collect and correct; and shall perhaps, but leave behind me materials for a future edition, in which should be included what I have hitherto omitted. Yet it is very vain in me to expect that any body should care for such a trifle after the novelty is worn off; I ought to be content with the favourable reception I have found; so much beyond my first expectations, that, except in two Magazines, not a word of censure has passed ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... these lads, the handsome one, was dreamy, contemplative, and a trifle elegaic; the other, ardent, impetuous, and always in action. They were two natures which completed each other; a priceless blessing to every friendship that is destined to last. Both had the same bar-sinister ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... constructed, with capricious bends, bold slopes, steep hills, and deep valleys. They do not cost much and are not much in their way, only their trains run off or jump off as they please. The railway from Tampa Town to Stony Hill was but a trifle, and wanted neither much time nor much ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... here and what goes for friendship outside are vastly different. The matter of devoting one's life to a friend or to a duty, real or fancied, is only a trifle to these men who abide in the wilderness. I know of a Chinaman and a Cree who lived and died the most devoted friends. You see the Missourian hovering about the last camping-place of his companion. Behold the factor! He has left the Hudson Bay Company after thirty ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... meanest sins. For sometimes the camera has its mordant moods, and amazes you by its saturnine estimate of your merits. This man was perhaps a little out of harmony with the garments of chivalry, and a trifle complacent and vain at the time. But the photograph of him is so cynical and contemptuous, so merciless in its exposure of his element of foolishness, that we may almost fancy the spook of Carlyle had got mixed up with the chemicals upon the film. Yet it never really ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... often made unexceptionable soldiers; but in this case there was no reasonable proportion of veterans, or men who had seen any service. The Bishop of Killala was assured by an intelligent officer of the king's army that the victors were within a trifle of being beaten. I was myself told by a gentlemen who rode as a volunteer on that day, that, to the best of his belief, it was merely a mistaken order of the rebel chiefs causing a false application ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... of discovery and of trade also stimulated the Dutch in making explorations. In the vessel "Half Moon" they sailed up the Hudson, and after building several forts, they finally established themselves in New Netherlands. Peter Minuit for a trifle bought from the Indians the whole of Manhattan Island. In locating on Manhattan Island, the Dutch secretly believed that they had secured the oyster while the English settlements further north and south were the two shells only. The development of almost three centuries and ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... released convict is a shrinking coward, fearful that each person he meets knows his record. The new, plain suit of clothes he is given upon leaving prison is worn only until he can find a secondhand clothing store where it may be exchanged for something less good, but clothed in which he will have a trifle less fear of identification. If he succeeds in getting employment by changing his name and concealing his past, he lives in mortal terror lest ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... brothers and fathers' sisters, nor again between those of mothers' brothers and mothers' sisters; nor is there any large difference between those of male and female cousins, but it is apparently a fact that the group of "brothers" is a trifle smaller than that of uncles on either side. It seems, therefore, that the generation of the Subjects contains a somewhat smaller number of individuals than that of either of their Parents, being to that extent significant of a lessening population ...
— Noteworthy Families (Modern Science) • Francis Galton and Edgar Schuster
... that ever seen the man might know that. One of his heels is a trifle shorter than the other, which makes him halt a little, an' he has a bunion as big as an egg on ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... attempt has been a very timid one. I have endeavoured to confine myself within my means, or, rather, like the possessor of an extended estate, to hand it down in an unembarrassed condition. I have laid a trifle of timber here and there, and grubbed up a little brushwood, but merely to open the view, and I think I can descry in the eye of the gentleman who is to move the first resolution that he distinctly sees his way. Thanking you for ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... his fingers and he wore a small shield brooch, but there was no heavy equipment. His distorter staff, Barra noted, was a plain rod, tipped by a small jewel. Serviceable, to be sure, but rather short in range. Barra's lip curled a trifle. ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole
... as to that, but unanimity brought no comfort, until we all together hit on a notion that did ease our feelings a trifle. Coutlass and his two friends were sitting on camp-stools in the open where they could have a full view of our doings. Assuming the camping-ground to be equally divided between their party and ours, they were well within our portion. We ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... days on the outmost lines of our march to the summit of the world. Beverley was not more a hero than any other young, brave, unconquerable patriot of the frontier army. His situation simply tried him a trifle harder than was common. But it must be remembered that he had Love with him, and where Love is there can be no ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... above his head, and the next moment a perfect storm of bullets from falcon and falconet, patarero, saker, and swivel, came hurtling from the battery across the narrow water toward the ship. But the gallant cavalier had been just a trifle too eager to display his valour, for most of the missiles fell short, having been fired at rather too long a range, while those which hit were so nearly spent that only a few of them lodged in the solid woodwork of the ship's bulwarks, and not a man ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... chap As like him as he's now like me, Shall climb into his mother's lap, For comfort and for sympathy, And he shall know what now I know, And see through eyes a trifle dim, The mother of the long ago Who daily spent her strength ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... think I should have married her, and that cheerfully, I can assure you, if it had not been that on certain details of moral weakness her past life inspired me with doubts, and her present with uneasiness. No man is perfect; I was a trifle jealous. ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... his education. He disapproved of France in the lump. A certain knowledge of the language one must have; enough to order dinner and buy a theatre ticket; but more he did not seek. He disliked the Empire and the Emperor particularly, but this was a trifle; he disliked most the French mind. To save himself the trouble of drawing up a long list of all that he disliked, he disapproved of the whole, once for all, and shut them figuratively out of his life. France was not serious, and he was not ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... coolly; "but he will not understand. Ah, that is better: raise his head a little.—Stand still, horse!" he cried angrily; and then, as Denis raised the King's head a trifle, the white handkerchief was bound tightly over the wound, and the scarf adjusted so that it retained it in its place and formed into a turban-like cover, while the King's jewelled cap was secured by its strap to the embroidered ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... well disposed of my young friend George, who, if you approve of it, will be entered next Monday a Commoner of University College, and will be chosen next day a Scholar of the House. The Scholarship is a trifle, but it gives him a right, upon a vacancy, to a Fellowship of more than sixty pounds a year if he resides, and I suppose of more than forty if he takes a Curacy or small living. The College is almost filled with my friends, and he will be ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell
... a trifle old!" said the others, a couple of days later, as they laughed after Sylvestre and his grandmother, "but they seem to get on fine ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... rock, gazed long and earnestly over the winding road. Presently he sat up, whipped off the red silk handkerchief about his neck, carefully wiped the eye and object glasses of his binocular and his own tired old eyes and, once more prone on his stomach, gazed again; then twisted the screw a trifle as though to get a better focus; gazed still another time; lowered the glass; rose to his knees, his eyes gleaming brilliantly and his teeth setting hard; once more levelled the glass and looked with all his soul in his eyes and then slowly let the faithful binocular fall to ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... "They seem just a trifle large, maybe," said Elnora dubiously, and Wesley knelt to feel. He and Margaret thought them a fit, and then Elnora appealed to her mother. Mrs. Comstock appeared wiping her hands on her apron. She ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... lord, it's because I've a small, but precious document to deliver you, if you'll allow me to do so; which I feel it important myself to place in your hand." He drew from his breast a pocket-book and extracted thence a small unsealed envelope; retaining the latter a trifle helplessly in his hand while Lord Theign only opposed to this demonstration an unmitigated blankness. He went none the less bravely on. "I mentioned to you the last time we somewhat infelicitously met that I intended to appeal to ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... offsets it is a good practice to put them in rather deeply; not only are the new roots emitted from above the old ones, but the heart of the offset seems to be sustained during the warm and, perhaps, dry weather, by being set a trifle below the surface. This I have ever proved to be a sure and quick ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... danger of discovering that the gentlemanly person with whom he has been fraternizing is a faro-dealer, or that the lady who has half-fascinated him is Anonyma herself. Still, some consider the Brant rather slow, and many good folk were a trifle surprised when Mr. Edwin Salsbury and Mr. Charles Burnham arrived by the late stage from Wikhasset Station, with trunks enough for two first-class belles, and a most unexceptionable man-servant in gray livery, in charge ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... tricks with strychnine. In the Middle Ages, however, the pursuit of the scapegoat ran a vast deal further. When any great one died—a Black Prince or a Dauphin—it was always assumed on all hands that he must have been poisoned. True, poisoning may then have been a trifle more frequent; certainly the means of detecting it were far less advanced than in the days of Tidy and Lauder Brunton. Still, people must often have died natural deaths even in the Middle Ages—though nobody believed it. All the world began to speculate what Jane ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... elbow-deep in her week's cleaning and baking. John had the uncomfortable feeling of a man who knows himself in the way. He had only loitered around in order to see Denas and be sure that all was well with his girl. Then he was a trifle disappointed that she had not brought him his weekly paper. He went silently off to the boats, and Denas was annoyed and reproved by his patient look of disappointment. Women who are cleaning and baking are often, what is called ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... outside the inn; yet in his thin, cadaverous face there was an intangible something which marked him out as a child of the same parents. The brother on whom Margot was now gazing was considerably the younger of the two, and might have been handsome, given a trifle more flesh and animation. As it was, he looked gaunt and livid, and his shoulders were rounded, as with much ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... trained to the work. He knew something of rats, too, and many of his kind were famed in the land for their prowess in this direction. Jimmy Shaw's Jacko could finish off sixty rats in three minutes, and on one occasion made a record by killing a thousand in a trifle over an hour ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... large ironing for one of the families in the village, and having placed the clothes-frame where the dust from the open fire-place could not fall on the fine starched linens and muslins, she began to set her table for tea, at the same time counting over the gains of the week. Not a trifle in her calculations were the wages of Annorah, who came regularly every Saturday evening to add her ...
— Live to be Useful - or, The Story of Annie Lee and her Irish Nurse • Anonymous
... it is certain that the gallery had. All the evening they had been stewing in an atmosphere like that of the inner room of a Turkish bath, and they were ready for anything. It needed but a trifle to set them off. The lilt of that unspeakable Yankee melody supplied that trifle. Kay's malcontents, huddled in their seats by the window, were the first to break out. Feet began to stamp in time to the music—softly at first, then more loudly. The wooden dais gave ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... for that matter; for this was the land of "la manana," and the white element on Las Palomas easily adopted the easy-going methods of their Mexican neighbors. So on the day everything was in readiness. The ranch was a trifle over thirty miles from Shepherd's, which was a fair half day's ride, but as Miss Jean always traveled by ambulance, it was necessary to give her an early start. Las Palomas raised fine horses and mules, and the ambulance team for the ranch ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... the giants as with his own people at home, they having their troubles with the wicked, and the chiefs their share in being obliged to keep up their magic and know all that was going on in the world. Yea, for he would be a poor powwow and a necromancer worth nothing who could not foretell such a trifle as the day and hour when an enemy would be ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... The knowledge that Frenchy had shot a man did not trouble him in the least, so long as the accompanying circumstances and the motive were in accordance with the simple standards of Manicaland. Here came in the doubt, engendered by nothing more concrete or citable than a trifle of mystery in the man's manner, and some undefined quality that disagreed with the trader. He glanced over to him; the Frenchman was blowing rings of smoke and smiling at them. There was nothing in his face ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... in watching all that was going on within his mother's mind. "It is not I whom she kisses," he said, shrewdly; and his suspicions were confirmed by a trifle that proved how completely the past had taken possession of the poor woman's mind. She never ceased humming the words of a little song of D'Argenton's, which the poet was in the habit of singing himself at the ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... quantity of hair, either upon his head or face; but what he had, was of a reddish dye, and tortured into long corkscrew curls, through which he occasionally thrust some very dirty fingers, ornamented with large common rings. He was a trifle above the middle size, and apparently rather weak in the legs; but this circumstance by no means detracted from his own admiration of his top-boots, which he contemplated, in their elevated ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... the living-room has a raftered ceiling, the sidewalls, woodwork, settles by the fireplaces, open bookcases and floor, are all stained dark walnut. The floor colour is very dark, the sidewalls, woodwork and book shelves are a trifle lighter, and the ceiling boards still lighter between the almost black, heavy rafters. The mission furniture is dark brown, the hangings and cushions are of mahogany-coloured corduroy, and the floor is strewn with skins of animals. There are no pictures, ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... that the coachman should stop, and let him down at a point where the horses could readily turn. 'Not at all,' Lord Rosebery insisted, 'I'll drive you to the door and we'll manage to turn somehow.' A trifle anxious, Sir George waited on his door-step to see how ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... least. Rushcroft's real name is Otterbein Smith. Horrible, isn't it? He sprung from some place in Indiana, where the authors come from. Miss Thackeray was our ingenue. A trifle large for that sort of thing, perhaps, but—very sprightly, just the same. She's had her full growth upwards, but not outwards. Tommy Gray, the other member of the company, is driving a taxi in Hornville. He used to own his own car in Springfield, Mass., by the ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... to draw the line At going to tango teas, For, after all, I am fifty-nine And a trifle stiff in the knees; But I've had to give up billiards for "slosh," And ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... dethroning and killing a most popular sovereign, and at the same time to preserve the most amicable relations with the country, was rather a desperate undertaking. A force of ten thousand Spaniards, under Chiappin Vitelli, and other favorite officers of the Duke, would hardly prove a trifle to be overlooked, nor would their operations be susceptible of very friendly explanations. The Governor therefore, assured Philip that he "highly applauded his master for his plot. He could not help rendering infinite thanks to God for having made him vassal ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... as much surprised as you are, gentlemen; but it is a trifle, actually a trifle, compared with what has ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... next ten minutes thinking of it all. The words which he had spoken were so horrible that she could not get them out of her mind,—could not bring herself to look upon them as a trifle. The darkness of his countenance still dwelt with her,—and that absence of all tenderness, that coarse un-marital and yet marital roughness, which should not at any rate have come to him so soon. The whole man too was so different from ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... departure from God. That disobedience may be as virulently active in a trifle as in a deed that men call great. Self-will is the tap root of all sin, however labyrinthine the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... at ninepence an article and sells them to his customers at tenpence. The extra penny is his payment for acting as purveyor, and the customers recognise that it is an equitable charge which they pay contentedly. That is honest trading; and the trader makes a profit of a trifle over four pounds a month, or ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... a figure crossing the road, with Lynn held by the hand, and the red tricycle, and Max flanking it on the other side. It was a figure of merely medium height, more than a trifle inclined to stoutness, with an ordinary kindly face and shrewd eyes. He wore a white linen suit, creased all over with bad packing, and a soft shirt with a low collar. When he took off his old Panama hat, Miss Bibby saw, quite ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... all parties, and which were applied to him by "priests, good men, whose zeal outstripped their knowledge, and who in consequence spoke confidently, when they would have been wiser had they suspended their adverse judgment of those whom they were soon to welcome as brothers in communion." It is a trifle, but it strikes us as characteristic. Dr. Newman is one of the very few who have carried into his present communion, to a certain degree at least, an English habit of not letting off the blunders and follies of his own side, and of daring to think ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... asteroids and meteorites—stars and worlds, in comparison with which this bit of a planet of ours is nothing more than a speck of sand, a mere atom of matter drifting over the wilderness of immensity. In fact, such a trifle is it in the organism of the Universe, that if some celestial body collided with it—say a comet with a sufficiently solid nucleus—and the heat developed by the impact turned it into a mass of blazing gas, an astronomer on Neptune, one of our own planets, wouldn't even notice the accident, ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... rightly," Maraton observed. "There is nothing more to be envied in youth than its magnificent certainty. It knows! . . . I am flattered, Mr. Foley, that you should have received me in your house to-night. Your niece's attitude towards me, even if a trifle crude, is, I am afraid, the general one amongst your ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Pilate, "a trifle of our northern frost and snow would cool their wits. This climate is too soft. In place of building roofs and hunting meat, they are ever ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... have preferred to go back, but the distance was too great; moreover, having left the place for good, and somewhat dramatically, to become a bride, a return, even for so short a space, would have been a trifle humiliating. ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... a kind thing for Peter to do, and an act that any gentleman might be proud of, but he was amazed at her when she told him to mind his own business, and she would attend to her own petticoat, and she marched off just a trifle mad. ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... author had not yet emerged from that nebulous youthful sentimentalism according to which joy, sympathy, love, friendship, virtue, happiness, God, were all very much the same thing. And the thought is a trifle incoherent. If the good Spirit above the stars is to pardon everybody, what becomes of the incentive to a militant life? Why should one strive and cry and get into a feaze about ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... Aunt Sallie's," cried Ruth, appearing suddenly in the doorway. "It is not such a charming color as your scarlet one, and it may be a trifle large, but it will keep you warm. ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... general sentiment about himself, and the varying opinions as to his manners and character. He began to perceive by degrees the magnitude of the task which he had imposed upon himself; the act of disappearing was but a trifle compared with the relationships crowding upon him in his new environment. He would be forced to maintain them all with some likeness to the method which would have come naturally to the real Dillon. The ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... blue eyes and a mop of short, flaxen curls. She was evidently well used to traveling, for she would lift a tiny finger to summon the waiter, and gave him her orders with all the savoir-faire of an experienced diner-out. Perhaps her clear-toned treble voice was a trifle too high-pitched for the occasion, and would have been better had it been duly modulated, but her parents seemed proud of her conversational powers and allowed her to talk for the benefit of anybody within ear-shot. ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... where to find it; 'tis an odd thing that Satan should think it of Consequence to come and tell us where such a Miser hid a Strong Box, or where such an old Woman buried her Chamber Pot full of Money, the Value of all which is perhaps but a Trifle, when at the same time he lets so many Veins of Gold, so many unexhausted Mines, nay, Mountains of Silver, as, we may depend upon it, are hid in the Bowels of the Earth, and which it would be so much to the Good of whole Nations to discover, lie still there, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... ladders to a level where the air was better, but they might as well have urged me to lift up the rock. I could do nothing but sit down and lean fainting against the rocks. This arose entirely from the badness of the air. After a time I felt a trifle better, and then I climbed one short ladder, and sat down very faint again. When I recovered, two men tied a rope round me, and went up the ladder before me, supporting a part of my weight, and in this way I ascended four or five ladders (with ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... moment that they got out at Euston Square she seemed a trifle bewildered, and could only do implicitly as her husband bade her—clinging to his hand, for the most part, as if to make sure of guidance. She did indeed glance somewhat nervously at the hansom into which Lavender put her, apparently asking how such a ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... buying legislators to pass an act so provocative of popular indignation would be considerable, but, at the same time, it would not be more than a trifle compared with the immense profits he would gain. The consolidation would allow him to increase, or, as the phrase went, water, the stock of the combined roads. Although substantially owner of the two railroads, he was legally two separate entities—or, rather, the corporations ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... at the letter again: he could scarcely believe it to be in her handwriting. This the quiet, reasonable, gentle and timid Wenna Rosewarne, whose virtues were almost a trifle too severe? The despair and remorse of the letter did not touch him—he was too angry and indignant over the insult to himself—but it astonished him. The passionate emotion of those closely-written pages he could scarcely connect with the shy, frank, kindly little girl he remembered: it was a cry ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... not generally to all mankind, but to Muhamedans only. A Christian or a Jew would be expected to pay a trifle for his entertainment; although, in travelling through the province of Suse, the Arabs have absolutely refused to take any remuneration from me; but, that is not generally the case, nor 342 ought such conduct to be expected: in the instances before-mentioned, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... of patience. When nothing on the table seemed to suit Aunt Barbara, Mrs. Lee quietly sent out for a bit of ham to be boiled; and when it came in, she seemed pleased that the old lady ate a few mouthfuls,—complaining at first that it was done a trifle too much, and in the end making ...
— Hatty and Marcus - or, First Steps in the Better Path • Aunt Friendly
... whose ground surface is wholly concave, or by bevelling off the sharp border (see Fig. 110, a, p. 236). When the tendency to overreach is not excessive, prevention may in many cases be effected by simply placing the shoe of the hind-foot a trifle further backwards than would ordinarily be correct, thus allowing the horn of the toe to project beyond the shoe. This at the same time does away with the annoyance of 'forging' or 'clacking,' which, as a ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... the prayer-meeting, I heard of a little circumstance which is worthy of notice. The Infant Orphans took a walk this morning with their teacher. A poor woman came to her, whilst they were walking, and gave her two pence for the benefit of the Orphans, adding "It is but a trifle, but I must give it you." Now, one of these two pence had been needed, by the time I came, to make up the little sum which was required for the bread.—This afternoon was received still further ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... well—pretty well," answered Midas in a discontented tone. "But, after all, it is but a trifle when you consider that it has taken me my whole life to get it together. If one could live a thousand years, he might have time ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... a dampener, and if Henry George had been a trifle more astute in the laws of literary supply and demand, he could and would have anticipated the result, even in spite of the natural prejudice which an author always feels for the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... time for sentiment," and Miss Kiametia's chilly tone recalled the Senator to the fact that they were not alone. Looking a trifle foolish, he dropped her ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... said her best word, "Gorky," which means, "A thousand thanks for the verisimilitude of your charming and interesting story, but is not the love element a trifle weak?" (Margery ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... Withal I was a trifle amused at the conviction that I, who had hitherto not quite entirely trusted any one, not even a man, was now abandoning myself to a most consuming confidence ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... A little absence is no harm, the lady thought; may be no harm. But now Lois began to speak of returning to Shampuashuh; and that indeed might make the separation too long for profit. She thought too that Lois was a little more thoughtful and a trifle more quiet than she had been before this journey ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... himself of the best; chiefly, now, from the livers of fish caught by his grandson. With so many sources of income, no one wondered at his getting on. Indeed no one would have been surprised to hear, long before Malcolm had begun to earn anything, that the old man had already laid by a trifle. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... unhappy boat. Now, why didn't you let us know? You may not be aware that the evening of the disaster I made a solemn engagement to stand by him to the end; and now all this must seem the merest braggadocio. And yet, the thing was a trifle. Would you tell Letheby now, that it will be all right in a few days, and to cheer up; no harm done, beyond a temporary humiliation! But we'll never dine with you again, and we shall, one and all, brave the Episcopal anger by refusing ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... of my chagrin I could not help chuckling as I thought of it. To tell Big Jim Colton to go to the devil was, in its way, I imagined, a privilege enjoyed by few. It must have shaken his self-satisfaction a trifle. Well, after all, what did I care? He, and his whole family—including Victor—had my permission to migrate in that direction and I wished Old Nick joy ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a trifle, though it small appear; Small sands the mountain, moments make the year. And trifles life. Love of Fame, Satire VI. DR. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... passed happily. Sir Arthur was moved and promoted from one little port to another a trifle more frequented by the ships of his country, and after a year or so to yet another still larger; so that, while nothing was too good for Juliet in the eyes of her adopted mother, and to a lesser extent in those of her father, it happened that she knew remarkably little of her ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... said Joel, addressing a quartette of trail foremen resting under the sunshade. "Our water is holding out better than we expected. The Lovell cattle only lowered the ponds a trifle. From the present outlook, we ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... be confessed that Tom was a trifle nervous when he took the ball and walked down to the box. The eyes of over twelve hundred spectators were on him, and those included the eyes of the girl he thought the dearest in all the world. He gave a short sigh, and then suddenly braced up. "I've got ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... lightning on the draw, Harlan," he said, his faint smile fading a trifle. "I wouldn't have a chance with you; I'm not a gun-fighter. For that reason I don't want any disagreement with you. And I've heard enough about you to know that you don't shoot unless the other fellow is out ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Why, I thought you were still in Aix-les-Bains!" cried Rayne, much surprised, and yet a trifle excited, which was quite unusual ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... I have wondered since how our six day-boys managed to refrain from carrying home a tale which must have brought their parents down upon us en masse. Great is schoolboy honour— great, and more than a trifle quaint. In any case, the parents must have been singularly unobservant or singularly slow to reason upon what they observed; for we sent their backward sons home to them each night in a ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... say gentlewoman," said Sir Tancred. "Lady is a word a trifle in disrepute; there are so many of them, and so various, don't ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... Ralph, the man's face softened a trifle and his keen eyes became a little less keen. The boy's picture was before him upon his chiffonier. Ralph was twenty-three now and would finish in a few weeks at a famous medical school—Doctor Dexter's own alma mater. He had not been at home since he ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... cell, being on the corner, could have had two windows, yet only one was visible, and that to the left, at right angles with the doorway. Was it imagination? As I sounded the wall opposite the door, where the other window should be, I fancied that the sound was a trifle less solid and dull. I was becoming excited. I dashed back to the cell on the right, and, forcing open the little window, thrust my ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... complimented Priscilla, and made her and the maids the customary spring present, and had returned to her evening post of observation at the parlor window just as Miss Fraley came in. She was not in the mood for receiving guests, being a trifle tired, but Eunice Fraley was a mild little creature, with a gentle, deprecatory manner which had always appealed to Miss Prince's more chivalrous nature. Besides, she knew this to be a most true and affectionate friend, who had also the gift of appearing when everything was ready ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... under her father's guidance. The result, she was honest enough to own, might have been better—who knows? She did not disguise from herself that Terence had faults. She was inclined to think him too easy and tolerant, just as he was inclined to think her perhaps a trifle hard—no, it was rather that she was uncompromising. In some ways she found St. John preferable; but then, of course, he would never have suited Rachel. Her friendship with St. John was established, for although ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... silversmith, scampering after the cursed cow, who gave no heed to their amours; she was taken by the horns, and held in the grip of the Touranian, who for a trifle would have thrown her in the air, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... cares of Mousqueton, the exterior was far from announcing the distress of the interior. His hat was a little napless, his feather was a little faded, his gold lace was a little tarnished, his laces were a trifle frayed; but in the obscurity of the church these things were not seen, and Porthos was still ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to others a trifle appears Fills me full of smiles and tears.... With my inward Eye, 't is an old Man grey, With my outward, a ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... in the rush of his good feeling he offered, if the charge for breakage seemed unjust to the vice- consul, to abate it; and since the signora had not understood that she was to pay extra for the other things, he would allow the vice-consul to adjust the differences between them; it was a trifle, and he wished above all things to content the signora, for whom he professed a cordial esteem both on his own part and the part of all ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... that the ground under the cedars was hummocky, and that the hardwood grew on a slope. Besides, we wanted to camp as near the shore as possible. Probably a trifle further along there would be a point of high land and ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... up. Often Robert thought they were gone. They rode dizzily upon high waves, and they sloped at appalling angles, but always they righted and kept afloat. The water sprayed them continuously and the wind made it sting like small shot, but that was a trifle to men in their situation who were straining merely to keep ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... column, steered a trifle to the northward, as the slowly moving line of the enemy pointed towards Cadiz. Nelson had given his last orders. At his mainmast head was flying, fast belayed, the signal, "Engage the enemy more closely." Nelson himself walked ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... Ashby, coming in just as the merriment over the Minstrel's little joke had died away. Ashby's voice—quick, sharp and decisive was that of a man accustomed to ordering men, but his manner was suave, if a trifle gruff. Moreover, he was a man of whom it could be said, paradoxical as it may seem, that he was never known to be drunk nor ever known to be sober. It was plain from his appearance that he had been ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... nothing could be done, because when they came too near them, then Sir Arnold faced the pursuers and fought them all. God protect those who meet him, because he possesses such extraordinary strength; he considers it a trifle to fight against a hundred. Thrice he thus turned, thrice he kept the pursuers in check. All the people who were with him perished. It seems to me that he too was wounded, and so was his horse, but he escaped, ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... discovered. And perhaps he wouldn't have been but for that telltale nest-egg on the floor. That was the cause of all his troubles. First it had angered Jimmy Skunk because as you remember, it had fallen on Jimmy's head. Then it had led Farmer Brown's boy to look in all the nests. It had seemed a trifle, kicking that egg out of that nest, but see what the results were. Truly, little things often are not so ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess
... the lawn when he dropped in. He thought that Mrs. Lardner's welcome was a trifle chilly. After tea Betty executed a quite deliberate man[oe]uvre to avoid having him for a partner at tennis. But he ran her to earth later, when they were picking ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... name. On leaving the country-place where they had always lived up till then, the elder Aratov settled in the old capital, with the object of putting his son to the university, for which he had himself prepared him; he bought for a trifle a little house in one of the outlying streets, and established himself in it, with all his books and scientific odds and ends. And of books and odds and ends he had many—for he was a man of some considerable learning ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... and I'm your pal for life," he said, huskily. "And I never went back on a pal yet. Ask anybody as really knows me. 'Tain't as if you weren't one of us, neither. I'd give a trifle to know what your little ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... men were not there to guard their possessions against strangers, but against each other; for strangers seldom visit Athens and the Piraeus, and when they do, they go in daylight, and can buy all the grapes they want for a trifle. The modern inhabitants are confiscators and falsifiers of high repute, if gossip speaks truly concerning them, and I freely ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... from the gate, but threw forward his rifle with a careless motion, but an expressive glance, that caused the Indians to resume their seats and pipes with an emphatic "Wah!" of disgust at having been startled out of their propriety by a trifle; while Dick Varley snatched poor Crusoe from his dangerous and painful position, scowled angrily in the woman's face, and turning on his heel, walked up to the house, holding the pup tenderly ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... into the stern, and was pointed out over the taffrail. The big rifle followed it. To the approaching boat their muzzles must have looked a trifle grim, I fancy. Matches and splints were got ready, as well as wads and balls. The muskets were charged, and the bayonets fixed. The schooner was kept moving gradually along at about the same distance from the ice. Bonney was stationed at the wheel, and Corliss ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... yacht down the river and into the harbor. As she stood out into the roads and began to increase her speed, he directed the captain of the tug to steam forward and make as if to cross her bows. This would make the pilot of the yacht angry, but he would be forced to slow down a trifle. Jim watched long enough to see the success of his manoeuver, then went down into the cuddy which served as a cabin, took off most of his clothes, and looked to the fastenings of his money belt. Then he watched his chance, and when the tug was pretty nearly in the path of the ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... has been swamped under the high tension of readiness for the task. All the faculties must be concentrated on opening the attack, since an air duel is often decided in the first few seconds at close quarters. What happens during these few seconds may depend on a trifle, such as the position of the gun-mounting, an untried drum of ammunition, a slight swerve, or firing a second too soon or too late. An airman should regard his body as part of the machine when there is a prospect of a fight, and his brain, which commands the machine, must be instinctive ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... is suspicious towards lawyers. I was chatting with a man, specially taken on for harvest, who expressed doubts of them; he continued, "If anybody were to leave me a matter of fifty pounds or so, I'd freely give it 'em," meaning that by the time all charges were paid he would not expect more than a trifle, because he supposed stamps and duties to be a part of the lawyer's remuneration, and that very little would be left when ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... school flocked down after tea for half an hour's leisure in the after- glow. There is plenty of amusement for them on this broad reach of sand and shingle. Some are groping for shells or for pebbles, which the lapidary will transform for a trifle into dazzling jewels; others are playing ducks and drakes on the waves, or entertaining ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... our fellow-passengers whom we took in at Memphis were no less personages than the Vermont Giant and the famous Bearded Lady of Kentucky and her son. Their pictures I had seen in many cities through which I travelled with my own little performance. I think the Vermont Giant was a trifle taller in his pictures than he was in life (being represented in the former as, at least, some two stories high): but the lady's prodigious beard received no more than justice at the hands of the painter; that portion of it which I saw ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... suddenly faltered. He looked at her face. It had changed. Yet so swiftly did it recover its composure that Linforth had not even the time to understand what the change implied. Annoyance, surprise, fear! One of these feelings, certainly, or perhaps a trifle of each. Linforth could not make sure. There had been a flash of some sudden emotion. That at all events was certain. But in guessing fear, he argued, his wits must surely have gone far astray; though fear was the first guess ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... By and by the patient begins to find the discomfort of getting out of his warm bed very troublesome; still no notice to taken of it. He does not consider it worth his while to consult a doctor for "such a trifle." In the course of time the patient is obliged to get out of bed twice during the night instead of once. Afterwards, the calls become still more frequent and urgent; the inconvenience more evident; finally, pain is substituted for inconvenience, and then the doctor is consulted. ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... known to you? You can but make guesses as to character more or less happy. In common life don't you often judge and misjudge a man's whole conduct, setting out from a wrong impression? The tone of a voice, a word said in joke, or a trifle in behaviour—the cut of his hair or the tie of his neckcloth may disfigure him in your eyes, or poison your good opinion; or at the end of years of intimacy it may be your closest friend says something, reveals something which had previously been a secret, which ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... upon four bells in the first watch when at length, all arrangements being completed, the Europa hoisted the night signal for us to make sail, upon which, the wind having meanwhile freshened up again a trifle, we wore round and, crowding all sail upon the two Indiamen, shaped a course for Ushant. I remained on deck until I had seen the topgallant, topmast, and lower studdingsails set aboard my command, and then, having had a busy and very tiring day, ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... Stover; excellently well run. Take your breath. Very fluent, very vivid, very persuasive—a trifle free, a trifle—but, on the whole, a very creditable performance. Very! I was sure, whatever you did, Stover, you wouldn't bore us. Now, let us see how the same passage will appeal to a ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... conversations it frequently happened that Mr. Rawlinson would praise the ability, energy, and bravery of Stas and Pan Tarkowski would grow enthusiastic over the sweetness and angelic countenance of Nell. And the one and the other spoke the truth. Stas was a trifle conceited and a trifle boastful, but diligent in his lessons, and the teachers in the English school in Port Said, which he attended, credited him with uncommon abilities. As to courage and resourcefulness, he inherited them from his father, ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... legend of Sir Bevis of Southampton. He would have thought it a sin to borrow any time from the serious business of his life, from his expositions, his controversies, and his lace tags, for the purpose of amusing himself with what he considered merely as a trifle. It was only, he assures us, at spare moments that he returned to the House Beautiful, the Delectable Mountains, and the Enchanted Ground. He had no assistance. Nobody but himself saw a line till the whole was complete. He then consulted his ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... sure of that. The technicalities of the mission field are not so apparent all at once. The Vineyard—well, the system of vine-culture of some of the organizations is a trifle obscure." ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... the boyish young sergeant had he been but a trifle more suspicious of such sudden ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... example, in the plain center of a rug, several tones representing shades of the same color will give the effect of a play of light on a silky surface, which is very beautiful. By using material that has been dyed a trifle darker at one end of the rug, and working in gradually lighter tones, the result is surprisingly effective. To do this, each three or four yards should be dyed with these slight differences of tone; ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd
... man they felt it difficult to arouse, but when Viola added her invitations and arguments to those of her friend, poor Sneath awoke enough to the situation to hold his head up higher and widen his shoulders a trifle. ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... call upon you," assented Mr. CLEWS, "if our young friend, the stone-thrower, will accept a trifle to show me ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various |
