Man was not surrounded with enemies like these, but with myriads of beautiful and beneficent beings, all anxious to do him service.
— from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay

Now, The Ladies come; As Pirats, which doe know That there came weak ships fraught with Cutchannel, 190 The men board them; and praise, as they thinke, well, [page 166] Their beauties; they the mens wits; Both are bought.
— from The Poems of John Donne, Volume 1 (of 2) Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts by John Donne

May this occupation be blessed, and may the dear little Prince who is now entrusted to my care, some day read this book, and be animated by it to deeds like those of his glorious ancestors.
— from On War — Volume 1 by Carl von Clausewitz

His neat little cottage is on the shore of the bay opposite the beautiful fairy-haunted Darnish Island; and, as we sat within it beside a brilliant peat fire, and surrounded by all the family, this is what was told me:— A ‘Gentry’ Medium. —‘Ketty Rourk (or Queenan) could tell all that would happen—funerals, weddings, and so forth.
— from The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. (Walter Yeeling) Evans-Wentz

In little more than two years, viz., on the 4th June, 1802, it announced that the publication of the Herald is suspended; that it will appear only "on particular occasions;" but Mr. Tiffany hopes it "will by and by receive a revival.
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

Paulus Diakonus states that Wodan, or Gwodan, was worshiped by all branches of the Teutons.
— from The Younger Edda; Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson

Then the woman-servant brought a basin of warm water, and washed her feet; and Mr. Linton mixed a tumbler of negus, and Isabella emptied a plateful of cakes into her lap, and Edgar stood gaping at a distance.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Behind them an angry farmer brandished a bamboo pole.
— from Kim by Rudyard Kipling

Even in her most uneasy moments—even when she had been agitated by Mrs. Cadwallader's painfully graphic report of gossip—her effort, nay, her strongest impulsive prompting, had been towards the vindication of Will from any sullying surmises; and when, in her meeting with him afterwards, she had at first interpreted his words as a probable allusion to a feeling towards Mrs. Lydgate which he was determined to cut himself off from indulging, she had had a quick, sad, excusing vision of the charm there might be in his constant opportunities of companionship with that fair creature, who most likely shared his other tastes as she evidently did his delight in music.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

Thereupon Sheridan suggested that all the buoys and beacons should be removed.
— from Secret Service Under Pitt by William J. (William John) Fitz-Patrick

The migratory “birds that change their sky” [82] return and build their nests; “and my regret Becomes an April violet, And buds and blossoms like the rest.”
— from A Key to Lord Tennyson's 'In Memoriam' by Alfred Gatty

And the sense is so powerfully upon him of the unchangeable economy of the world, which, even if the fairest visions of the millennium itself were realized, would still render such a thing actually impossible, that he hardly regrets the bright scene was but a beautiful mirage , and melts away.
— from An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance by John Foster

He was succeeded by a Belgian sheep dog, baptised Namur , who in time gave place to one of the most hopelessly ugly mongrels I have ever seen.
— from With Those Who Wait by Frances Wilson Huard

They rode till they came to Laugarwater, and were there that night; but next morning they rode on to Baitvale, and baited their horses there, and there many bands rode to meet them.
— from The Story of Burnt Njal: The Great Icelandic Tribune, Jurist, and Counsellor by Unknown

He is a brute, more intelligent than other brutes; a blind prey to impulses which, as often as not, lead him to destruction; a victim to endless illusions which make his mental existence a terror and a burthen and fill his physical life with barren toil and battle.
— from Hagar by Mary Johnston

Mrs. Slater, a stout, amiable woman, who had never been one to worry; Henry Slater, Senior, had been a bad husband, "what with women and the drink"—she had no intention of lamenting him now that he was dead; she had done for ever with men, and devoted the whole of her time and energy to providing bread and butter for herself and her son.
— from The Golden Scarecrow by Hugh Walpole

Wearing this shield, the sinless Christ fought our battle, and bore the anguish of our sin.
— from The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Ephesians by George G. (George Gillanders) Findlay

There has been no period, however corrupt, there has been no Church, however superstitious, that has not been adorned by many Christian women devoting their entire lives to assuaging the sufferings of men; and the mission of charity thus instituted has not been more efficacious in diminishing the sum of human wretchedness, than in promoting the moral dignity of those by whom it was conducted.
— from History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne (Vol. 2 of 2) by William Edward Hartpole Lecky