He would analyze his own machinations: elaborately contrive plots, and forthwith indulge in explanatory boasts of their skill.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

When he gave that calling over to me , he said, ‘Receive, as the successor and heir of my employment, those riches which I possess;’ and at his death he left me nothing but the streams.
— from The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books I-VII by Ovid

Whether or not Petrushka was glad to see the barin return it is impossible to say, but at all events he exchanged a wink with Selifan, and his ordinarily morose exterior seemed momentarily to brighten.
— from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

It has been seen that the jealousy and hatred of Mistress Epps made the daily life of her young and agile slave completely miserable.
— from Twelve Years a Slave Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River in Louisiana by Solomon Northup

Rikunusihun ka ug wà ka bay tíbi, You will be examined for T.B. pa- v [A; ac] have oneself medically examined.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

What students should do is to form a habit of making every day in their sketch-book 261 a drawing of something they have seen that has interested them, and that they have made some attempt at memorising.
— from The Practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed

Here now’s the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

On the other hand, a young person who is considerate is a delight immeasurable—such a delight as only a hostess of much experience can perhaps appreciate.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post

Explanations and appeals had failed; they had tried for a common meeting-ground, and had only made each other unhappy.
— from Howards End by E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster

This sally seemed to tickle the clerk amazingly, and he once more enjoyed a little quiet laugh to himself.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

We were but five minutes together, and on the public road; but I hardly recollect an hour of my existence which could be weighed against them.
— from The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 17, No. 474, Supplementary Number by Various

Thirty-eight passengers for this flight to Mars, but that accursed desire of every friend and relative to speed the departing voyager brought a hundred or more extra people to crowd our girders and bring added difficulty to everybody.
— from Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 by Various

The Argonauts had one more encounter with Hercules’ old foes, the birds of Stymphalis, and after this safely arrived at Colchis, and sailed into the mouth of the river Phasis, from which it is said the pheasant takes its name.
— from Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge

Braddock and his officers made every effort to rally them, but in vain; in this confusion and dismay they remained in a road twelve feet wide, enclosed by woods, for three hours, huddled together, exposed to the insidious fire, doing the enemy little hurt, and shooting one another.
— from History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia by Charles Campbell

On the seventh morning we signed a deed of partnership, for Jim would not accept a dollar of my money otherwise; and having once more engaged myself—or that mortal part of me, my purse—among the wheels of his machinery, I returned alone to San Francisco and took quarters in the Palace Hotel.
— from The Wrecker by Robert Louis Stevenson

The animal is standing, or rather crouching, beside a heap of moss, ever and anon raising its head and howling, till the forest is filled with the plaintive refrain.
— from The Death Shot: A Story Retold by Mayne Reid

The population of Dublin had not risen to the appeal of their Laon with the rapidity he hoped for; and accordingly upon the 4th of April he once more embarked with his family for Holyhead.
— from Shelley by John Addington Symonds

That pleasant intellectual countenance, bright and playful as his own music even to the last, has disappeared from amongst us; but the memory of such a man should not be allowed to die, and we will therefore, while in the vein, devote a column of our Journal to a sketch of one of the many incidents remembered of his long life, as illustrative in some degree not only of his character, but also of that of society in Dublin during the last century.
— from The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 33, February 13, 1841 by Various

Born in an hour of mental exaltation, his work prolonged and reproduced itself in his mind, which would otherwise have fallen exhausted.
— from Clerambault: The Story of an Independent Spirit During the War by Romain Rolland

My aunt was as unapproachably silent as my father and mother; but I never forgot how her face had altered when she reflected for a moment after hearing of my extraordinary adventure while going home with the servant over the sands at night.
— from The Queen of Hearts by Wilkie Collins