"On a heap of those soft shavings a rough grey shepherd-dog had made himself a pleasant bed, and was lying with his nose between his fore-paws, occasionally wrinkling his brows to cast a glance at the tallest of the five workmen, who was carving a shield in the centre of a wooden mantelpiece. It was "
"Such a voice could only come from a broad chest...In his tall stalwartness Adam Bede was a Saxon, and justified his name; but the jet-black hair, made the more noticeable by its contrast with the light paper cap, and the keen glance of the dark eyes that shone from under strongly marked, prominent, "
"Adam was not a man to be gratuitously superstitious; but he had the blood of the peasant in him as well as of the artisan, and a peasant can no more help believing in a traditional superstition than a horse can help trembling when he sees a camel. Besides, he had that mental combination which is at "
"Adam, I confess, was very susceptible to the influence of rank, and quite ready to give an extra amount of respect to every one who had more advantages than himself..."
"(Being) simply a stout-limbed clever carpenter with a large fund of reverence in his nature inclined him to admit all established claims unless he saw very clear grounds for questioning them. ... The word ‘gentleman’ had a spell for Adam, and as he often said, he ‘couldn’t abide a fellow who thought"
"‘Look there, now! I can’t abide to see men throw away their tools i’ that way, the minute the clock begins to strike, as if they took no pleasure i’ their work, and was afraid o’ doing a stroke too much. ... I hate to see a man’s arms drop down as if he was shot, before the clock’s fairly struck, ju"
"‘There’s nothing but what’s bearable as long as a man can work,’ he said to himself: ‘the natur o’ things doesn’t change, though it seems as if one’s own life was nothing but change. The square o’ four is sixteen, and you must lengthen your lever in proportion to your weight, is as true when a man’s"
"For the first moment or two he made no answer, but looked at her with the concentrated, examining glance which a man gives to an object in which he has suddenly begun to be interested. Dinah, for the first time in her life, felt a painful self-consciousness; there was something in the dark penetrati"