When first sighted on the curve, outside the focussed beam, the signal aspects were faint and difficult to identify in a confused background.

As she sallied forth from her boudoir, you would never have guessed how quickly she could strip for action.

• William Manchester

It's like the inverse of a with-it parent. You're trying to be current by inviting people to watch something that, when it's not unpleasant, is quite boring.

The first inroads on our laws of incest were made at the instigation, and by the secret management, of some of our prime nobles, who had either seduced, or married, or pledged themselves to marry a wife's sister; and who wished by this finesse, to escape, at once, public odium and personal responsibility; […]