Don Tiburcio had come to the Philippines as a petty official in the Customs, but such had been his bad luck that, besides suffering severely from seasickness and breaking a leg during the voyage, he had been dismissed within a fortnight, just at the time when he found himself without a cuarto.
— from The Social Cancer: A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere by José Rizal

But when it should be necessary for you to give a reason for it, would you give one in a similar way, by again laying down another hypothesis, which should appear the best of higher principles, until you arrived at something satisfactory; but, at the same time, you would avoid making confusion, as disputants do, in treating of the first principle and the results arising from it, if you really desire to arrive at the truth of things?
— from Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates by Plato

I placed all the pillows and cushions I could find on a heap in the centre of the bed and lay down with my belly resting on them so as to raise up my posteriors and present them to him in an attitude that would be propitious to his purpose.
— from Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover by Anonymous

but it would have been a lasting disgrace and scandal for a general, with whom the struggle lay for glory, to have been overcome by an act of wickedness and not by valour .—H.
— from Helps to Latin Translation at Sight by Edmund Luce

He amused J.-J. Bixiou and Leon de Lora by his ridiculous pretensions.
— from Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z by Anatole Cerfberr

But as I did so I heard a deep-drawn breath, and looking down perceived a line of colour creeping up Leo’s face, then another and another, and then, wonder of wonders, the man we had thought dead turned over on his side.
— from She by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard

It will be a great struggle," she continued, smiling, "but I've brought a little dictionary—" "The cook," said Mrs. Fisher, "knows."
— from The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim

the nostrils are remarkably Small, placed far back and low down on the Sides of the beak.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

He doubted even whether he should proceed, but at length determined to see and [Pg 16] upbraid her.
— from The Connexion Between Taste and Morals: Two lectures by Mark Hopkins

Behind, such county magistrates as were attracted by curiosity or by a laudable desire to take a lesson in doing justice.
— from A Young Man's Year by Anthony Hope

If Curtius, spurring on his steed, threw himself all armed into a precipitous gulf, obeying the oracles of their gods, which had commanded that the Romans should throw into that gulf the best thing which they possessed, and they could only understand thereby that, since they excelled in men and arms, the gods had commanded that an armed man should be cast headlong into that destruction;—if he did this, shall we say that that man has done a great thing for the eternal city who may have died by a like death, not, however, precipitating himself spontaneously into a gulf, but having suffered this death at the hands of some enemy of his faith, more especially when he has received from his Lord, who is also King of [Pg 212] his country, a more certain oracle, "Fear not them who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul?"
— from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

A pious cat, for instance, called upon to act as umpire in a dispute between a sparrow and a monkey, inspires such confidence in the litigants, by a long discourse on the vanity of life and the supreme importance of virtue, that they come close up in order to hear better the words of wisdom.
— from A History of Sanskrit Literature by Arthur Anthony Macdonell

I presume that I am entitled till the consummation to the rents of Buriton: a little drop of honey is collected from Lady-day to Michaelmas, and Andrews is I hope instructed to squeeze the bag without delay or mercy: the Tenant deserves none.
— from Private Letters of Edward Gibbon (1753-1794) Volume 2 (of 2) by Edward Gibbon

Turning about, as the candles on the table blinked, the young man lazily dashed the rain and sleet from his beard and breast, and lay down again on the settle, with something between a shiver and a yawn.
— from The Shadow of a Crime: A Cumbrian Romance by Caine, Hall, Sir

It will be a little dull with me no doubt, and toward spring it is all hurry and drive, Antoine here and Antoine there.
— from A Little Girl in Old Detroit by Amanda M. Douglas

I had cleaned out a special pool behind the ice-house, and built a little dressing-platform.
— from Dwellers in Arcady: The Story of an Abandoned Farm by Albert Bigelow Paine

And that transformation in the days of Queen Margaret and her sons was accompanied, and to a large extent compensated, by a less desirable incorporation into the western ecclesiastical system.
— from John Knox by A. Taylor (Alexander Taylor) Innes