THE story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child.
that of
You use that in expressions such as that of and that which to introduce more information about something already mentioned, instead of repeating the noun which refers to it. [PRON of n] [Formal]
A recession like that of 1973–1974 could put one in ten American companies into bankruptcy…
像 1973–1974 年间那样的经济衰退能让 1/10 的美国公司破产。
Indoor pollution falls into two categories, that which we can see or smell, and pollution which is invisible and produces no odour.
室内污染分为两种：一种是我们能看得见或闻得着的，另一种是无色无味的。
The case, I may mention, was that of an apparition in just such an old house as1 had gathered us for the occasion2—an appearance, of a dreadful kind, to a little boy sleeping in the room with his mother and waking her up in the terror of it; waking her not to dissipate his dread and soothe him to sleep again, but to encounter3 also, herself, before she had succeeded in doing so, the same sight that had shaken him.
It was this observation that drew from Douglas—not immediately, but later in the evening—a reply that had the interesting consequence to which I call attention.
observation
a comment, especially based on sth you have seen, heard or read （尤指据所见、所闻、所读而作的）评论 SYN remark
He began by making a few general observations about the report.
开头他先对这个报告作了几点概括性的评论。
She has some interesting observations on possible future developments.
她对未来可能的发展有一些饶有兴味的论述。
cause people to notice引起人们注意：
he is seeking to call attention to himself by his crimes.他正试图用犯罪的方法来使自己受到关注。
Someone else told a story not particularly effective, which I saw he was not following4.
This I took for a sign that he had himself something to produce and that we should only have to wait.
take
to consider sb/sth to be sb/sth, especially when you are wrong （尤指错误地）以为，把…看作；误认为
~ sb/sth for sb/sth
Even the experts took the painting for a genuine Van Gogh.
连行家都误以为这幅画是凡高的真迹。
Of course I didn’t do it! What do you take me for (= what sort of person do you think I am)?
那当然不是我干的！你把我当成什么人啦？
~ sb/sth to be sb/sth
I took the man with him to be his father.
我误以为和他在一起的那个男人是他父亲。
We waited in fact till two nights later; but that same evening, before we scattered, he brought out what was in his mind.
“I quite agree—in regard to Griffin’s ghost, or whatever it was—that its appearing first to the little boy, at so tender an age, adds a particular touch. But it’s not the first occurrence of its charming kind that I know to have involved a child. If the child gives the effect another turn of the screw, what do you say to two children—?”
Footnotes
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that, which, who ↩
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a special event, ceremony or celebration ↩
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to experience sth, especially sth unpleasant or difficult, while you are trying to do sth else 遭遇，遇到（尤指令人不快或困难的事） SYN meet, run into; We encountered a number of difficulties in the first week.我们在第一周遇到了一些困难。 I had never encountered such resistance before.我以前从未遇到过这么大的阻力。 ↩
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understand an explanation or the meaning of sth ↩