"Metal is heavier than feathers," but does that saying have reference to a single clasp of metal and a wagon-load of feathers?
— from Bushido, the Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe

On Henchard's the artificially stimulated coveting of maturer age.
— from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

“Peace,” she said, with a sudden change of manner, and speaking in her former soft voice.
— from She by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard

But a second cousin o' mine, a drovier, was a rare hand at remembering the Scotch tunes.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

A sickness caught of me, and yet I well?
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

I realized, then, what a creepy, dull, inanimate horror this land had been to me all these years, and how I had been in such a stifled condition of mind as to have grown used to it almost beyond the power to notice it.
— from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

In the centre of the great circus ring thus formed, was a torn and ragged upheaval a hundred feet high, all snowed over with a sulphur crust of many and many a brilliant and beautiful color, and the ditch inclosed this like the moat of a castle, or surrounded it as a little river does a little island, if the simile is better.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

He had never before seen the prince in such a strange condition of mind, and could not have imagined the possibility of it.
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Then sell them at that fair yourself, seeing that you are so certain of making a triple profit.”
— from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

It is a savory compound of meat and potatoes, inclosed in a crescent-shaped crust; but one must be a Cornishman to appreciate this dish thoroughly.
— from The Story of the Toys by Mary Harris Toy Dodge

Usually this breakfast consists of the simplest fare, but on the Day of the Silk Mantles there are bowls of steaming hot crushed grain and succulent chunks of meat, a feast to satisfy the children of kings.
— from Amurath to Amurath by Gertrude Lowthian Bell

24:24 For the army of the Syrians came with a small company of men; and Yahweh delivered a very great army into their hand, because they had forsaken Yahweh, the God of their fathers.
— from The World English Bible (WEB), Complete by Anonymous

The impossible hero, the impossible heroine, and their extravagant sentiments, afford scope for a strife and a torture of thought, which is an inseparable medley of wit and argumentation; wit reasoning, and logic jesting; a strange confusion of mental actions, with an unfavourable result; for this result is neither TRUTH nor MIRTH ; but very CHIMERA —changing colour like the chameleon—shape like the clouds, and substance like the contents of an alchemist's crucible.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 353, March 1845 by Various

Of course, there are some crawlers of men ain't to be pleased anyhow, but they can be left out of it.
— from Some Everyday Folk and Dawn by Miles Franklin

Something of this calm and solitude crept over me, and I dozed in my gloomy cavern.
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales With Condensed Novels, Spanish and American Legends, and Earlier Papers by Bret Harte

While he was speaking, I found on the floor, among piles of books, a small copy of Maud, a shilling volume, bound in blue paper.
— from Margot Asquith, an Autobiography - Two Volumes in One by Margot Asquith

But now, you see,"—and here Kitty's laugh grew more natural, and she gave a subtle caricature of Mr. Arbuton's air and tone as she spoke,—"I can't help feeling that it's a little—vulgar."
— from A Chance Acquaintance by William Dean Howells

The bodies of the slain and drowned Mamelukes were rifled, and, it being the custom for those warriors to carry their wealth about them, a single corpse often made a soldier's fortune.
— from The History of Napoleon Buonaparte by J. G. (John Gibson) Lockhart