"Bagatelle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... corner of the little covered carriage that started with them for Wigton—a most desirable carriage for any country, except for its having a flat roof and no sides; which caused the plumps of rain accumulating on the roof to play vigorous games of bagatelle into the interior all the way, and to score immensely. It was comfortable to see how the people coming back in open carts from Wigton market made no more of the rain than if it were sunshine; how the Wigton policeman taking a country walk of half-a- ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... were dragging about with you in the shape of wife and children who might otherwise be left destitute at your death. If you attain this certainty, you have touched the value of your intellectual capital, on which the cost of insurance is but a trifle,—a mere trifle, a bagatelle." ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... than e'er the fairest she he meets; Much specious lore, but little understood, (Veneering oft outshines the solid wood), His solid sense, by inches you must tell, But mete his cunning by the Scottish ell! A man of fashion too, he made his tour, Learn'd "vive la bagatelle et vive l'amour;" So travell'd monkeys their grimace improve, Polish their grin—nay, sigh for ladies' love! His meddling vanity, a busy fiend, Still making work his selfish craft ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... premium, and bubble companies. The whole thing is corrupt, as it ever must be when government is in the hands of a mere middle class, and that, too, a limited one; but it may last hopelessly long, and in the meantime, 'Vive la bagatelle!'" ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... calculated on making three miles an hour for every hour of the twenty-four, things would not have been bad. This rate of speed would have carried them to their destination in a dozen days,—a mere bagatelle. But they knew enough of river-navigation to disregard such data. They knew the current of the Solimoes to be extremely slow; they had heard of the strange phenomenon, that, run which way the river might, north, ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... my thanks aside. 'It was a bagatelle,' he said. We became friendly. He moved to my table, and we fraternized ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... her that day she handed him over the money. "It is a great pity you took the trouble," he said. "It is a pity to change an investment for such a bagatelle as two thousand pounds. Still, if you insist upon it, mamma. I suppose Nell's been bragging of the big interest, but you never will feel it on a scrap like this. If you would let me double your income ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... you will spare yourself and your sister," said the Captain, "by being reasonable. What, after all, is the sum I have named? To your wealthy father a bagatelle. I repeat, I have been too modest. But since I have said twenty thousand pieces of eight, twenty thousand ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... "This is a mere bagatelle!" eagerly laughed lady Feng. "Even I can afford to stand you such a small treat!" Then turning her head round, "Tell them in the cook-house," she said to a married woman, "to please make an extra supply, and that they'll ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... to old times, alas!" said Hamilton, gaily; "for what we all had to do then was a bagatelle to this, and you have made the supreme sacrifice ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... the midst of one of the greatest battles in history. Any bombardment this world has ever known was a mere bagatelle to this. ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... noised here that I am soon to return. The question that I wish I could answer to the many that ask, and to our friend Colbert de Torcy (to whom I made your compliments in the manner you commanded) is, What is done for me: and to what I am recalled? It may look like a bagatelle, what is to become of a philosopher like me? but it is not such: what is to become of a person who had the honour to be chosen, and sent hither as intrusted, in the midst of a war, with what the Queen ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... such as fruit, &c., when I was a kid. My father kept a small shop, but I was bound an apprentice to a very peculiar branch of the Sheffield trade; and before I had finished my apprenticeship I committed my first crime. I was playing at bagatelle one night, and lost all my cash, and as I was anxious to win it back, I broke into my master's premises, and took all the money that was in the cash-box. I got 'copt,' and was sent into the county jail. When I came out I ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... resignation than from choice. But any milk pudding, as I now know, has a most vicious habit of cleaving to the dish in which it was cooked. Rice is the least evil offender. The others are absolutely wicked. To clean oleaginous scum from a dinner-tin is not easy, but it is a mere bagatelle compared with cleaning the scorched high-tide-mark of tapioca or sago from the shores of a large metal pudding-basin. I have tried scraping with a knife blade, I have tried every reasonable form ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... execution than the young men themselves. He said that it would not be enough to capture skins for Mr. and Mrs. Wolston, they must also capture one a-piece for Mary and Sophia likewise, and talked as if the adventure of Sir Marmaduke and his seventeen tigers had been a bagatelle. ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... Boulogne, in a semicircle from about the Villa Rothschild to Bagatelle, following the race course at Longchamps, is one vast camp, and from this camp to the village of Boulogne the work of constructing trenches parallel with the enceinte is being pushed rapidly forward. I saw hundreds of men working at ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... prices men are willing to pay for what they desire. Faery even with my means would seem a mere bagatelle to most young ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... business. However, I accept your expressions of regret; I reciprocate your 'Good-evening'; and I trust to find you improved in temper, dress, manners, and appearance the next time I have the honor of meeting you. Adieu, Monsieur Guillaume, and! Vive la bagatelle!" ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... His power, this was the only serious study to which men could devote themselves; machinery, the discoveries of the positive sciences, in fact everything which did not treat of divinity and the future life, was only a bagatelle for the amusement of fools and ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... unspoilt than are most children of their age, and of even far less elevated rank. "Born in sorrow, and nursed in tears," the Duc de Bordeaux's early infancy has not passed under bright auspices; and those are not wanting who prophesy that he may hereafter look back to the days passed at Bagatelle as the happiest of ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... all,—I fancy his temperament is chiefly moulded by the life he leads. In the East, for instance, men accept their existence as a sort of divine command, which they obey cheerfully, yet with a consciousness of high responsibility:—on the Continent they take it as a bagatelle, lightly won, lightly lost, hence their indifferent, almost childish, gayety;—but in Great Britain"—and he smiled,—"it looks nowadays as if it were viewed very generally as a personal injury and bore,—a kind ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... to do? He covered his face with his hands, and turned round and round mentally in that darkness to see if anywhere there might be a gleam of light; but none was visible east or west. A hundred pounds, only a hundred pounds; a bagatelle, a thing that to many men was as small an affair as a stray sixpence; and here was this man, as good, so to speak, as any—well educated, full of gifts and accomplishments, well born, well connected, not a prodigal nor open sinner, losing himself in the very ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... he exclaimed, "What! No institute! no hall, or any place where you can meet and spend the long winter evenings? Well, I'll soon see to that." And soon, to their delight, they had a nice building reared on a piece of land which he bought for the purpose, furnished with tables, chairs, bagatelle boards, and all accessories; and he also supplied them with newspapers and magazines. He was immensely popular, but appeared to think little of what he had done. When they expressed their gratitude to him he would move his hand, ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... in all but name. That her purse was often empty was a matter to smile at; that she had to act as "breadwinner" to her family, and was at times reduced to such straits that she was obliged to pawn some of her small stock of jewellery in order to provide her lover with a supper, was a bagatelle. She was the happiest young woman ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... pourrait dicter l'histoire, Je dis l'amour volage, et non l'amour constant; Ce peuple fou, brusque et galant, Chansonnier insupportable, Superbe en sa fortune, en son malheur rampant, D'un bavardage impitoyable, Pour cacher le creux d'un esprit ignorant, Tendre amant de la bagatelle, Elle entre seule en sa cervelle; Leger, indiscret, imprudent, Comme ume girouette il revire a tout vent. Des siecles des Cesars ceux des Louis sont l'ombre; Rome efface Paris en tout sens, en tout point. Non, des vils Francais vous n'etes pas ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... hold dear in it!—c'est pis que la cage de fer de Tamerlan. (It is worse than Tamerlane's iron cage.) I would prefer being delivered up to the Bourbons. Among other insults," said he,—"but that is a mere bagatelle, a very secondary consideration,—they style me General! they can have no right to call me General; they may as well call me Archbishop, for I was head of the church, as well as the army. If they do not acknowledge me as ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... landlord, or victualler to discover somebody else, who is neither lodger, stranger, nor traveller. The landlord cannot detect him, but all sheriffs, grand jurors, and constables are required to hunt for him! Vive la bagatelle! ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... was brought up by the fourth Lord Hertford, under the name of Monsieur Richard, not by any means as the expectant heir; yet, excepting the settled estates, which went to the fifth Marquis, all was left to him. Part of the great art collection remained at Bagatelle, which became the property of a younger Wallace, an officer in the French army; the rest has come to the English nation through Lady Wallace, to whom her husband left the whole. Why Sir Richard assumed the name Wallace no one knows. He was French, not English, speaking ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... drained his glass more fervently than did Arthur Maynwaring? For whatever may have been the faults of this dashing Whig, he had the courage of his sins, and took up his abode with Anne in the full light of day, as though a marriage ceremony were a bagatelle not worth the recollecting. The world was forgiving, to be sure, nor is it probable that either one of this easily-mated pair suffered any loss of public esteem by the union. Dukes—nay, even Duchesses—were ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... those that loved to minister to the Master's comfort. At first, he must have been stung by keen remorse; but each time he sinned his conscience became more seared, until he finally reached the point when he could sell his Master for a bagatelle, and betray Him ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... expended many times the cost of the repairs of "Old Ironsides" in preserving for the nation the revolutionary sites and monuments upon our soil. Payment for the repair and restoration of "Old Ironsides" would be a bagatelle if the people of the United States were to demand that this monument also shall be purchased by the people of Massachusetts under ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... stupendous tower that might have been hewn by the diamond adzes of the Genii for a second Babel-experiment, in expectance of the wrath of Allah. Here and there the tools had left a faint scratch, only deep as the width of Broadway and a bagatelle of five hundred feet in length; but that detracted no more from the unblemished four-square contour of the entire mass than a pin-mark from the symmetry of a door-post. A city might have been built on its grand flat top. And, oh! the gorgeous masses of light and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... certain sum to complete this undertaking, which could not but establish his fame as a connoisseur, and in all likelihood would secure his appointment as Director of a certain Gallery which he must not name. The money could be had for the asking from twenty persons—a mere bagatelle of a hundred and fifty pounds or so; but how much pleasanter it would be if this little loan could be arranged between brothers Daniel would engage to return the sum on publication of the book, probably some six months hence. Of course he ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... the future without money? We want a few thousands for immediate necessities, both of us. The woman's allowance from her husband is nowadays a mere bagatelle." ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... see her daily and permit his interest to be dissipated or deepened, as the case might be, while he remained, in the strictest sense of the world, uncommitted. It was a very prudent scheme and not a bad one. He reasoned justly: "This selecting a wife is no bagatelle. A man wishes to know something more about a woman than he can learn in a drawing-room or ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... Colonel Altamont had made a purchase of cigars and French silks from some duffers in Fleet Street about this period; and he was found by Strong in the open Auction Room in Cheapside, having invested some money in two desks, several pairs of richly-plated candlesticks, a dinner epergne, and a bagatelle-board. The dinner epergne remained at chambers, and figured at the banquets there, which the Colonel gave pretty freely. It seemed beautiful in his eyes, until Jack Holt said it looked as if it had been taken "in a bill." ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... easy task, it may be assumed, with a soil so luxuriant, and where frost is unknown. Yet the amount of cotton produced annually in the Hot Land is shamefully small, not exceeding ten million pounds,—a mere bagatelle, which Manchester would devour in a week. Consider what an increase in cottons and calicoes, what a gain in shirts and sheets, would follow from the seizure of those fields by Americans from Mississippi and Alabama; and let no idle notions concerning national morality ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... spoke little and seemed absorbed in her own thoughts more than once. The Prince, warmed with the wine and the general good cheer, became witty and amusing in his conversation; he was a man who had evidently seen a good deal of the world, and who was accustomed to take everything in life a la bagatelle. He told us gay stories of his life in St. Petersburg; of the pranks he had played in the Florentine Carnival; of his journey to the American States, and his narrow escape from the matrimonial clutches of ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... in the South Sea. The roaring of the waves and the madness of the people are justly put together. It is all wilder than St. Anthony's dream, and the bagatelle is more solid than anything that has ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Troops were, indeed, sent to restore peace, but no proclamations were issued from the secretary of state's office until some days elapsed, and then the reward offered for discovering and apprehending a chief rioter was a mere bagatelle. In the whole, seventeen were arrested and tried, five of whom only were found guilty; three were executed. The losses sustained by the sufferers were made good by the hundred, in the way which the law directs; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... my Hurons had the inspiration to run to a farmhouse not far away and requisition a sheet. He wrapped himself in it, head and all, and, being Indian, it was a bagatelle to him to crawl out on his stomach. They were pleased enough, my good fellows, when they found they had got not only my body but also me ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... of the estate thus forfeited goes to the remaining legatees in an equal division, and so you can imagine what a sharp watch the several beneficiaries under this will keep over one another. A million is no bagatelle; the game is worth the candle. But to come back to our starting-point, Countess Blanka was joined in marriage with Prince Cagliari as soon as she left the convent. You must know the prince, at least by reputation; he plays no small part ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... out of a mere bagatelle, followed by the seizure of a pig, and up to the time I left the region had given rise to four deaths. I made every effort to adjudicate the case, but as each clan seemed unwilling to yield, failed to bring the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... clerk. Those to whom he told the story thought he attached more importance to the affair than it deserved, and they noticed that the scar on his cheek came out in its most lurid aspect. He dined at the Peacock and afterwards indulged in sundry games of bagatelle and ten-pins; but the stakes consisted merely of beer and cigars, and he did not get rid of more than a few shillings in the course of the afternoon. Between six and seven in the evening his landlady regaled him with a cup of strong tea, after which he seemed none the worse ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... superficia1 area of the cultivated land. Thus, no one will cultivate more than is absolutely necessary, as he dreads the difficulties that the broad acres of waving crops would entail upon his family. The bona fide tax is a bagatelle to the amounts squeezed from him by the extortionate soldiery, who are the agents employed by the sheik; these must have their share of the plunder, in excess of the amount to be delivered to their employer; he, also, must have his plunder before he parts with the bags of dollars to the governor ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... him. He passed many a joke on that pitiful journey in an attempt to break our despondency, urging us not to be downcast, and reminding us that the last gentleman he had taken from Pall Mall was in over a thousand pounds, and that our amount was a bagatelle. And when we had gone through Temple Bar, instead of keeping on down Fleet Street, we jolted into Chancery ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... for the coroner and jury on their return. Mr. Tulkinghorn, also. Mr. Tulkinghorn is received with distinction and seated near the coroner between that high judicial officer, a bagatelle-board, and the coal-box. The inquiry proceeds. The jury learn how the subject of their inquiry died, and learn no more about him. "A very eminent solicitor is in attendance, gentlemen," says the coroner, "who, I am informed, was accidentally present when discovery of the death was made, but he ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... deal in the way of Red Cross and relief work, but it is a mere bagatelle compared with the activities of England in this direction. The women of England are as fully awake as are the women of France. Thousands are at work in hospitals and caring for the refugees. Girls are at work making horse-shoes for the army horses. These girls are cultivated, aristocratic women, ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... You might see 'em all over camp, for it's August weather an' the walls of the tents an' teepees is looped up to let in the cool, daubin' the ocher on their faces an' braidin' the feathers into their ha'r. This organisin' for a baile ain't no bagatelle, an' two hours is the least wherein any se'f-respectin' buck who's out to make a centre shot on the admiration of the squaws an' wake the envy of rival bucks, can lay on the pigments, so he paints away at his face, careful an' acc'rate, sizin' up results meanwhile in a jimcrow lookin' glass. ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... Lucien. "Such a journey is a mere bagatelle to them. Now, if I knew the precise moment at which the carrion was discovered by the first one, I could tell how far each of the others had come—that is, each of them whose ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... across him at last sitting by the roadside eating his dinner and reading a London picture paper. He looked a doubtful sort of a customer, sure enough, but he was able to prove that he was playing bagatelle in the inn last night at the time the ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... reared in the midst of a desert of sentences. And Coleridge—than whom in the mines of mental science few have dug deeper, and though Xerxes-hosts of word-slaves waited on his pen—often wrote apparently mere bagatelle—the most transcendental nonsense. Yet he who takes the pains to husk away his obscurity of style will find solid ears of thought to recompense his labor. Bentham and Kant required interpreters—Dumont and Cousin—to make understood what was well worth ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... fingers on a cambric handkerchief seems to prove. They then paced up and down together arm in arm, if not as accurately in step as might have been agreeable to the soldier. George remembered hearing of prize money, to which his own loss was a bagatelle, and gathering on the whole that the army, as a profession, opened a sort of boundless career of opportunities to a man of his peculiar talents and appearance. There was something infectious, too, in the gay easy style in which the soldier seemed to treat ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... evening, up to the exact moment when she slipped going up-stairs, and sprained her ankle, in a blue and green manner that had quite alarmed the doctor when he had seen it, and compared with which Mrs. Thursby's gathered finger in the spring was a mere bagatelle. ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... gave to Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1777, while still unprinted, under an oath neither to take nor give a copy of it, which oath Sir Joshua had observed (she says) like a true knight, only reading it to his visitors till some of them learned it by heart. The "charming bagatelle" was afterwards printed, that posterity might be enabled to wonder what a small expenditure of wit in metre sufficed to purchase a large modicum of fame among the blues ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... regularity. Of his life in Paris there are only the meagerest reports, and he records no observations upon political affairs. The town fascinated him more than any other in Europe; he notes that the city is rapidly beautifying under the emperor, that the people seem gay and happy, and 'Vive la bagatelle!' is again the burden of their song. His excuse for remissness in correspondence was, "I am a young ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Madame de Montesquieu, and when they were parted wrote to her often; this correspondence lasted till Josephine's death. One day Madame de Montesquieu received orders from the Emperor to take the little king to Bagatelle, where Josephine then was. She had obtained permission to see this child, whose birth had covered Europe with fetes. It is well known how disinterested Josephine's love for Napoleon was, and how she viewed everything that ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the scenes of carnage. Disjointed household organizations rearrange themselves. The railway trains once more run regularly. Laughter, clinking of glasses, and smirking loiterers on the boulevards testify that thoughtless, heartless Paris is itself once more. "Vive la bagatelle." ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... either of us in our expectations, since I dow assure you that I dont look upon anything I tuch upon such journeys as solid, for it does not long stick in my pockets. I will drop this point, being fully perswaded if my correspondence proves anything amusing, such Bagatelle will not be grudged, but if I go forward, I beg credit be sent me either upon this place or Paris, any mony I receve passes for being remitted by the order of Baron Kenady {175} [Newcastle]. All this is fully submitted to your better judgement, only ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... at sixteen among the shoals and quicksands of London. Nor was this quite the case as yet; there was still old Miss Harbottle in Wellington Road. But to her he was not going until decency compelled him; he was going to have another game of bagatelle with Guy Knaggs first. It will be seen that with all his sensibilities the youngest Upton was a most casual and sanguine youth. He took a great deal for granted, prepared only for the best, and although inclined to worry over the irrevocable, took ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... this is only a beginning. When you have sat a half score of times on the wooden horse, or stood on the stake, then you will think this sort of thing is a mere bagatelle. (Montanus ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... s'impute a peche la moindre bagatelle; Jusques-la qu'il se vint, l'autre jour, s'accuser D'avoir pris une puce en faisant sa priere, Et de l'avoir tuee avec ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... with two trees in it and one tomb- -I meet Whity-brown, in his private capacity, fetching a pint of beer for his dinner from the public-house in the corner, where the keys of the rotting fire-ladders are kept and were never asked for, and where there is a ragged, white-seamed, out-at-elbowed bagatelle board on the ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... School, or anything of that sort. There's lots of folks what can sing, and play the piano very well, and can recite champion. And they give us a good concert every night. Then there's a room where we can go in and read papers, write letters, or play draughts or bagatelle and all that sort of thing. Then there's a good library where you can get any book for the asking. Ay, those religious folks have been kind; they have sent hundreds of books for us chaps to read, good books and all. Then there's a class-room where ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... little thing—a mere trifle—a bagatelle. I suppose there's a couple of millions in it, possibly three, but not more, I think; still, for ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... corner, "'Tis true, Sir, I see now it is one of mine: but such a trifle was not worthy of being brought by such a gentleman as you seem to be; nor of my trouble to receive it in person. Your servant, Sir, might have delivered the bagatelle to mine."—"Nothing should be called so that belongs to the Countess of ——"—"She was no Countess, Sir, that dropt that handkerchief, and a gentleman would not attempt to penetrate, unbecomingly, through the ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... to see that, in order to attempt this, he ought to read Bolingbroke for a year, and then practise for another year. In 1838 he thought nothing of undertaking, amid all the demands of active life, such a bagatelle as a History of the French Revolution. "I have some little knack of narrative," he says, "the most difficult by far of all styles, and never yet attained in perfection but by Hume and Livy; and I bring ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... you—' he drooped his voice, throwing out every word with a scornful, sibilant emphasis—'you would have us behave as though our friends were our enemies and our enemies our friends, as though eternal misery were a bagatelle and our faith a mere alternative. I stand for Christ, and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... continue the bombardment of Dunkirk with a huge gun or guns, doing considerable damage and killing several persons; Germans make further gains on the west bank of the Ypres Canal; French repulse Germans in the Argonne, near Bagatelle; French take trenches in the Forest of Le Pretre; French artillery bombards fortifications of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... 1871, this was regarded as quite a large fortune. It would have been ample to start any young man, with prudence, regular habits, and a small modicum of business sense, well along in any profession or occupation he might adopt. But it was and would have been a bagatelle to Eugene though ten times the amount, unless surrounded with conditions as impenetrable as chilled steel to a pewter chisel to resist the seductive ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... he was gaining in popularity, and what did it matter if his office was filled to overflowing with exotic paraphernalia, he was reaching that apex to which he had aspired, and the emolument was a mere bagatelle. The booby prize, after all, had been the foundation of ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... Khan and his fiery unreason was the subject we discussed, and Fred laid law down as to how he should be dealt with whenever the chance should come to bring him to book. But Rustum Khan was a bagatelle compared to what was coming, if we had only known it. While we talked I saw Gregor Jhaere, the attaman of gipsies, ride down the track on a brown mule and dismount within ten yards of Kagig. He hobbled his mule, and went and sat close by Kagig and the Turk, engaging ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... HINGES.—Fig. 229 is an elongated variety of the butt hinge, known in the trade as "strap hinge," "desk hinge," or "bagatelle hinge." As its name indicates, it is used on folding bagatelle tables, small writing desks, and other types of work that have but a narrow margin on which to fix the hinges. The long, narrow plates are sunk flush into the wood, the knuckle or ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... "I am offered ten livres for the yellow birds. Une bagatelle! Onze, Gaspard! Onze! onze livres, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... bulk of his poetry directly religious or devotional, but on publishing the 'Task' he assures Newton that he has admitted none but Scriptural images, and kept as closely as possible to Scriptural language. Elsewhere he quotes Swift's motto, Vive la bagatelle! as a justification of 'John Gilpin.' Fox is recorded to have said that Swift must have been fundamentally a good-natured man because he wrote so much nonsense. To me the explanation seems to be very different. ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... my dear uncle! You are pleased to be facetious! Not pay, do you say! Why, 'tis only a matter of one or two hundred thousand livres or so, a mere bagatelle ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... very little consequence. It is a bagatelle. All she proposes to do is to purchase all the slaves in the United States—out of her own funds—and ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... could not be less than forty millions and the issue of such a suit as the one Woodman had brought and on which he had spent so much of his time and money was to Bivens a mere bagatelle. ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... House this passion had been dormant; he knew no one with whom he could play, and every cent of his income now went for food and lodging. But one day, about six months before his visit to Geary's office, Vandover saw that the proprietor of the Reno House had set up a great bagatelle board in a corner of the reading-room. A group of men, sailors, ranchmen, and fruit venders were already playing. Vandover approached and watched the game, very interested in watching the uncertain course of the marble jog-jogging among the pins. The clear little note of ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... one of some sort—this outlaw, we say, having made three days' journey before arriving upon the ground where he now was, thought nothing of a few hours, less or more, spent in expectation. In the desert, he who has travelled a hundred leagues, will consider it a mere bagatelle to wait for a hundred hours: unlike to him who keeps an appointment in the midst of a great city, where a delay of a quarter of an hour will be ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... were portfolios to examine, and books to turn over; there was a bagatelle board in one corner of the room, a little group busy upon some game of guessing in another corner, and another group eagerly arranging specimens in a microscope, while the Doctor seemed to be at ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... and taught them the Australian game: he appealed to his father for aid, and in prompt response out came cases of boxing-gloves, hockey and lacrosse sets, and footballs enough to keep every man going. Norah sent a special gift—a big case of indoor games for wet weather, with a splendid bagatelle board that made the battalion deeply envied by less fortunate neighbours: until a German shell disobligingly burst just above it, and reduced it to fragments. However, Norah's disgust at the news was so deep that the Tired ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... attention of the French from the latter's offensive in the region north of Arras has been productive of gains in the Argonne, where a three-days' bombardment of the French trenches was followed by the capture of French positions near Bagatelle. Elsewhere, particularly on the Yser, to the north of Arras, north of Verdun and near Metzeral in Alsace, there have been artillery ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... house, containing every comfort, and welcomed with the kindest hospitality, that I received my first impressions of "life in the clearings." My hosts were only recovering from the fatigues of a "thrashing-bee" of the day before, and, while we were playing at bagatelle, one of the gentlemen assistants came to the door, and asked if the "Boss" were at home. A lady told me that, when she first came out, a servant asked her "How the boss liked his shirts done?" As Mrs. Moodie had not then enlightened the world on ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... often been stopped," it might well have served as a centre of operations, and as the authors of these outrages remained undiscovered, they credited them all to Mme. de Combray's inspiration, and this accusation without proof is none too bold. The theft of state funds was a bagatelle to people whom ten years of implacable warfare had rendered blase about all brigandage. Moreover, it was easily conceivable that the snare laid by Bonaparte for Frotte, who was so popular in Normandy, the summary execution of the General and his six officers, the assassination of the Duc ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... of the Pre-Catelan, the path is crossed by the Bagatelle road to the lakes, a point of intersection situated near a glade where the ladies were fond of stopping their carriages to chat with those passing on horseback. A spectator might have fancied himself at the meet of a hunting-party, lacking ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... they at once started to set up their marks. However, the administrator of the religious order left to them, for humanity's sake, the usufruct of the land on condition that they pay a small sum annually—a mere bagatelle, twenty or thirty pesos. Tales, as peaceful a man as could be found, was as much opposed to lawsuits as any one and more submissive to the friars than most people; so, in order not to smash a palyok against a kawali (as he said, for to him the friars were iron pots and he a clay jar), ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... as the minutes went on our fears of interruption grew fainter, and our hopes rose to fever heat. We were all well mounted, our horses were fresh and full of vigor, and to all but one of us the ride itself was the merest bagatelle. But I noticed, riding side by side with the count, that he was reeling in the saddle like a drunken man, and at one moment he gave such a lurch towards me that if I had not been at hand to support him he would have ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... dear sir, that is a mere bagatelle compared with the good fortune which has just fallen to his lot. I solemnly assure you, that I believe it will very shortly turn out that he is at this moment the undoubted owner of an estate worth at least ten thousand a-year, besides a ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... for sale—on one condition only, and that was, that its purchaser should be a free American citizen. There was no intention of giving away the island for nothing, and so the reserve price had been fixed at $1,100,000. This amount for a financial society dealing with such matters was a mere bagatelle, if the transaction could offer any advantages; but as we need hardly repeat, it offered none, and competent men attached no more value to this detached portion of the United States, than to one of the islands lost beneath the ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... of property—for it is so misnamed—is a bagatelle which would not cost me a second thought if in that way a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected, and gradually and with due sacrifices I think it might be. But as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... deepest of human feelings—questions of religion, questions of race, questions even of national existence—are concerned. To enforce the decisions of a tribunal in such cases would require armies compared to which those of the present day are a mere bagatelle, and plunge the world into a sea of troubles compared to which those now existing are as nothing. What has been done is to provide a way, always ready and easily accessible, by which nations can settle ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... lettre touchant M. Loke [he wrote to a friend]. La seule matiere philosophique que j'y traite est la petite bagatelle de l'immortalite de l'ame; mais la chose a trop de consequence pour la traiter serieusement. Il a fallu l'egorger pour ne pas heurter de front nos seigneurs les theologiens, gens qui voient si clairement la spiritualite de l'ame qu'ils ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... you see one of those naval officers has turned round and heard you? My dear Clopper, it was a mere childish bagatelle." ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Vienna; to send an escort for Mr. Spence, who had endeared himself to his fellow-countrymen in Constantinople; and to send a jackass for Mister O'Sullivan, who had at Lisbon become celebrated for his misfortunes at bagatelle and chess—to drum them all together for the one grand object. As for Seymour, Pierce thought it not good policy to disturb him, seeing that nothing had been heard from him since he found his way to St. Petersburg. With such spirits as these, Europe could not fail to be astonished; and ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... has a greater advantage by having a discount upon these small purchases when they are all taken together, than he would have if he were paying for them separately. The discount upon two ounces of tobacco or a quarter pound of tea would be a mere bagatelle; but when the whole of his purchases [Page 141] in the course of the year are added together and the 5 per cent. taken off the whole, it comes to something. With our fishermen, as a rule, I consider that these ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... drawing nigh when we had to present ourselves before that company of men of genius, each with his own crow; and I was still unprovided; and yet I thought it would be stupid to fail of such a madcap bagatelle; [3] but what particularly weighed upon my mind was that I did not choose to lend the light of my countenance in that illustrious sphere to some miserable plume-plucked scarecrow. All these considerations made me devise a pleasant trick, for the increase of merriment and the ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... governor. Now don't hurry away. It's lonely here all by myself, and I like a young gentleman like you to talk to. I knew a nice little boy once, just your age, that used to come and see me regular once a week and play bagatelle with me. He was a good ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... hundred or two, more or less. What is this loss at cards? A mere bagatelle! You are playing for a principality. You want your kingdom in Virginia; and if you listen to my opinion, the little misfortune which has happened to your swain is a piece ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... easy-chair, you may fancy that this is a mere bagatelle—a little bewilderment that one may easily escape from who has a good horse between his thighs. It is only to strike boldly out, and by riding on in a straight line, you ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... the date said. When he finally looked up at John Ivan Jewel, that young man was rolling a cigarette with a fine assumption of indifference, as though giving a three-thousand-dollar note payable in one year and secured with all he owned in the world save his clothes was a mere bagatelle; an unimportant detail of ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... of Notre Dame de Lorette has been carried by the French with the bayonet; French gain at Bagatelle in the Argonne; French repulse German counter-attacks at Les Eparges; Germans repulse French attacks at Marcheville, at the Forest ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... our round, Go dine with Chartres, in each vice out-do K—-l's lewd cargo, or Ty—-y's crew, From Latian Syrens, French Circean feasts, Return well travelled, and transformed to beasts. If, after all, we must with Wilmot own, The cordial drop of life is love alone, And Swift cry wisely, "Vive la Bagatelle!" The man that loves and laughs, must sure do well. Adieu—if this advice appear the worst, E'en take the counsel which I gave you first: Or better precepts if you can impart, Why do, I'll follow them with all ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... pleasure, or seemed conscious of being engaged in any serious struggle which required an effort. There was no hurry, no bustle, no excitement, no fear, no misgiving. They seemed to regard the war as a mere bagatelle, not worth being in earnest about. The on-looker was almost angry with their apparent indifference, apparent insensibility, and doubted if they moved at all, Yet move they did: guided by an unerring instinct, they moved quietly on with an elemental force, in spite ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... with pestilence, and we took no heed. And now He tries us with fire. But if it come not yonder," pointing to Whitehall, which was immediately above them, for their boat lay close to the King's landing-stage—"if, like the contagion, it stays in the east and only the citizens suffer, why, vive la bagatelle! We—and our concubines—have no part in the punishment. We, who call down the fire, ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... Vive la danse! seems now to prevail here universally over "Vive l'amour! Vive la bagatelle!" which was the rage in the time of LA FLEUR. I have already informed you that, in moments the most eventful, the inhabitants of this capital spent the greater part of ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... Europe on a special mission—to dine, if he is invited, with all the great and small men to whom Mr. Adams or Mr. Dayton may introduce him, and to convince everybody in Europe that the Sewards, the Whitings, &c., are the creme de la creme of the American people. Vive la bagatelle. ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... crouds of inferior clerks, who could not purchase, found means to get lodged in the most superb national edifices: Monceaux was the villa of Robespierre—St. Just occasionally amused himself at Raincy—Couthon succeed the Comte d'Artois at Bagatelle-and Vliatte, a juryman of the Revolutionary Tribunal, was lodged at the pavillion of Flora, in the Tuilleries, which he seems to have occupied as a sort of Maitre d'Hotel to ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... insignificant of events set a train of consequences in motion which act and react until their final results are portentous and incalculable. Set a force rolling, however small; and who can say where it shall end, or what it may lead to! Trifles develop into tragedies, and the bagatelle of one day ripens into the catastrophe of the next. An oyster throws out a secretion to surround a grain of sand, and so a pearl comes into being; a pearl diver fishes it up, a merchant buys it and sells it to a jeweller, who disposes of it to a customer. ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... letters from England incessantly urged a very different course; friends in Paris pressed her to visit them, to accompany them hither and thither, to join musical parties, to compose little songs (some bagatelle in celebration of a birthday or wedding), to drive to the further end of the town to play to this person or that who had heard of Madame's great talent. Hadria was glad to do anything she could to express her gratitude for the kindness she had received on all hands, but, alas! there were only ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... seated or standing about Richard Henderson, the man with the imperial dream, the ready speaker whose flashing eyes and glowing oratory won the hearts of all who came under their sway. What though the Cherokee title be a flimsy one at best and the price offered for it a bagatelle! The spirit of Forward March! is there in that great canvas framed by forest and sky. The somber note that tones its lustrous color, as by a sweep of the brush, is the figure of the Chickamaugan chief, Dragging Canoe, warrior and seer and hater ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... instincts restrained me. I withdrew my sleeve from his touch (it was this act of his, I think, that had most to do with my displeasure), and merely bidding him observe that the enormous price of the kettle-supporter had been reduced for me by his exhibition to a bagatelle, I left the shop of the screaming anatomist—or Afropath, or whatever it may seem most fitting that he should ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... worth while your applying to one who am in power for the moment, a support of the Republic, in order to obtain such a bagatelle. Consider, you may perhaps ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... great matter, trifling matter &c. Adj.; mere joke, mere nothing; hardly anything; scarcely anything; nonentity, small beer, cipher; no great shakes, peu de chose[Fr]; child's play, kinderspiel. toy, plaything, popgun, paper pellet, gimcrack, gewgaw, bauble, trinket, bagatelle, Rickshaw, knickknack, whim-wham, trifle, " trifles light as air "; yankee notions [U. S.]. trumpery, trash, rubbish, stuff, fatras[obs3], frippery; " leather or prunello "; chaff, drug, froth bubble smoke, cobweb; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... comprehend the value of money before we dump them into a mercenary world. Those who are particularly good in lessons or work will receive an extra recompense. My head aches at the thought of the bookkeeping, but Percy waves that aside as a mere bagatelle. It is to be accomplished by our prize arithmeticians, and will train them for positions of trust. If Jervis hears of any opening for bank officials, let me know; I shall have a well-trained president, cashier, and paying teller ready to be placed ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass were in a great measure cast upon their own resources. Taking but little interest in public affairs, they beguiled their time chiefly with such amusements as the Peacock afforded, which were limited to a bagatelle-board in the first floor, and a sequestered skittle-ground in the back yard. In the science and nicety of both these recreations, which are far more abstruse than ordinary men suppose, they were gradually initiated by ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... you a man who feels nervous before a fight is all right, because he has some idea of what he is going to meet. It is the reckless recruit that often proves a coward. He fancies it a mere bagatelle, and finds out ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... people of India are a mere bagatelle compared with the enormous population, being only 238,499; but with the army they have been able to hold the country in subjection. The British government takes a fatherly interest in the native states, and they have been loyal ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... enough for this kind of thing," said Fred Pepper. "We only want just something to do." And Ralph, when at the end of the week he had lost only a matter of fifteen pounds, congratulated himself on having begun his better life. Cox and Fred Pepper, who divided the trifle between them, laughed at the bagatelle. ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... been flocking to see at the Adelphi Theatre for the last hundred and fifty nights? A woman pitched overboard out of a boat, and a certain Miles taking a tremendous "header," and bringing her to shore? Bagatelle! What is this compared to the real life-drama, of which a midday representation takes place just opposite the Adelphi in Northumberland Street? The brave Dumas, the intrepid Ainsworth, the terrible Eugene ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cheerily; "be there in a minute," and then went springing up the trail as though the climb of four hundred feet were a mere bagatelle. "What's up?—Jackson here?" he asked, short of breath as he reached the little nook in which their brush-covered tents were pitched. There ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... miserably poor. It was one long warfare with hunger and cold. The ravages of disease among children were really the result of insufficient food in those poverty-stricken times. Although the mortgage on the farm was a mere bagatelle, the father lost the homestead, and became a hired man on fifty cents a day, on which amount he had to feed and clothe his family. This boy worked by day and studied by night. History and politics, ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... rolled-up cloak from under Darduraka's arm.] Look, gentlemen, look! The man in the ragged cloak calls ten gold-pieces a mere bagatelle. ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... was dancing in the village; she was almost always there. On those occasions her toilet, although always simple, was more elegant than usual; there was a flower in her hair, a bright ribbon, or some such bagatelle; but there was something youthful and fresh about her. The dance, which she loved for itself as an amusing exercise, seemed to inspire her with a frolicsome gaiety. Once launched on the floor, it seemed to me she allowed herself more ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... lifetime, beginning, for that seems always the most mysterious of losses—what cat would gnaw, what rat would nibble—three pale blue canisters of book-binding tools? Then there were the bird cages, the iron hoops, the steel skates, the Queen Anne coal-scuttle, the bagatelle board, the hand organ—all gone, and jewels, too. Opals and emeralds, they lie about the roots of turnips. What a scraping paring affair it is to be sure! The wonder is that I've any clothes on my back, that I sit surrounded by solid furniture at this ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... an evening could smoke their pipes, play at bagatelle, chess, draughts, or cards, and take such beer as they required, any man getting drunk or even noisy to be expelled the club. This, however, was a rule never requiring to be called into force. The ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... the foreigner in the United States is a mere bagatelle. He is odious not because he is a foreigner, but only because he is the representative, on the one hand, of the odious land system of the Old World, and on the other of those monarchical ideas which ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... a dire pour une bagatelle; but what can you expect from such animals? For what are you imprisoned? Did I not hear say ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... tart, tripping wight, And still his precious self his dear delight; Who loves his own smart shadow in the streets Better than e'er the fairest she he meets: A man of fashion, too, he made his tour, Learn'd vive la bagatelle, et vive l'amour: So travell'd monkeys their grimace improve, Polish their grin, nay, sigh for ladies' love. Much specious lore, but little understood; Veneering oft outshines the solid wood: His solid sense—by inches you must tell. But mete his cunning ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... falter, although here and there in their ranks you could discover a man leaning against a comrade, who gave him support as they moved on together. The crowd seemed a little dashed. The dispersion of the Sixth Regiment had been such a mere bagatelle, and their own number had, since then, been re-enforced by half the professional rowdies in town. They redoubled their cries, which, from jeers, now became shouts ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... Everything about the Casino is so harmoniously undersized that it seems a matter of course that the newspapers in the reading-room should be printed in the very finest type. Of course there is a reading-room, and a dancing-room, and a cafe, and a billiard-room, with a bagatelle board instead of a table, and a little terrace on which you may walk up and down with very short steps. I hope the prices are as tiny as everything else, and I suspect, indeed, that Yport honestly claims, not that she is attractive, but that she ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... to pension millionaires who suffered mental anguish because of the draft, and to administer worse than useless laws, still the amount so unnecessarily abstracted would be but a mere bagatelle if labor was steadily employed and reaped its just reward. With the mighty energies of this nation in full play and the wealth remaining with its producers, we could give even all the candidates an office, with ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... tax upon an unproductive community, although if you were producers it would be a bagatelle. As against this liability you have, as assets, a certain piece of property and certain water rights secured from the Dominion government, rights which though at present very limited, might be made the basis of further expansion. And that is all ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... her apartment under the king's roof has his or her chateau and palace with his or her own circle, the queen at Trianon and at Saint-Cloud, Mesdames at Bellevue, Monsieur at the Luxembourg and at Brunoy, the Comte d'Artois at Meudon and at Bagatelle, the Duc d'Orleans at the Palais Royal, at Monceaux, at Rancy and at Villers-Cotterets, the Prince de Conti at the Temple and at Ile-Adam, the Condes at the Palais-Bourbon and at Chantilly, the Duc de Penthievre at Sceaux, Anet and Chateauvilain. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... one hundred miles from St. John to Moncton was for me, at that time, a much less formidable undertaking than it would appear in our times and latitude. A thirty-mile tramp was a bagatelle, and houses of entertainment—farmhouses where a traveler could rest or eat for a few pennies—were scattered along the road. But there was one great difficulty at the start. My instructions had been to follow the telegraph wires. I soon found that the line of telegraph came into ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... Flora, you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs," said I; "and it is no bagatelle to escape from Edinburgh Castle. One of us, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... flat, which Haslinger had just published, and had not Klengel at Dresden been surprised to hear that he had received no payment for the Variations? But Chopin will make Haslinger repent of it. "Perhaps he thinks that if he treats my compositions somewhat en bagatelle, I shall be glad if only he prints them; but henceforth nothing will be got from me gratis; my motto will be 'Pay, animal!'" But evidently the animal wouldn't pay, and in fact did not print the compositions till after Chopin's death. So, unless the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... leaping, bowling and quoits were among the games carried on with the greatest ardor, and in sustained energy Dickens certainly distanced every competitor. Even the lighter recreations of battledore and bagatelle were pursued with relentless activity. At such amusements as the Petersham races, in those days rather celebrated, and which he visited daily while they lasted, he worked much harder than ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... a small matter, Monsieur (IL S'AGIT D'UNE BAGATELLE): only to make Peace, if people are pleased to wish it! I know not what your Instructions are: but, in the supposition that the King your Master, zow assured by your Successes, will have put it in your power to labor in the pacification of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... thought, as he went down town, was of Jim Hegan. "Come and see me sometime," Hegan had said, and Montague had never accepted the invitation. The Northern Mississippi would, of course, be a mere bagatelle to a man like Hegan, but who could tell what new plans he might be able to fit it into? Montague knew by the rumours in the street that the great financier had sold out all his holdings in two or three of his ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... is said to have cost M. Dollfus half a million of francs, a bagatelle in a career devoted to giving! The bare conception of what this good man has bestowed takes one's breath away! Not that he was alone; never was a city more prolific of generous men than Mulhouse, but Jean Dollfus, "Le Pere Jean," as he is ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... salon in Vienna—in Europe—and you went away to rest that you might continue to play it, not that you might feel fresh enough once more to have liaisons like other foolish old women. . . . But the part you played then was a bagatelle to the one awaiting you now. With your splendid mental gifts, your political genius, your acquired statecraft, your wealth, and your restored beauty, you could become the most powerful woman in Europe. But only as my wife. Even you are not strong enough to play the part alone. ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the note; but the amount was only a bagatelle to him: a bucket-shop had swallowed it within an hour. He had lost his instinct. It was only the love of gambling ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... necessities and luxuries; it had gilded everything, but she had never known where the gilt came from. When she engaged herself to Jasper, he told her that, for the present at least, he was a comparatively poor man; he had three hundred a year of his own. This he assured her was a mere bagatelle, but as he was almost certain to earn as much more in his profession, and as Hilda had money, he thought they might marry if she did not mind living very prudently. Of course Hilda did not mind—she knew nothing at all of the money part. The whole thing meant love and poetry to her, and ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... citizen of the middle class, who somehow or other finds himself in possession of L20,000. He could, of course, spend his money at the rate of L2,000 a year, a mere bagatelle in these days of fantastic, senseless luxury. But then he would have nothing left at the end of ten years. So, being a "practical person," he prefers to keep his fortune intact, and win for himself a snug little annual income ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... place to amuse our lawyer. He might go and smoke in the Justice-room, and then Welldrum could play bagatelle with him." ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... good paper and gallons of good ink have been used in writing about the musician, the composer of the most magnificent operas in the world; weeks, months, years have gone to the writing. But all the paper, all the ink, all the labour, all the mental effort and sympathy and love seem a bagatelle when we look through the bibliographies and realize how much paper, ink, effort—not always to be called mental—sympathy and love have been used up in expounding Wagner's philosophy. The cases of Whitman and Browning make a poor show ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... example. The table was about half the size of the billiard-tables in England, and the pockets were twice as large. The four balls, with which they played, were not much bigger than those generally used at bagatelle. The queus were uncovered at the top with leather; and the player had the satisfaction of hearing the sharp twang of his bare-headed queu as each time it struck the little ivory ball. No chalk was in the room. The Danes possess no word in their language expressive ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... "Une bagatelle comme est la mort de l'empereur ne demande pas de grands mouvements. Tout etait prevu, tout etait arrange. Ainsi il ne s'agit que d'executer des desseins que j'ai roules depuis long ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... hinted at was no light one; and I resolved to weigh well the chances. It's worth noticing, this way we all have of pondering for ourselves the enterprise, which, for others, we hold a bagatelle. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... mopped his damp forehead with his handkerchief. There was nothing to do but follow the girl's advice, and that quickly, he knew. After all, in the face of death, financial ruin seemed a mere bagatelle. ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony |
