To bear the compliments of many a bore, And sigh, 'I can't get out,' like Yorick's starling; Why then I 'll swear, as poet Wordy swore (Because the world won't read him, always snarling), That taste is gone, that fame is but a lottery, Drawn by the blue-coat misses of a coterie.
— from Don Juan by Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron

He was a born master of the grotesque, and by a special insight could portray the spectres of a haunted brain.
— from The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

This mantle was fastened to the left shoulder by three gold cords, in order to leave the sword-side free, because the ancient knights and barons always sat in court wearing their swords.
— from Manners, Customs, and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period by P. L. Jacob

In the next place I observed that many for the very reason that they were not corrected were frequently ashamed to be bad, and made pardon rather than punishment the commencement of their reformation, aye, and made better slaves to some merely at their nod silently and cheerfully than to others with all their beatings and brandings, and so I came to the conclusion that reason gets better obeyed than temper, for it is not as the poet said, "Where there is fear, there too is self-respect," but it is just the other way about, for self-respect begets that kind of fear that corrects the behaviour.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

For this is what he had already, by anticipation, said in clearer language: "The devil who seduced them was cast into a lake of fire and brimstone."
— from The City of God, Volume II by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

Scarcely was Candide arrived at his inn, than he found himself attacked by a slight illness, caused by fatigue.
— from Candide by Voltaire

Sam eyed his companion for a few seconds, and then, as if actuated by a sudden impulse, complied with his request.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

Mrs. Clinton too, who attended her in her last illness, must accompany you to town.-But, without any other certificate of your birth, that which you carry in your countenance, as it could not be affected by artifice, so it cannot admit of a doubt.
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

To stand beside a grave, and see The red small atoms wherewith we Are built, and smile in calm, and say ­ "These little moles and graves shall be Clothed on with immortality More glorious than the noon of day ­ All that is pass'd into the flowers And into beasts and other men, And all the Norland whirlwind showers From open vaults, and all the sea O'er washes with sharp salts, again Shall fleet together all, and be Indued with immortality."
— from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

Seth flushed with anger, but answered steadily: “I can’t help it, but you will not be welcome.”
— from A Hero of Ticonderoga by Rowland Evans Robinson

Under this plan, the mail is prepared for answer before a stenographer is called to take dictation, which saves time.
— from Cyclopedia of Commerce, Accountancy, Business Administration, v. 01 (of 10) by American School of Correspondence

Old La Brousse, who saw their eyes meet, and the surprise that painted itself on Clara's countenance at beholding a stranger, instantly came forward to quiet her apprehension, by saying, "My nephew, Mademoiselle!"
— from The Desultory Man Collection of Ancient and Modern British Novels and Romances. Vol. CXLVII. by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

Mire , a bog, a swamp, is common in the Lake District and Devonshire.
— from Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore by Elizabeth Mary Wright

Terry became Chief Justice of the State, and Broderick a senator in Congress.
— from My Story by Anson Mills

Lastly, gentlemen, and I am sorry to say, worst of all—(for I must present no rose-coloured picture of this place to you—I must not deceive you;) lastly, the visitor to this Children’s Hospital, reckoning up the number of its beds, will find himself perforce obliged to stop at very little over thirty; and will learn, with sorrow and surprise, that even that small number, so forlornly, so miserably diminutive, compared with this vast London, cannot possibly be maintained, unless the Hospital be made better known; I limit myself to saying better known, because I will not believe that in a Christian community of fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, it can fail, being better known, to be well and richly endowed.
— from Speeches: Literary and Social by Charles Dickens

It has also been applied successfully in cases of foot-rot, a disease which annually carries off large numbers of sheep.
— from Cooley's Cyclopædia of Practical Receipts and Collateral Information in the Arts, Manufactures, Professions, and Trades..., Sixth Edition, Volume I by Richard Vine Tuson

But polyps are so used to the water that they cannot drown, and so the more Pompey tried to drown himself, the more the water wouldn’t drown him; so at last he wiped his eyes, and— “‘What a fool I am,’ said he, ‘to attempt death for the sake of one fair lady, when there are hundreds of polyps as beautiful as she in Coral Town.
— from Aileen Aroon, A Memoir With other Tales of Faithful Friends and Favourites by Gordon Stables

His party had arrived at Borwezi, a spot in Central Africa, the last civilised touching-place before they plunged into the savage unknown.
— from Poppy: The Story of a South African Girl by Cynthia Stockley