The generality of people cannot see or feel poetically, they want fancy, and therefore fly from solitude in search of sensible objects; but when an author lends them his eyes, they can see as he saw, and be amused by images they could not select, though lying before them.
— from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects by Mary Wollstonecraft

With these words, and a laugh, and laying a bitter stress on the word "ladyship," Mrs. Chadband folds her arms and looks implacably at Mr. Bucket.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

But when the minds of men were debauched by the imposition of priestcraft to the most absurd pitch of credulity, the authors of romance arose, and losing sight of probability, filled their performances with the most monstrous hyperboles.
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Thus he roamed about in misery for some years, and at length came to the desert where Rapunzel, with the twins to which she had given birth, a boy and a girl, lived in wretchedness.
— from Grimms' Fairy Tales by Wilhelm Grimm

‘Why,’ responded Lowten, after a little consideration, ‘if it was in anybody else’s case, Perker wouldn’t be best pleased at my going up to his house; but as it’s Mr. Pickwick’s, I think I may venture to take a cab and charge it to the office.’
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

pr. to put out of its place; to astonish, amaze, Lu. 24.22.
— from A Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament by William Greenfield

Whenas they 50 came to a solitary place, Martellino writhed his hands and fingers and arms and legs and eke his mouth and eyes and all his visnomy on such wise that it was a frightful thing to look upon, nor was there any saw him but would have avouched him to be verily all fordone and palsied of his person.
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

And at last came that which was bound to come.
— from Truth [Vérité] by Émile Zola

As he entered his carriage he handed to one of his friends a letter and a little box, saying to this general, "I cannot leave Vienna without thanking M. Larrey; do me the favor of handing to him for me this mark of my gratitude.
— from Recollections of the Private Life of Napoleon — Complete by Louis Constant Wairy

At the appointed hour the teams issue from their dressing-rooms amid the cheers of their adherents and line up before the referee and umpires.
— from My Strange Rescue, and Other Stories of Sport and Adventure in Canada by J. Macdonald (James Macdonald) Oxley

Then Vṛihaspati, who was at his side, said to Indra, “Gamblers are always like this, abounding in every kind of trickery.”
— from The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story by active 11th century Somadeva Bhatta

The two dozen pictures in this room form nearly as odd an association as any like number of portraits could do.
— from Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 098, February, 1876 by Various

It bears the reputation of an elusive sprite with finger always at lip bidding farewell.
— from The Joyful Heart by Robert Haven Schauffler

She turned again and led him back through the coppice.
— from A Transient Guest, and Other Episodes by Edgar Saltus

From these lurking places, everywhere within the circumference of the tree, I draw forth the fruit all wet and glossy, maybe nibbled by rabbits and hollowed out by crickets, and perhaps a leaf or two cemented to it (as Curzon an old manuscript from a monastery's mouldy cellar), but still with a rich bloom on it, and at least as ripe and well kept, if no better than those in barrels, more crisp and lively than they.
— from Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes, and Other Papers by John Burroughs

He was half again as large as any that Tara of Helium had yet seen and his whole aspect infinitely more terrible.
— from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs