occupation

Self-command born of varied intercourse

Self-interest of the most compelling character

Selfish and uselessly recondite [recondite = not easily understood]

Selfishness pampered by abundance

Senses of marvelous acuteness

Sensible diminution of our comfort

Sensitive and apprehensive temperament

Sentimental wailings for the past

Serve the innocent purposes of life

Set down with meticulous care

Shames us out of our nonsense

Sharp outbursts of hatred and bitterness

Sharp restrictions of duty and opportunity

Sharply and definitely conceived

She had lost her way in a labyrinth of conjecture

She took refuge in a passionate exaggeration of her own insufficiency

Sheer midsummer madness

Silly displays of cheap animosity

Simple and obvious to a plain understanding

Sinister and fatal augury [augury = sign of something coming; omen]

Skulking beneath a high-sounding benevolence

Slack-minded skimming of newspapers

Slavish doctrines of sectarianism

Slow and resistless forces of conviction

Smug respectability and self-content

Snatch some advantage

Socialized and exacting studies

Some very undignified disclosures

Something essentially inexpressible

Something stifling and over-perfumed

Spinning a network of falsehoods

Spiritual and moral significance

Staring in helpless bewilderment

Stealthily escaping observation

Stern determination to inflict summary justice

Stigmatized as moral cowards

Stimulated to profitable industry

Stopped as if on the verge of profundities

Strange frankness of cynical brutality

Strange streak of melancholy

Strangled by a snare of words

Strenuous and conscientious endeavor

Stretched out in dreary monotony

Strict and unalloyed veracity

Struck incessantly and remorselessly

Stupendous and awe-inspiring spectacle

Subject to the vicissitudes of fortune
[vicissitudes = sudden or unexpected changes]

Subjected to the grossest cruelties

Subordination to the common weal

Subservient to the ends of religion

Sudden and inexplicable changes of mood

Suddenly and imperatively summoned

Suddenly swelled to unprecedented magnitude

Sufficient to repel vulgar curiosity

Suggestive sagacity and penetration [sagacity = farsighted; wise]

Suit the means to the end

Sullen and widespread discontent

Superior in strength and prowess

Supported by a splend