Signs by moonlight, long embraces, tears flowing over yielded hands, all the fevers of the flesh and the languors of tenderness could not be separated from the balconies of great castles full of indolence, from boudoirs with silken curtains and thick carpets, well-filled flower-stands, a bed on a raised dias, nor from the flashing of precious stones and the shoulder-knots of liveries.
— from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Also—an admirable result, which should rejoice the old watch-maker’s shade—his son had become a gentleman, a functionary, so splendidly remunerated by the State that he was obliged to wear patches of cloth, as near like the trousers as possible, on their seat; and his poor young wife, during her life, had always been obliged, as rent-day drew near, to carry the soup-ladle and six silver covers to the pawn-shop.
— from A Romance of Youth — Complete by François Coppée

He describes it as built on a rock, distinguished, however, from all the rocks in that part of Arabia, from being supplied with an abundant spring of water.
— from A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels - Volume 18 Historical Sketch of the Progress of Discovery, Navigation, and Commerce, from the Earliest Records to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century, By William Stevenson by William Stevenson

During the life of his father and mother, he had such education as was thought requisite to fit him for trade; but losing his parents while very young, and being of a roving disposition, which strongly incited him to the sea, those who now had the care of him resolved to comply with his humour, and bound him about 1669 to the master of a ship who lived at Weymouth, in Dorsetshire.
— from A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 10 Arranged in systematic order: Forming a complete history of the origin and progress of navigation, discovery, and commerce, by sea and land, from the earliest ages to the present time. by Robert Kerr

It was after breakfast on a rainy day, such as always made Dick Ross miserable for the time.
— from Kept in the Dark by Anthony Trollope

195 On the whole the charm of Auxerre and its cathedral must be admitted to lie in its general surroundings and immediate environment, quite as much as because of any remarkably distinctive features of a superlative quality in the cathedral itself, though an undeniable wealth of picturesque detail exists.
— from The Cathedrals of Northern France by M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

“Kick up a bit of a racket, don’t they, but you get used to it in time; I could hear a pin drop.
— from Great Britain at War by Jeffery Farnol

"You ought to take a bit of a rest, Dick," said Bill Lakington.
— from The Man in Ratcatcher, and Other Stories by H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile

He had stolen on deck some time after midnight for a breath of air, risking detection, and from the shelter of a secluded corner well aft had
— from West Wind Drift by George Barr McCutcheon