With woe I nightly vigils keep, Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam; And mourn, in lamentation deep, How life and love are all a dream!
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns

He is again being studied more as a thinker and less as an ally or an opponent; there is more eagerness to sift the true from the false, and to seek in the Social Contract the "principles of political right," rather than the great revolutionary's ipse dixit in favour of some view about circumstances which he could never have contemplated.
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

But he must go at last, and all he could do was to press her hand gently as he said “Good-bye,” and hope she would take that as a sign that if his love could ever be a refuge for her, it was there the same as ever.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other, but the great question is 'What?'" Alice looked all around her at the flowers and the blades of grass, but she could not see anything that looked like the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances.
— from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

I observed that as he stepped out he gave a most searching glance to right and left, and at every subsequent street corner he took the utmost pains to assure that he was not followed.
— from The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Emmanuel, the successor of John, being come to the crown, first set them at liberty, and afterwards altering his mind, ordered them to depart his country, assigning three ports for their passage.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Once it chanced that I stood in the very abutment of a rainbow's arch, which filled the lower stratum of the atmosphere, tinging the grass and leaves around, and dazzling me as if I looked through colored crystal.
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

The massive arches of some of these ruins rest upon piers that are fifteen feet square and built entirely of solid blocks of marble, some of which are as large as a Saratoga trunk, and some the size of a boarding-house sofa.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

"In other words," said he, "you refuse to keep Mademoiselle here any longer as a boarder?"
— from Messengers of Evil Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantômas by Pierre Souvestre

This put Clarence in the position of heir; secured £500 a year to Griffith’s widow, charged on the estate, and likewise an additional £200 a year to Emily and to me, hers till marriage, mine for life, £300 a year to Martyn, until Earlscombe Rectory should be voided, when it was to be offered to him.
— from Chantry House by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge

Always late, and as soon as he was settled down to his work, in must come that scoundrel with the French name to ask for him, and get him away.
— from The Haute Noblesse: A Novel by George Manville Fenn

Sir John standing bravely in the centre to rally his men, his nose like the focus of a burning-glass collecting its rays, was himself a little astounded at seeing the number who appeared wounded and bleeding after so short an encounter.
— from Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 3 (of 3) by Barrington, Jonah, Sir

“That,” said Ulenspiegel, “is a victim of marriage, who, devoured by sorrow, would wither away like an apple in the oven, if he did not recuperate his strength with constant nourishment.”
— from The Legend of Ulenspiegel, Volume 1 (of 2) And Lamme Goedzak, and their Adventures Heroical, Joyous and Glorious in the Land of Flanders and Elsewhere by Charles de Coster

Each great railway company and combination has worked its own areas, and made difficulties and aggressions at the boundaries of its sphere of influence; here are inconvenient junctions and here unnecessary duplications; nearly all the companies come into London, each taking up its own area of expensive land for goods yards, sidings, shunting grounds, and each regardless of any proper correlation with the other; great areas of the County of London are covered with their idle trucks and their separate coal stores; in many provincial towns you will find two or even three railway stations at opposite ends of the town; the streets are blocked by the vans and trolleys of the several companies tediously handing about goods that could be dealt with at a tenth of the cost in time and labour at a central clearing-house, did such a thing exist; and each system has its vast separate staff, unaccustomed to work with any other staff.
— from What is Coming? A Forecast of Things after the War by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

In 1910 it was in the National Gallery, as a loan, and at present is in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, one of its greatest treasures.
— from The Mentor: Rembrandt, Vol. 4, Num. 20, Serial No. 120, December 1, 1916 by John Charles Van Dyke

Dramatic Origins of the English Pastoral Drama I Having at length arrived at what must be regarded as the main subject of this work, it will be my task in the remaining chapters to follow the growth of the pastoral drama in England down to the middle of the seventeenth century, and in so doing to gather up and weave into a connected web the loose threads of my discourse.
— from Pastoral Poetry & Pastoral Drama A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration Stage in England by W. W. (Walter Wilson) Greg

And she is worth—even at this belated stage in our chronicle an attempted sketch, or at least an attempted impression.
— from A Modern Chronicle — Complete by Winston Churchill

The dining-room was, in fact, open and lighted; and at one of the tables sat an Englishman and a lady, eating their supper.
— from A Russian Proprietor, and Other Stories by Tolstoy, Leo, graf