I am not sure if the ladies understand the full value of the influence of absence, nor do I think it wise to teach it them, lest, like the Clelias an… - Walter Scott

"In the name of God!" said Gurth, "how came they prisoners? and to whom?"
"Our master was too ready to fight," said the Jester, "and Athelstane was not ready enough, and no other person was ready at all."

[...] a stone rolled down hill by an idle truant boy [...]. Even such is the course of a narrative like that which you are perusing. The earlier events are studiously dwelt upon, that you, kind reader, may be introduced to the character rather by narrative, than by the duller mdium of direct description; but when the story drwas near its close, we hurry over the circumstances, however important, which your imagination must hvae forestalled, and leave you to suppose those things which it would be abusing your patience to relate at length.

But mankind—the race would perish did they cease to aid each other.—From the time that the mother binds the child's head, till the moment that some kind assistant wipes the death-damp from the brow of the dying, we cannot exist without mutual help. All, therefore, that need aid, have the right to ask it of their fellow-mortals; no one who has the power of granting can refuse it without guilt.