that which appears in front, that which is put forward to hide the true state of things; a fair show or pretext, Ac. 27.30; a specious cloke, Mat. 23.13.
— from A Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament by William Greenfield

The apologists for slavery often speak of the abuses of slavery; and they tell us that they are as much opposed to those abuses as we are; and that they would go as far to correct those abuses and to ameliorate the condition of the slave as anybody.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

Words are not only names or titles of single meanings; they also form sentences in which meanings are organized in relation to one another.
— from How We Think by John Dewey

A Guide to the Trees Alice Lounsbery Familiar Trees and Their Leaves Mathews Field and Forest Handy Book Dan C. Beard First Book of Forestry Roth Forest Trees and Forest Scenery Schwartz Grafton Press Handbook of Trees of New England Dame and Brooks Ginn & Co.
— from Boy Scouts Handbook The First Edition, 1911 by Boy Scouts of America

If we take the root of Pixy , Pix , and divide the double letter x into its component parts, we get Piks or Pics , and if we remember that a final s or z in Cornish almost always represents a t or d of Welsh and Breton (cf. tas for tad , nans for nant , bos for bod ), we may not unreasonably, though without absolute certainty, conjecture that Pixy is Picty in a Cornish form.
— from The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. (Walter Yeeling) Evans-Wentz

MY DEAR MADAM, “If I made myself intelligible yesterday, this letter will be expected; but expected or not, I know it will be read with candour and indulgence.—You are all goodness, and I believe there will be need of even all your goodness to allow for some parts of my past conduct.—But I have been forgiven by one who had still more to resent.
— from Emma by Jane Austen

As to the composition, it bears a striking and whimsical resemblance to a funeral sermon, not only in the pathetic prayer with which it concludes, but in the style and tenor of the whole performance.
— from The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) by Edmund Burke

It is twice sitting upon velvet to a foolish squire to be told, that he —and not perverse nature , as the homilies would make us imagine, is the true cause of all the irregularities in his parish.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

Franklin had a knowledge immeasurably greater, and was almost incapable of an error of judgment; of all the reputation =144= which was won or lost in this famous contest he gathered the lion's share; he was the hero of the colonists; his ability was recognized impartially by both the contending parties in England, and he was marked as a great man by those astute French statesmen who were watching with delight the opening of this very promising rift in the British Empire.
— from Benjamin Franklin by John Torrey Morse

Following them at full speed, Abou Do had succeeded in overtaking and slashing the sinew of an elephant just as it was entering the jungle.
— from In the Heart of Africa by Baker, Samuel White, Sir

Keep up good heart, Henry, and this affair, which looks so full of terror at first sight, may yet be divested of some of its hideous aspect."
— from Varney the Vampire; Or, the Feast of Blood by Thomas Preskett Prest

And, as the deacon was then amazed for so great a wonder, the man of God related to him in order the things that had there happened; and forthwith he sent orders to the faithful man Theoprobus in Casinum the chief house, that he in the self-same night should send a man to the city of Capua, and should ascertain and report to him what had happened about Germanus the bishop.
— from Anglo-Saxon Literature by John Earle

Two hours later, Madame rang at the door of the political enemy of whom she had come to ask for shelter.
— from My Memoirs, Vol. VI, 1832 to 1833 by Alexandre Dumas

“If it’s coming to a fight,” said Perry, “I hope it will not be in that deep cavernous place near the fall.
— from Real Gold: A Story of Adventure by George Manville Fenn

So I brought the affair to a full stop, as far as the use of my hand was concerned.
— from The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 4, April, 1864 by Various

The Duke represented to his Majesty not only the ancient friendship subsisting between the house of Campbell and that of Fraser, but also that the King might spend "a hundred times the value of the Fraser estate before he could reduce it, on account of its inaccessible situation and its connection with the [Pg 249] neighbouring clans."
— from Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. Volume II. by Thomson, A. T., Mrs.

Therefore, as Frazer suggests (38), "a chief object of these initiation ceremonies was to teach the youths with whom they might or might not have connection, and to put them in possession of a visible language, … by means of which they might be able to communicate their totems to, and to ascertain the totems of, strangers whose language they did not understand."
— from Primitive Love and Love-Stories by Henry T. Finck