An old face is nothing to the frivolous world; the frivolous world is shocked by the sight of the destruction of such comeliness as it can understand; a commonplace artist sees nothing there. An old face is the province of the poets among poets of those who can recognize that something which is called Beauty, apart from all the conventions underlying so many superstitions in art and taste.英文原著 · 《A Woman of Thirty》
If they are futile and frivolous it is time worse than lost, for they will give you an habit of futility. All gaming, field-sports, and such sort of amusements, where neither the understanding nor the senses have the least share, I look upon as frivolous, and as the resources of little minds, who either do not think, or do not love to think. But the pleasures of a man of parts either flatter the senses or improve the mind; I hope at least, that there is not one minute of the day in which you do nothing at all. Inaction at your age is unpardonable.英文原著 · 《Letters to His Son, 1748》
"'Twas not the way of my Lady Dunstanwolde to make a man feel that he stood in church," a frivolous court wit once said, "but in sooth her Grace of Osmonde has a look in her lustrous eyes which accords not with scandalous stories and play-house jests."英文原著 · 《A Lady of Quality》
I think that if he had not been afraid of the young monk, who was so much more serious than he, he would have held the shell to his ear, like a child. Indeed, he was a very childish and delightful old priest, and his companion evidently thought him most frivolous. But I liked him the better of the two. He was not a country cure, but an eccle- siastic of some rank, who had seen a good deal both of the church and of the world; and if I too had not been afraid of his colleague, who read the "Figaro" as seriously as if it had been an encyclical, I should have entered into conversation with him.英文原著 · 《A Little Tour In France》
They--she at least, and that was all he cared for--were out enjoying the moon and the sea. How favorable was the night! But who was with her? The Marchesino had very keen eyes. And now he used them with almost fierce intensity. But Ruffo was on the far side of Vere. It was not possible to discern more than that he was male, and taller than the girl in the white dress. Jealousy leaped up in the Marchesino, that quick and almost frivolous jealousy which, in the Southerner, can so easily deepen into the deadliness that leads to crime.英文原著 · 《A Spirit in Prison》
But all that was absurd, of course. She was thinking very frivolously to-day. She put on her dress and fastened it. At the age of sixteen she had put up her hair, but now it was still wet, and she had left it streaming over her shoulders. In a moment she was going out onto the cliff to let the sun dry it thoroughly. The sun was so much better than any towel. With her hair down she really looked like a child, whatever Gaspare thought. She said that to herself, standing for a moment before the glass.英文原著 · 《A Spirit in Prison》
She left money for the family, and she left it under my control because she knows I'm the only Gallagher that wouldn't waste it on frivolous, stupid things.美剧 · 《Shameless》