As the beams of the sun penetrated their shadowy folds, they gradually drew up like a curtain, and dissolved like wreaths of smoke into the clear air.
— from Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie

To remain seated on a chair all day long, with arms and legs crossed: such was the situation.
— from The History of a Crime The Testimony of an Eye-Witness by Victor Hugo

The worthy old gentleman seeing the rage I was in apologized to me for what he had said, and told me that a certain Abbe de la Coste had informed him that I did so.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

An action which is of the highest significance for history may in inward significance be a very ordinary and common one; and conversely, a scene of ordinary daily life may be of great inward significance, if human individuals, and the inmost recesses of human action and will, appear in it in a clear and distinct light.
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

One had not the courage to decide; but it was a charming and deceptive light, throwing the impalpable poesy of its dimness over pitfalls—over graves.
— from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

A few adverbs not derived from adjectives are compared: as, diū , long , diūtius , diūtissimē ; saepe , often , saepius , saepissimē ; nūper , lately , no comparative, nūperrimē ; secus , otherwise , sētius , the less ; temperī , betimes , temperius , earlier , no superlative.
— from A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges by George Martin Lane

The demon's shade is o'er her thrown: As burnt by summer's heat a rill Scarce trickling from her parent hill, With dying fish in pools half dried, And fainting birds upon her side: As sacrificial flames arise When holy oil their food supplies, But when no more the fire is fed Sink lustreless and cold and dead: Like some brave host that filled the plain, With harness rent and captains slain, When warrior, elephant, and steed Mingled in wild confusion bleed: As when, all spent her store of worth, Rocks from her base the loosened earth: Like a sad fallen star no more Wearing the lovely light it wore: So mournful in her lost estate Was that sad town disconsolate.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki

Look once more e're we leave this specular Mount Westward, much nearer by Southwest, behold Where on the Aegean shore a City stands Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil, Athens the eye of Greece, Mother of Arts 240 And Eloquence, native to famous wits Or hospitable, in her sweet recess, City or Suburban, studious walks and shades; See there the Olive Grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic Bird Trills her thick-warbl'd notes the summer long, There flowrie hill Hymettus with the sound Of Bees industrious murmur oft invites To studious musing; there Ilissus rouls His whispering stream; within the walls then view 250 The schools of antient Sages; his who bred Great Alexander to subdue the world, Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next: There thou shalt hear and learn the secret power Of harmony in tones and numbers hit By voice or hand, and various-measur'd verse, Aeolian charms and Dorian Lyric Odes, And his who gave them breath, but higher sung, Blind Melesigenes thence Homer call'd, Whose Poem Phoebus challeng'd for his own.
— from The Poetical Works of John Milton by John Milton

"What makes you a coward?" asked Dorothy, looking at the great beast in wonder, for he was as big as a small horse.
— from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

Everywhere else it had been ploughed under when the highways were surveyed; this half-mile or so within the pasture fence was all that was left of that old road which used to run like a wild thing across the open prairie, clinging to the high places and circling and doubling like a rabbit before the hounds.
— from My Antonia by Willa Cather

he added, apparently with a lightened heart, and with a cheerful and determined look: "I never rightly considered the matter before; now it is perfectly clear to me; I can sleep as quietly as in Abraham's bosom, when I think on the sin which I, with mature deliberation and full resolve, purpose to perpetrate as soon as possible.
— from King Eric and the Outlaws, Vol. 3 or, the Throne, the Church, and the People in the Thirteenth Century. by Bernhard Severin Ingemann

In order to lead a chaste and decent life, we should, as far as possible, shun all temptations and all places and occasions where such temptations will come upon us.
— from Lessons in the Small Catechism of Dr. Martin Luther For the Senior Department of Lutheran Sunday-Schools and for General Use by George Mezger

Besides, she knew all the people: the old cobbler, who sat next her, and chattered all day long like a magpie; the tinker, who had come up many a summer night to drink a-glass with Antoine; the Cheap John, who cheated everybody else, but who had always given her a toy or a trinket at every Fête Dieu all the summers she had known; the little old woman, sour as a crab, who sold rosaries and pictures of saints, and little waxen Christs upon a tray; the big dogs who pulled the carts in, and lay panting all day under the rush-bottomed chairs on which the egg-wives and the fruit sellers sat, and knitted, and chaffered; nay, even the gorgeous huissier and the frowning gendarme, who marshalled the folks into order as they went up for municipal registries, or for town misdemeanors,—she knew them all; had known them all ever since she had first trotted in like a little dog at Antoine's heels.
— from Bébée; Or, Two Little Wooden Shoes by Ouida

Poor man, his wife leads him a cat and dog life, I hear, with her jealousy.
— from Hard Cash by Charles Reade

There is a pretty fable of a cat and dog lying in a dark room, aptly illustrating the fine senses of these two species.
— from The Naturalist in La Plata by W. H. (William Henry) Hudson

It is a log hut built across the road from the tavern, for movers- that the land [30] lord need not be bother'd with them— Had it been possible for our horses to have reached another inn we should not have staid with the cross old dutch fellow-we have a good fire, a long dirty table, a few boards nailed up for a closet, a dozen long boards in one side & as many barrels in the other- 2 benches to sit on, two bottomless chairs, & a floor containing dirt enough to plant potatoes—
— from A Journey to Ohio in 1810, as Recorded in the Journal of Margaret Van Horn Dwight by Margaret Van Horn Dwight