He bore a salver in his hand on which was a chased silver goblet filled to the brim with wine, which he offered as reverentially as to a crowned queen—or, rather, with the awful devotion of a priest doing sacrifice to his idol.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Tubetube has become a trading community, whose inhabitants are recognised as traders and middlemen over a very considerable area, extending westwards … to Rogea and eastward to Murua.”
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea by Bronislaw Malinowski

Before the Latins began the social war against Rome, all the animals used in the service of man—dogs, horses, asses, oxen, and all the rest that are subject to man—suddenly grew wild, and forgot their domesticated tameness, forsook their stalls and wandered at large, and could not be closely approached either by strangers or their own masters without danger.
— from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

[Pg 301] Cortes, who received daily intelligence of what was going on in Narvaez's head-quarters and at Vera Cruz, was duly informed by Sandoval how Narvaez had thrown Vazquez de Aillon into chains, and sent him to Spain or Cuba, and that, owing to such violent proceedings, five of his principal officers had come over to him, who feared, since so little respect had been paid to the person of a royal auditor, they, as Aillon's relatives, might expect worse treatment.
— from The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) Written by Himself Containing a True and Full Account of the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and New Spain. by Bernal Díaz del Castillo

And because he maintained the imbecility of human judgment to be so extreme as to be incapable of any choice or inclination, and would have it perpetually wavering and suspended, considering and receiving all things as indifferent, ‘tis said, that he always comforted himself after the same manner and countenance: if he had begun a discourse, he would always end what he had to say, though the person he was speaking to had gone away: if he walked, he never stopped for any impediment that stood in his way, being preserved from precipices, collision with carts, and other like accidents, by the care of his friends: for, to fear or to avoid anything, had been to shock his own propositions, which deprived the senses themselves of all election and certainty.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Didn’t that Dough-Boy, the steward, tell me that of a morning he always finds the old man’s hammock clothes all rumpled and tumbled, and the sheets down at the foot, and the coverlid almost tied into knots, and the pillow a sort of frightful hot, as though a baked brick had been on it?
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

In front in the fog a shot was heard and then another, at first irregularly at varying intervals—trata...tat—and then more and more regularly and rapidly, and the action at the Goldbach Stream began.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

At this moment, George appeared on the top of a rock above them, and, speaking in a calm, clear voice, said, “Gentlemen, who are you, down there, and what do you want?”
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

The town had a large market-place; and at the fair-time there would be whole rows, like streets, of tents and booths containing silks and ribbons, and toys and cakes, and everything that could be wished for.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

Residence in South America, however, teaches one that revolutions are by no means so dangerous on the spot as they are in the armchairs of those who are reading about them afar off, and we serenely continued our preparations for the evening performance.
— from Working North from Patagonia Being the Narrative of a Journey, Earned on the Way, Through Southern and Eastern South America by Harry Alverson Franck

In an ordinary way, the figures are all ranged according to age, the oldest first, and then down to the very least child, and stand with folded hands, and look piously with downcast eyes and faces all in one direction, until by length of time the colors have all faded away.
— from O. T., A Danish Romance by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

This confuses all, and then the bandages are replaced, and they are thrust out of those many doors on to the street, and guided to the great square.
— from The Harlequin Opal: A Romance. Vol. 2 (of 3) by Fergus Hume

That new terminal is a real addition to a town which has long boasted two model stations—one in La Salle Street and the other upon the Lake Front.
— from The Modern Railroad by Edward Hungerford

He drove it gasping at an awkward run across the airfield, dodged around one wrecked plane and blundered through the door.
— from Plague of Pythons by Frederik Pohl

This was all received as truth, and a messenger sent back with orders, that Zor Woldo should leave the flour in small bags at Ebenaat, and that he should himself and his father wait the Ras at the ford, with what horse they had, the fourth day from that, in the evening.
— from Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 3 (of 5) In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773 by James Bruce

A man exercises himself with great exertion in lifting stones, as in an Eskimo tale, till he is strong; he practices shooting arrows and running after them, as in the story of the Chief's Son, till he can outrun them.
— from Algonquin Legends of New England by Charles Godfrey Leland