I aren't a turn-tail cur." "Aye, but there's this in it, Dowlas," said the landlord, speaking in a tone of much candour and tolerance.
— from Silas Marner by George Eliot

But when they saw that those who had formerly been faithful to them had gone away, [as indeed they were fled whithersoever the great distress they were in persuaded them to flee,] as also when those that came running before the rest told them that the western wall was entirely overthrown, while others said the Romans were gotten in, and others that they were near, and looking out for them, which were only the dictates of their fear, which imposed upon their sight, they fell upon their face, and greatly lamented their own mad conduct; and their nerves were so terribly loosed, that they could not flee away.
— from The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus

Theatres, to the number of some twenty-three, were open every night during these prodigies: while right-arms here grew weary with slaying, right-arms there are twiddledeeing on melodious catgut; at the very instant when Abbe Sicard was clambering up his second pair of shoulders, three-men high, five hundred thousand human individuals were lying horizontal, as if nothing were amiss.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

For there is not only pleasure, but, moreover, glory, in conquering and debauching that soft sweetness and that childish modesty, and to reduce a cold and matronlike gravity to the mercy of our ardent desires: ‘tis a glory, say they, to triumph over modesty, chastity, and temperance; and whoever dissuades ladies from those qualities, betrays both them and himself.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Like Friar Bacon, the philosopher Leo has been transformed by ignorance into a conjurer; yet not so undeservedly, if he be the author of the oracles more commonly ascribed to the emperor of the same name.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

I am not angry with your father in the main; he is a good man; and I would have you write out of hand, and it shall be sent by the post to Mr. Atkins, who lives within two miles of your father, and I'll enclose it in a cover of mine, in which I'll desire Mr. Atkins, the moment it comes to his hand, to convey it safely to your father or mother; and say nothing of their sending their papers, that it may not make them uneasy; for I want not now to see them on any other score than that of mere curiosity; and that will do at any time.
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

I took off my coat, and they were obliged to unlace their dresses, the bodices of which were lined with fur.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

But my daughter happened to be improving the tie of my cravat at that moment, and the whole strength of her feelings found its way into her fingers.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

It is human—some mighty drama unseen, unheard, is playing there its tragedies or mocking comedy, and the laugh of endless years is shrieking onward from peak to peak, unheard, unechoed, and unknown.
— from Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois

I locked myself in, and took off my coat, and turned up my shirt-sleeves, and cooked my own dinner.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

His face restlessly turned to the wall—a vexed, stormy, anxious face and head, scarred by the whip of that overlord more cruel and tyrannous than Time, the Miserable Mind.
— from The Judgment House by Gilbert Parker

It is interesting to know that the old Maya culture and the Tiahuanaco culture (the two greatest American civilizations) were probably in part at least contemporaries.
— from History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Hard University. Vol. VII. by Philip Ainsworth Means

How Kirkby, the one mechanic, coped at that time, always with a cheery smile, will never be known.
— from Fanny Goes to War by Pat Beauchamp Washington

The fourth day he did not come, but two other men came, and the look of one was inquisitive and offensive.
— from The Parisians — Complete by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

On the whole there can be no doubt that our modern clubs are thoroughly well made, but that the real cause why we so seldom see breakages is the lighter work that the clubs have to do with the rubber ball than they were set to in the old days of the gutta.
— from The Spirit of the Links by Henry Leach

An hour later the old man called at the Savoy , a bent, shuffling, white-headed old fellow, shabbily dressed, with a grey soft felt rather greasy hat stuck jauntily on the side of his head—a typical Florentine of the people.
— from As We Forgive Them by William Le Queux