King Harald sent his men to a girl called Gyda, daughter of King Eirik of Hordaland, who was brought up as foster-child in the house of a great bonde in Valdres.
— from Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson

The stranger stretched his neck out of his cravat, a gesture characteristic of the vulture, and replied with an augmented smile.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

In proportion as the function practiced by any given caste stands high or low in the scale of industrial development, in [Pg 684] the same proportion does the caste itself, impelled by the general tone of society by which it is surrounded, approximate more nearly or more remotely to the Brāhmanical idea of life.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

We have come now out of mere vagueness to the definite conception of an Australian from Ballarat with a gray cloak.”
— from Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Illustrated by Arthur Conan Doyle

For these reasons, the invitation to participate in the proposed International Conference of Freemasons at Geneva cannot be accepted.
— from Secret Societies And Subversive Movements by Nesta Helen Webster

I ask you, Messer Cicero, and Messer Seneca, copies of whom, all dog’s-eared, I behold scattered on the floor, what profits it me to know, better than any governor of the mint, or any Jew on the Pont aux Changeurs, that a golden crown stamped with a crown is worth thirty-five unzains of twenty-five sous, and eight deniers parisis apiece, and that a crown stamped with a crescent is worth thirty-six unzains of twenty-six sous, six deniers tournois apiece, if I have not a single wretched black liard to risk on the double-six!
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

The reason is that in Corsica anyone, on leaving his house, may be greeted by a bullet; and the Corsican, instead of submitting like a good Christian, tries to defend himself and still more to be revenged.
— from On Love by Stendhal

Bolshevism, as before stated, is only against Gentile capitalism.
— from The International Jew : The World's Foremost Problem by Anonymous

An entire class of susceptibilities, and a gift connected with them,—of no great richness or value, but the best I had,—was gone from me.
— from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

It seems worth remembering that this day I did hear my Lord Anglesey at the table, speaking touching this new Act for Accounts, say that the House of Lords did pass it because it was a senseless, impracticable, ineffectual, and foolish Act; and that my Lord Ashly having shown this that it was so to the House of Lords, the Duke of Buckingham did stand up and told the Lords that they were beholden to my Lord Ashly, that having first commended them for a most grave and honourable assembly, he thought it fit for the House to pass this Act for Accounts because it was a foolish and simple Act: and it seems it was passed with but a few in the House, when it was intended to have met in a grand Committee upon it.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Range in 137 b.c. ; and General Cunningham, one earlier than that.
— from The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 of 4 by H. P. (Helena Petrovna) Blavatsky

I am content to hear from him that I have a good case, which doubtless he will continue for me in court.’
— from The Mercy of Allah by Hilaire Belloc

A good chronic silent grief of some years standing, that gets worried into acute inflammation at the age when feeling is no longer fancy, throws out a heart-disease which sometimes kills without warning, or sometimes, if the grief be removed, will rather prolong than shorten life, by inducing a prudent avoidance of worry in future.
— from What Will He Do with It? — Volume 12 by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

How strange must have seemed to them the cheerfulness of the motionless figure always lying in the bed; a cheerfulness which, though gentle as gentle could be, yet sufficed not to assure the little things, or set them at their ease.
— from Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. by Samuel Warren

She thought she saw the Lord, seated on a majestic throne, with thousands and ten thousands of shining angels about him, and she was brought a guilty criminal before him.
— from Step by Step; Or, Tidy's Way to Freedom by American Tract Society

All knights have their own special parts to play; let the courtier devote himself to the ladies, let him add lustre to his sovereign’s court by his liveries, let him entertain poor gentlemen with the sumptuous fare of his table, let him arrange joustings, marshal tournaments, and prove himself noble, generous, and magnificent, and above all a good Christian, and so doing he will fulfil the duties that are especially his; but let the knight-errant explore the corners of the earth and penetrate the most intricate labyrinths, at each step let him attempt impossibilities, on desolate heaths let him endure the burning rays of the midsummer sun, and the bitter inclemency of the winter winds and frosts; let no lions daunt him, no monsters terrify him, no dragons make him quail; for to seek these, to attack those, and to vanquish all, are in truth his main duties.
— from The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Complete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

And since those other three young men have gone off on a stag party to Bordeaux, we'll organize a dove lunch, as the American girls call it, and go off to Cap Ferret.
— from The Disturbing Charm by Berta Ruck

On the same Sunday, "for love and amity and good communication to be had for the several weal of the fraternity," the guildmen dined together, every brother paying for himself and his wife, or sweetheart, the sum of four pence.
— from The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries by James J. (James Joseph) Walsh

There is in Ceylon a granite cippus , or monumental pillar, of immemorial antiquity; and to this pillar a remarkable legend is attached.
— from Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers — Volume 2 by Thomas De Quincey

In Kansas City there was a great chance for me, I was told.
— from Between You and Me by Lauder, Harry, Sir