But one day at the club, when he brought out this phrase in connection with some heated discussion in the midst of a little group of members (all persons of some consequence) Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, who was standing on one side, alone and unnoticed, suddenly went up to Pyotr Pavlovitch, took him unexpectedly and firmly with two fingers by the nose, and succeeded in leading him two or three steps across the room.
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

At that moment other steps were heard; the crowd in the passage parted, and the priest, a little, grey old man, appeared in the doorway bearing the sacrament.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In front the restless waves are ever rolling in on the yellow sands, in their ceaseless chase from the Bay of Biscay, spread out so broad, blue, and beautiful; while to the south the distant skies seem walled up by that grand dark chain of the Spanish mountains, towering through clouds and tempests in wild and lofty grandeur, or melting away on the far horizon into the heat of the golden day and the spume of the tossing sea.
— from The Sunny South: An Autumn in Spain and Majorca by John William Clayton

Snorre confesses that he had intended to kill him; but adds, "Thou tookest such a lucky grip of me at our meeting, that thou must have peace this time, however it may have been determined before."
— from Letters from High Latitudes Being Some Account of a Voyage in 1856 of the Schooner Yacht "Foam" to Iceland, Jan Meyen, and Spitzbergen by Dufferin and Ava, Frederick Temple Blackwood, Marquis of

The only important thing is a little group of minds always the same— which passes the torch from one to another."
— from The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters by George Sand

“And it would seem, lieutenant, that you dislodged the poodle, for since then Madame Saint-Edmond is forever at your heels; and as for me, madame questions me and tries to make me talk; she sends for me to come up when she’s at breakfast, and as she offers me a little glass of malaga and a biscuit, she asks me where you passed the evening before.”
— from The Milkmaid of Montfermeil (Novels of Paul de Kock Volume XX) by Paul de Kock

"You are late, Count Raphael," said a tall lady, presiding over a little gathering of men and women in the upper hall of the Castle of Collioure.
— from The White Plumes of Navarre: A Romance of the Wars of Religion by S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett

But first he sent to the handful of people in the port a liberal gift of money and wine and provisions from the ship's stores.
— from The Trail of the Sword, Volume 3 by Gilbert Parker

Close by, down in the green valley before him, there was something else to attract his attention, and this was a large group of men and horses.
— from A Little Boy Lost by W. H. (William Henry) Hudson

The lady turned out to be Mrs. Obed Stannard, the mother of Ed Stannard, afterwards Lieutenant Governor of Missouri, and a very successful business man of St. Louis.
— from Autobiography of Charles Clinton Nourse Prepared for use of Members of the Family by Charles Clinton Nourse