Tis because we be on a blighted star, and not a sound one, isn't it Tess?

Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.

George's son had done his work so thoroughly that he was considered too good a workman to live, and was, in fact, taken and tragically shot at twelve o'clock that same day—another instance of the untoward fate which so often attends dogs and other philosophers who follow out a train of reasoning to its logical conclusion, and attempt perfectly consistent conduct in a world made up so largely of compromise.

Why didn’t you tell me there was danger? Why didn’t you warn me? Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks; but I never had the chance of discovering in that way; and you did not help me!

you are absolutely the most ethereal, least sensual woman I ever knew to exist without inhuman sexlessness.

He knelt and bent lower, till her breath warmed his face, and in a moment his cheek was in contact with hers. She was sleeping soundly, and upon her eyelashes there lingered tears.

The offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years.