Triad

“ It had been generally reported as characteristic of myself, that in respect to all coaches, steamboats, railroads, wedding-parties, baptisms, and so forth, there was a fatal necessity of my being a trifle too late. Some malicious fairy, not invited to my own baptism, was supposed to have endowed me with this infirmity. It occurred to me that for once in my life I would show the scandalousness of such a belief by being a trifle too soon, say, three minutes. ”

“ The following account was after a fever, which lasted nine and twenty days, at a place called Tirrelspass in Ireland.
1. “I had no joy for twenty days. The severity of my sickness and pain, pressed down my soul. Neither divine light nor love shone into my heart; yet I prayed often with freedom ♦and fervour.”
♦ duplicate word “and” removed
2. “I had no strong temptations; no fear of death, or hell: neither had I any desire to die. On the thirteenth day, I had an assurance, that I should not die in Tirrelspass. ”

“ Her complexion was marble-white, like that of the finest piece of statuary.
“Is it possible?” said Tyrrel; “can grief have made such ravages?”
“Grief,” replied Clara, “is the sickness of the mind, and its sister is the sickness of the body—they are twin-sisters, Tyrrel, and are seldom long separate. Sometimes the body's disease comes first, and dims our eyes and palsies our hands, before the fire of our mind and of our intellect is quenched. ”

“ That your limbs must labour, while yet ye have strength of your youth for toil.’
With kindly counsel he spake; and they hied them aboard once more,
With intent to get them forth of the mere by toil of the oar.
On sped they with eager purpose: and now did Triton take
On his shoulder the mighty tripod; and now did he enter the lake,
And they saw:—but thereafter did no man mark how he vanished from sight {1590}
With the tripod, anigh though he were. Then each man’s heart grew light,
For that now for their helping had met them one of the Gods ever-blest. ”

“ The persecution reached its height in the middle of the 5th century B.C.; everywhere the meeting houses of the Pythagoreans were burned down and any Pythagoreans found there slain.
"You're probably wondering why a particular kind of triangle should cause such phenomena, anyway. So am I. I'm still investigating.
"My own theory at the moment goes like this: Firstly, these devils and demons which appear have no material existence, and, in fact, no existence at all—outside your own mind! They exist in our unconscious mind, memories we are born with, handed down from our most primitive ancestors. ”

“ Slop, interrupting Trim, is more detestable than all the rest;—and seems to have been taken from some pettifogging Lawyer amongst you:—Amongst us, a man's conscience could not possibly continue so long blinded;—three times in a year, at least, he must go to confession. Will that restore it to sight, quoth my uncle Toby?—Go on, Trim, quoth my father, or Obadiah will have got back before thou has got to the end of thy sermon;—'tis a very short one, replied Trim.—I wish it was longer, quoth my uncle Toby, for I like it hugely.—Trim went on. ”

“ All this, the memory and the feel of it, are in Trilby's voice as she warbles that long, smooth, lilting, dancing laugh, that wondrous song without words; and those who hear feel it all, and remember it with her. It is irresistible; it forces itself on you; no words, no pictures, could ever do the like! So that the tears that are shed out of all these many French eyes are tears of pure, unmixed delight in happy reminiscence! ”

“ The doctor and M. Tripeaud are ours," said the princess, hastily.
"Though I am as sure as you are of the doctor, or of M. Tripeaud, under present circumstances, we must not touch on the question of acting—which will be sure to frighten them at first—until after our interview with your niece. It will be easy, notwithstanding her cleverness, to find out her armor's defect. If our suspicions should be realized—if she is really informed of what it would be so dangerous for her to know—then we must have no scruples, and above all no delay. This very day must see all set at rest. ”

“ It was Trilby, Trilby, Trilby! a poor fallen sinner and waif all but lost amid the scum of the most corrupt city on earth. Trilby weak and mortal like himself, and in woful want of pardon! and in her gray dovelike eyes he saw the shining of so great a love that he was abashed; for well he knew that all that love was his, and would be his forever, come what would or could. ”

“ I heard what resembled the pattering of little feet, as of the rat running over the lid of an empty box; and once or twice I clearly distinguished the short, shrill cricket-like “chirp” that rats are wont to utter. I can think of no more disagreeable sound than the voice of a rat, and at that time it sounded doubly disagreeable. You may smile at my simple fears, but I could not help them. I could not help a presentiment that somehow or other my life was in danger from the presence of this rat, and the presentiment was not a vain or idle one, as you shall afterwards learn. ”

“ Many a time in my life I have had to do with trifles. When that English gentleman, my father left us, and poor mama broke her heart, a trifle perhaps to him,—and little sister and I lived on a few handfuls of rice a day, given by the poor out of their scanty store, it was a mere trifle, and when the good old faqir gave us a few handfuls of parched grain, it was only a trifle, but life to us, and when Mr. Percy found us in the serai, only a trifle, but what would I have been if that trifling incident had never occurred? ”

“ Tripos, trī′pos, n. a university examination for honours at Cambridge: the list of successful candidates in an honours examination at Cambridge: a tripod. [Prob. traceable to the custom by which a B.A., known as Mr Tripos, sat on a three-legged stool and disputed in the Philosophy School at Cambridge on Ash Wednesday, his speech being called the Tripos speech.]
Trippant, trip′ant, adj. (her.) represented as walking or trotting.
Tripping, trip′ing, n. the act of tripping: a light kind of dance.—adv. Tripp′ingly, in a tripping manner: with a light, quick step.—n. Tripp′ingness. ”

“ Well, you’re a good husband and father; what better could any trilobite be? And as to beauty, I shouldn’t have married you if you had not been about the handsomest gentleman trilobite that ever sat and curled his whiskers. Nature never made anything better than a trilobite. Why? Because she can’t. Can you picture anything different? Can you imagine any creature with more convenient limbs, more exquisite joints, more perfect claws, better eyesight, better senses, better manners, or more self-respecting? ”

“ I would not read another line of it, quoth Trim for all this world;—I fear, an’ please your Honours, all this is in Portugal, where my poor brother Tom is. I tell thee, Trim, again, quoth my father, ’tis not an historical account,—’tis a description.—’Tis only a description, honest man, quoth Slop, there’s not a word of truth in it.——That’s another story, replied my father.—However, as Trim reads it with so much concern,—’tis cruelty to force him to go on with it.—Give me hold of the sermon, Trim,—I’ll finish it for thee, and thou may’st go. ”

“ When the two met in combat, the Retiarius tried to fling his net over his adversary, and if he succeeded, the fate of the latter was sealed. Entangled in the loose meshes, he could scarcely move his limbs, while the sharp prongs of the long-shafted trident came darting in at every exposed point, and exhausting the man with pain and loss of blood. The trident was in itself so feeble a weapon, that if the Secutor were vanquished and condemned to death by the spectators, his antagonist could not kill him, but had to call another Secutor to act as executioner with his sword. ”

“ Greater evils absorb the less; and it was so in my case. My dread of the rat paying me another visit was a far greater trouble to me than the pain of my wound, and as my attention was wholly taken up with the former, I almost forgot that my thumb was aching. ”

“ Let not the critic ask how Corporal Trim could come by all this.—I've told him it should be explained;—but so he stood before my father, my uncle Toby, and Dr. Slop,—so swayed his body, so contrasted his limbs, and with such an oratorical sweep throughout the whole figure,—a statuary might have modelled from it;—nay, I doubt whether the oldest Fellow of a College,—or the Hebrew Professor himself, could have much mended it.
Trim made a bow, and read as follows:
The Sermon.
Hebrews xiii. 18.
—For we trust we have a good Conscience. ”

“ Unless one has endured such a trial, only a faint idea of its hardships can be fully imagined—the long hours of patient travel at a snail’s pace, enveloped by clouds of dust by day, and at night watching every shadow for a lurking savage. ”

“ It is impossible to contemplate the countenance of this twirling fanatic, and the contrast of its strange quietude with the ceaseless motion of his body, without being powerfully impressed by it. As the endless gyrations continue the position of the arms is repeatedly varied. ”

“ And what did he feel for Trilby? He couldn't tell yet. It was too vast as yet to be measured; and, alas! it was weighted with such a burden of sorrow and regret that he might well put off the thought of it a little while longer, and gather in what bliss he might: like the man whose hearing has been restored after long years, he would revel in the mere physical delight of hearing for a space, and not go out of his way as yet to listen for the bad news that was already in the air, and would come to roost quite soon enough. ”

“ What could be wanting in my father but to have wrote a book to publish this notion of his to the world? Little boots it to the subtle speculatist to stand single in his opinions,—unless he gives them proper vent:—It was the identical thing which my father did:—for in the year sixteen, which was two years before I was born, he was at the pains of writing an express Dissertation simply upon the word Tristram,—shewing the world, with great candour and modesty, the grounds of his great abhorrence to the name. ”

“ Every trifling accident discomposes us; and as the face of waters wafting in a storm so wrinkles itself, that it makes upon its forehead furrows deep and hollow like a grave: so do our great and little cares and trifles first make the wrinkles of old age, and then they dig a grave for us. ”

“ Up to that moment a delighted but unsmiling consciousness of their own absurdities, a keen sense of the humorous possibilities of the original blunder, and a mischievous recognition of the mortification of Trigg--whose only safety now lay in accepting the mistake in the same spirit--had determined these grown-up schoolboys to artfully protract a joke that seemed to be providentially delivered into their hands. ”

“ They fight so long that the day draws on to night, while their arms grow weary and their bodies sore, and the hot, boiling blood flows from many a spot and trickles down beneath their hauberks: they are in such distress that it is no wonder if they wish to rest. ”

“ If it is true that you have no one to defend your spring, you will appear ridiculous and humiliated. It will redound greatly to your honour, forsooth, if he who has attacked you shall retire without a fight! Surely you are in a bad predicament if you do not devise some other plan to benefit yourself." The lady replies: "Do thou, who art so wise, tell me what plan I can devise, and I will follow thy advice." "Indeed, lady, if I had any plan, I should gladly propose it to you. ”

“ The theories, my dear Trix, which you set forth in the moonlight under the lime trees, simply won’t hold water. For your own sake I advise you to abandon them forthwith. Blood will always tell; and sooner or later, if we attempt intimacy with those not of our own station in life, we shall get a glimpse of the hairy hoof. ”

“ Then Tiriel stood. saying what soft voice threatens such bitter things
Lead me to Har & Heva I am Tiriel King of the west
And Mnetha led them to the tent of Har. and Har & Heva
Ran to the door. when Tiriel felt the ankles of aged Har
He said. O weak mistaken father of a lawless race
Thy laws O Har & Tiriels wisdom end together in a curse
Why is one law given to the lion & th patient Ox
And why men bound beneath the heavens in a reptile form
A worm of sixty winters creeping on the dusky ground
The child springs from the womb. ”

“ When it sounds to the right it is good luck; and also when to the left, if very near an enemy, it rejoices to give them to us as a prey. When it cries, 'Trik, trik,’ it is death to those that advance. ”

“ I have analyzed trance in its character of a spontaneous pathological phenomenon. I have examined its principal features as they present themselves when it is induced by mesmerism. But facts have been brought forward by Mr. Braid, which seem to establish that, in some highly susceptible persons, trance may be brought on at will in another way, by their own indirect efforts, apart from external influences:—as, for instance, by straining the eyes upwards, the attention being kept some time concentrated on the object or the effort. ”

“ A Trireme at Sea.—A trireme, then is an heroic fighting instrument. She goes into battle prepared literally to do or die. If her side is once crushed, she fills with water instantly, and the enemy will be too busy and too inhumane to do anything but cheer lustily when they see the water covered with struggling wretches. But the trireme is also a most disagreeable craft before and after the battle. ”

“ It was only a trifle, you will say, that produced this inauspicious result; but need I repeat that trifles make up the sum of human life? Were we all to look back upon some of the most important incidents of our lives, I think—could we all be strictly honest with ourselves—we should be willing to allow that what seemed a mere “nothing” at the time was not without its influence, not only on our conduct, but on that{167} which goes by the name (for want of a better) of our destinies. ”