For it would have been impossible for him to hide from Eppie that she was not his own child: even if the most delicate reticence on the point could have been expected from Raveloe gossips in her presence, her own questions about her mother could not have been parried, as she grew up, without that complete shrouding of the past which would have made a painful barrier between their minds.
— from Silas Marner by George Eliot

It is not unusual for this device to be employed for refuting an idea in more or less humorous terms.
— from Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic by Henri Bergson

He hurriedly but vainly tried to get his foot out of the stirrup and did not remove his frightened blue eyes from Rostóv’s face.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

Mr. Briggs calmly took a paper from his pocket, and read out in a sort of official, nasal voice:— “‘I affirm and can prove that on the 20th of October A.D. --- (a date of fifteen years back), Edward Fairfax Rochester, of Thornfield Hall, in the county of ---, and of Ferndean Manor, in ---shire, England, was married to my sister, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, daughter of Jonas Mason, merchant, and of Antoinetta his wife, a Creole, at --- church, Spanish Town, Jamaica.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

A ceremony intended to make the wind blow or the rain fall, or to work the death of an enemy, will always be followed, sooner or later, by the occurrence it is meant to bring to pass; and primitive man may be excused for regarding the occurrence as a direct result of the ceremony, and the best possible proof of its efficacy.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

The fact is, that soon after my arrival at the cottage there had occurred to myself an incident so entirely inexplicable, and which had in it so much of the portentous character, that I might well have been excused for regarding it as an omen.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

When there happens to be any thing ridiculous in a Visage, and the Owner of it thinks it an Aspect of Dignity, he must be of very great Quality to be exempt from Raillery: The best Expedient therefore is to be pleasant upon himself.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

To my thinking that should be enough for Russia, pour notre Sainte Russie .
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In the West Indies, the restoration of peace in Cuba was followed by educational, far-reaching reforms.
— from A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year. Volume 2 (of 3) by Edwin Emerson

He shall hold office for a term of three years and may be eligible for re-election.
— from The China of Chiang K'ai-Shek: A Political Study by Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger

That single vote was one, and the news by express from Richmond, announcing Virginia's previous ratification—and added stimulus to the vote—was the other.
— from The Hudson Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention by Wallace Bruce

What I would rather be excused from repeating.
— from Fiesco; or, the Genoese Conspiracy: A Tragedy by Friedrich Schiller

A person during the fair of 1703 had the audacity to advertise, that the spoils taken at Vigo were to be seen for sixpence at his booth; and he imposed upon the public curiosity by exhibiting fictitious representations of an Altar-piece of silver, with six Angels in full proportion, four Apostles supporting the four pillars, and four Angels attending them, with each a lamp for incense in their hands; also a Crown set with valuable stones, a Holy-water pot garnished with filligree-work, &c. &c. " all brought from Vigo , having been first lodged in the Tower, and never exposed before but in the Tower ."
— from Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London during the Eighteenth Century; Vol. 1 (of 2) Including the Charities, Depravities, Dresses, and Amusements etc. by James Peller Malcolm

Perhaps this was enough to bring his constitutional timidity to its highest point; or perhaps he recollected at the same moment that he was without defensive armour, and that a line of enemies, halting indeed and crippled, but eager for revenge and blood, were closely approaching.
— from The Fair Maid of Perth; Or, St. Valentine's Day by Walter Scott

Retiring members shall be eligible for re- appointment.
— from The Treaty of the European Union, Maastricht Treaty, 7th February, 1992 by European Union

The story ran that I was born in one of the Russian border provinces, but that my father, a musician, had been expelled from Russia for political reasons when I was still young.
— from Red Dusk and the Morrow: Adventures and Investigations in Red Russia by Paul Dukes

It has been doubted whether he was a Roman citizen, for at that time the title was not given to any Jew; they had been expelled from Rome by Tiberius; and Tarsus did not become a Roman colony till nearly a hundred years afterwards, under Caracalla; as Cellarius remarks in his "Geography" (book iii.), and Grotius in his "Commentary on the Acts," to whom alone we need refer.
— from A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 03 by Voltaire

[101] To the same effect the chronicler Baker observes that during the Dutch war the English learnt to be drunkards, and brought the vice so far to overspread the kingdom that laws were fain to be enacted for repressing it.
— from Nineteen Centuries of Drink in England: A History by Richard Valpy French