Under the thatched roofs her mind's eye beheld relaxed tendons and flaccid muscles, spread out in the darkness beneath coverlets made of little purple patchwork squares, and undergoing a bracing process at the hands of sleep for renewed labour on the morrow, as soon as a hint of pink nebulosity appeared on Hambledon Hill.
— from Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy

4 They sought rather to write a history of peoples than a history of kings.
— from The Elements of Style by William Strunk

But she's mortal high and passionate—powerful high and passionate; and what with having notice to leave, and having others put above her, she don't take kindly to it."
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Among other things, Kit told them about his old place, and the extraordinary beauty of Nell (of whom he had talked to Barbara a thousand times already); but the last-named circumstance failed to interest his hearers to anything like the extent he had supposed, and even his mother said (looking accidentally at Barbara at the same time) that there was no doubt Miss Nell was very pretty, but she was but a child after all, and there were many young women quite as pretty as she; and Barbara mildly observed that she should think so, and that she never could help believing
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

Niccolo Cornacchini was a townsman of ours and a rich man and had, among his other possessions, a fine estate at Camerata, whereon he let build a magnificent mansion and agreed with Bruno and Buffalmacco to paint it all for him; and they, for that the work was great, joined to themselves Nello and Calandrino and fell to work.
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam came out of Mangan’s, late Fehrenbach’s, carrying a pound and a half of porksteaks.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

Since many people, however, dislike long mourning veils and all crepe generally, it is absolutely correct to omit both if preferred, and to wear an untrimmed coat and hat of plainest black with or without a veil.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post

we never suffer parties of such number to remain within the fort all night; for notwithstanding their apparent friendly disposition, their great averice and hope of plunder might induce them to be treacherous.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

We mustn’t even go into the big drawing-room; and I saw Jane carrying in heaps and heaps of parcels.’
— from Vivian's Lesson by Elizabeth W. (Elizabeth Wilson) Grierson

All her other papers and letters she had destroyed; her private affairs were in order; she had not a debt nor an obligation in the world.
— from God and the King by Marjorie Bowen

It was a well-grown boy of about fifteen years, and One-eye at once recognized him as his own particular master, but he was a very forlorn-looking boy.
— from Two Arrows: A Story of Red and White by William O. Stoddard

On the following afternoon a double funeral attracted hundreds of persons to the churchyard of Stratfield Mortimer, where Nelly Bridson was laid to rest in a plain grave, beneath a drooping willow, and the body of Sir John Stratfield, fourteenth baronet, was placed in the family vault, among his ancestors.
— from If Sinners Entice Thee by William Le Queux

They are then led forth to a large tree in the court, where a heap of pellises of various qualities lie on the pavement, shaken out of bags in which they were brought.
— from Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor Series One and Series Two in one Volume by R. (Robert) Walsh

Mustafa himselfe by worde of mouth presently answered me to this letter, in this sort, that I should returne, and make relation to this noble man Bragadino, who had sent mee, that he should come ouer to him at his owne pleasure, for hee was very desirous both to see and know him, for his great worthinesse and prowesse, that hee had tried to be in him, and in the other of his Captaines and Souldiers, of whose manhood and courage he would honourably report, where soeuer he came, as occasion should serue thereunto: and to conclude, that hee should nothing doubt of any thing: because in no maner of condition hee would suffer any violence to be done to those, which remained behind within the Citie.
— from The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 05 Central and Southern Europe by Richard Hakluyt

His father was not a man of very considerable fortune, and his only property here is his villa at Capo di Monte, where he spends the summer.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 19, April 1874‐September 1874 by Various

She felt the pockets of skirt and jacket, assuring herself that her purse and her own personal jewelry were where she had forehandedly placed them.
— from Green Fancy by George Barr McCutcheon

Much of the interest that attaches to them is, of course, due to local atmosphere, to the associations that surround the quaint restaurants, half hidden in unexpected nooks and by-ways, to the fact that old Jacques “waits” in his shirtsleeves or that Grosse Marie serves you with a smile as expansive as her own proportions, or that it is Justin or François or “Old Monsoor,” with his eternal grouch, who glides about the zinc counter.
— from Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them by Cora Moore

Every Sunday morning, that sum shall be paid to him, free of income-tax, out of the treasury and he has leave to dispose of it entirely at his own pleasure.
— from My Little Boy by Carl Ewald