DARKNESS A YOUNG peasant, with white eyebrows and eyelashes and broad cheekbones, in a torn sheepskin and big black felt overboots, waited till the Zemstvo doctor had finished seeing his patients and came out to go home from the hospital; then he went up to him, diffidently.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

There were slow boys and bashful boys, feeble boys and riotous boys, boys that lisped and boys that stuttered, one or two lame ones, and a merry little quadroon, who could not be taken in elsewhere, but who was welcome to the 'Bhaer-garten', though some people predicted that his admission would ruin the school.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

As she lifted the curtain to look out into the dreary night, the moon broke suddenly from behind the clouds and shone upon her like a bright, benignant face, which seemed to whisper in the silence, "Be comforted, dear soul!
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Neither of us could help laughing, and we became friends at once." "Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one," said the young lord, plucking another daisy.
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Accordingly, this ancient Tarquin was found in the waggon, whither he had retired to avoid the shame of last night's disgrace, and brought by force into her presence.
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Personally, I was with Challenger, who was in a beatific humor, moving about as one in a silent ecstasy and beaming benevolence from every feature.
— from The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle

A specimen of a broken bangle, from which the insect was said to have burst forth, was sent to me.
— from Omens and Superstitions of Southern India by Edgar Thurston

These accounts are admitted by but few historians, and indeed the calling out one another's names in the daytime, and walking down to the Goats' Marsh seems more applicable to the former story, unless, indeed, both of these events happened on the same day.
— from Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4) by Plutarch

I could form no comprehension of his character, unless he were one of those miserable wretches who, having made gain the sole end and object of their lives and having succeeded in amassing great riches, are constantly tortured by the dread of poverty, and beset by fears of loss and ruin.
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

Some one asked him, saying, “There are those who understand the sounds of birds and beasts, but foreign languages have to be learned to be known; how can you speak them without study?”
— from Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Faries by Yuk Yi

It was neither beautiful nor artistic, but being foreign was the very thing with which to welcome American guests.
— from The House of the Misty Star A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan by Frances Little

It has been suggested to me, that many delays occur owing to Sunday being considered specially as a funeral day among the labouring classes; that an equal distribution of burials over the week would be preferable to this waiting for a particular day; and that the closure of your Cemetery on Sundays might accordingly be beneficial for the purposes under consideration.
— from Reports Relating to the Sanitary Condition of the City of London by John Simon

reads a Blue Book for three hours to a deputation shivering in the moat, is enough to convince the dullest Saxon of the hopelessness of enthralling a nation which has given birth to such as he.
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, December 3, 1887 by Various

Men will tak' a dredger across the Atlantic if they 're well fed, an' fetch her somewhere on the broadside o' the Americas; but bad food's bad service the warld over.
— from The Day's Work - Volume 1 by Rudyard Kipling

Addison bought beautiful furniture for every room.
— from Ruth's Marriage in Mars: A Scientific Novel by Glass, Charles Wilder, Mrs.

In one hand was the ancient, battered, brown felt turban, and in the other were the orange and black porcupine quills from Rebecca's last summer's hat; from the hat of the summer before that, and the summer before that, and so on back to prehistoric ages of which her childish memory kept no specific record, though she was sure that Temperance and Riverboro society did.
— from New Chronicles of Rebecca by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

The result was, as the Count de Montalembert shows, that "the town and environs of Rome were soon full of monasteries, rapidly occupied by men distinguished alike by birth, fortune and knowledge, who lived there in charity, sanctity and freedom.
— from Women of Early Christianity by Mitchell Carroll

Here he found that Silveira, deserted by Romana and beaten by Franceschi, had fallen back to a mountain immediately behind Chaves.
— from With Moore at Corunna by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

But yestermorn we found that we had sprung a plank or two just above the waterline, as we were in a bad berth for shelter.
— from A Prince of Cornwall A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex by Charles W. (Charles Watts) Whistler