We followed his directions punctually, in turning to the left, and to the right, and to the left again; but instead of seeing a lane before us, found ourselves at the side of the river, a circumstance that perplexed us not a little; and my fellow-traveller ventured to pronounce, that we had certainly missed our way.
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

And then all of a sudden there was a flash of cold steel, and a great spear was held against my throat, and behind it other spears gleamed cruelly.
— from She by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard

A breach in one single pane of glass would have been immediate death; nor could anything have preserved the windows but the strong lattice-wires placed on the outside against accidents in travelling.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World by Jonathan Swift

“As soon as breakfast is over,” said the excellent man, “I shall go and visit the institute, and leave you alone with Henriette.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Broad shoulders, a lank belly, firm joints, taper legs; all these are beautiful in our species, because signs of force and vigour.
— from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume

Not knowing which way to turn, I wrote to my excellent grandmother, begging her assistance, but instead of sending me some money, she came to Padua on the 1st of October, 1739, and, after thanking the doctor and Bettina for all their affectionate care, she brought me back to Venice.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

A breach in one single pane of glass would have been immediate death: nor could any thing have preserved the windows, but the strong lattice wires placed on the outside, against accidents in travelling.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

On the eighteenth and nineteenth of November, the army advanced two days’ march and the enemy’s outposts after a brief interchange of shots retreated.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

[359] Repentance and compunction, exhibited upon a scale of such colossal magnitude, attended by incidents of such impassioned frenzy, assumed the aspect of vice and of insanity.
— from Renaissance in Italy, Volume 4 (of 7) Italian Literature, Part 1 by John Addington Symonds

With this the fish and bird in our second and third pictures agree very well.
— from Commentary on the Maya Manuscript in the Royal Public Library of Dresden by Ernst Wilhelm Förstemann

Though it was pure and blameless, it offered some points which an unscrupulous adversary might readily misconstrue, with some show of plausibility.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 65, March, 1863 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

"Who has said that God is a being in our shape and form, Raoul?
— from The Wing-and-Wing; Or, Le Feu-Follet by James Fenimore Cooper

How vile is that sectarian spirit which in cold blood consigns all but its own sect to eternal misery.
— from Works of John Bunyan — Volume 03 by John Bunyan

They also believed in original sin, which was to be in some way removed by sprinkling an infant with water.
— from Hernando Cortez Makers of History by John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

Soon after the Duke Alva arrived, she returned to Antwerp; but, instead of selling wax tapers and other Popish mummery, finding her calling of sorceress and witch answer so well in the country, she now pursues it in the city.
— from The Golden Grasshopper: A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham by William Henry Giles Kingston