Once on such an occasion, one of them came up to him as he lay in bed, and giving him a green leaf told him to put it in his mouth.
— from The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. (Walter Yeeling) Evans-Wentz

Elizabeth could hardly help laughing at so convenient a proposal; yet was really vexed that her mother should be always giving him such an epithet.
— from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

When I asked him what was the matter, he replied, with a broken accent, “God have mercy on us!
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

The artist must have worked for more than one night, for the teachers of both the boys’ and girls’ high-schools, the teachers of the seminary, the government officials, all received a copy.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

In her rage she told him that she would never have asked me to give her a cup of coffee if she had foreseen this piece of importunity, adding that if he had been a gentleman he would have known better than to intrude himself at such an hour.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the matter: an old man, sir, and his wits are not so blunt as, God help, I would desire they were; but, in faith, honest as the skin between his brows.
— from Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare

He could scarce yet have been therein when the king arose and repaired to the queen's chamber, whereat she marvelled exceedingly; and as he entered the bed and greeted her blithely, she took courage by his cheerfulness and said, 'O my lord, what new fashion is this of to-night?
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

Nothing in this world could have co-operated more powerfully towards this, than my uncle Toby ’s blue and gold—— had not Quantity in some measure been necessary to Grace: in a period of fifteen or sixteen years since they had been made, by a total inactivity in my uncle Toby ’s life, for he seldom went further than the bowling-green—his blue and gold had become so miserably too straight for him, 182 that it was with the utmost difficulty the corporal was able to get him into them; the taking them up at the sleeves, was of no advantage.——They were laced however down the back, and at the seams of the sides, &c. in the mode of King William ’s reign; and to shorten all description, they shone so bright against the sun that morning, and had so metallick and doughty an air with them, that had my uncle Toby thought of attacking in armour, nothing could have so well imposed upon his imagination.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Myler quickly became busy and got his man under, the bout ending with the bulkier man on the ropes, Myler punishing him.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

His hair was coarse, black and greasy, his face like those formed in gingerbread, he had the voice of a buffalo, the countenance of an owl, and the bristles of a boar in lieu of a beard; his smile was sardonic, and his limbs played like those of a puppet moved by wires.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Of songs his own special favorites, I remember, were a long ballad in which a faithful soldier is informed on his return to his native village that his own true love "lives with her own granny dear," which he, his mind running in military grooves, takes for "grenadier," with temporarily distressing results—though all comes right at last—and a lyrical description of an upset of his coach, the only one he ever had, written by a gifted hostler.
— from Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 100, April, 1876 by Various

And Booker Washington, the moral exemplar of the day, rivalling Horace’s “Iustum et tenacem propositi virum,” as he resists the pernicious counsels of the overwhelming majority of negroes and keeps to the wise and right course which they passionately condemn; who is far more able and who has accomplished infinitely more of good than Toussaint or Douglass—he will be a great hero statesman of a great cause lost.
— from The Brothers' War by John C. (John Calvin) Reed

But his brothers all gave him their hands, and soon began to tell him how delightfully they had passed the previous day.
— from Myths and Folk-tales of the Russians, Western Slavs, and Magyars by Jeremiah Curtin

it is so nice, &c.” I wanted no stimulant, but licked away until, with shortened breath; and greater heavings of her body, she began to stammer— “Oh!
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous

It fell upon the bed, it fell upon Whitefire’s hilt and ran along the blade, it gleamed on a woman’s snowy breast and golden hair, and shone in her staring eyes—a woman who lay stiff and cold upon the bed, the great sword fixed within her heart!
— from Eric Brighteyes by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard

A book on John Harper's activities would be a good history of early town housing.
— from Seaport in Virginia George Washington's Alexandria by Gay Montague Moore

"He must be a great help and comfort to you," returned Miss M'Evoy.
— from In Mr. Knox's Country by E. Oe. (Edith Oenone) Somerville

The celebrated statue know as the 'Venus de Medici,' the acknowledged type of beauty and grace, has a waist of twenty-seven inches, the height of the figure being only five feet two inches."
— from The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. by Various

At Nashville he arranged with General Jackson to build and equip several barges and gave him four thousand dollars to be applied to the purpose.
— from Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant by Mathew Joseph Holt

It is commonly prepared by simmering 1 oz. of isinglass, 2 or 3 oz. of lump sugar, and a little flavouring, [203] in about a pint of milk, until the first is dissolved, when the whole is thrown into a jelly-bag, and the strained liquor is allowed to cool and solidify; it is next remelted by a gentle heat, and, when nearly cold, poured into moulds, which have been previously rubbed with a little salad oil and then wiped out again.
— from Cooley's Cyclopædia of Practical Receipts and Collateral Information in the Arts, Manufactures, Professions, and Trades..., Sixth Edition, Volume I by Richard Vine Tuson