Then the crew took to the boats and rowed shorewards, singing as they went, and drawing after them the long bobbing procession of casks, like a mile of porpoises.
— from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

I asked Ruby Gillis why Myrtle was blighted, and Ruby said she guessed it was because her young man had gone back on her.
— from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

It is all of brick, even the Corinthian pillars, and seems to have been but a rude structure, suited to the purpose for which it was built, the amusement of the soldiers, and gymnastic exercises.
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius

↑ 44 Others are titah (commands); patek (slave); mĕrka or murka (wrath); karnia or kurnia (favour); and nĕgrah or anugrah (permission); the penalty of uttering any of which, except in addressing the sovereign, is death, i.e. should the offender be a royal slave; should he be any other individual, he is struck on the mouth.—Newbold, op.
— from Malay Magic Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula by Walter William Skeat

Albert of Siena is said to have been a relative, some say the natural son, of the Bishop of Siena.
— from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri

From this main hall branched off on either side the long series of state-rooms, poorly furnished with high-backed chairs and long queer Venice glasses, when first I came to the property; but afterwards rendered so splendid by me, with the gold damasks of Lyons and the magnificent Gobelin tapestries I won from Richelieu at play.
— from Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

This was unfortunate, as it removed the incentive to continued research needed to make the water-tube boiler a really satisfactory steam generator.
— from Two Centuries of Shipbuilding by the Scotts at Greenock by Scotts' Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. Ltd.

And we descended, as is the common practice, from the main ruin to the road, by a rude stone stairway at what was formerly the back of the castle, to the narrow postern, the stones of which form an almost perfect, but doubtless quite accidental, archway; and thence to our carriage, which speedily whirled us away to Nauplia.
— from Greece and the Ægean Islands by Philip Sanford Marden

The mishap of the "Detroit" partly disappointed this expectation, and the British aggregate remained still superior; but the units lost their perfect freedom of movement, the facility of transportation was greatly diminished, and the American success held in it the germ of future development to the superiority which Perry achieved a year later.
— from Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 Volume 1 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

"'We will go to bed, Aunt Rosamond,' said she. '
— from A Sister's Love: A Novel by W. Heimburg

There must be a remedy, so speak; how, thinkest thou, can we help?"
— from A Struggle for Rome, v. 1 by Felix Dahn

I'm betting on there not being a real sand storm for six weeks yet, but if one should come, and you have any delicate apparatus in the engine house, you'll regret not having sand proof doors and windows.
— from The Forbidden Trail by Honoré Morrow

Pitt took a Bible and read, still sitting at the table, the Parable of the Talents; and then he kneeled down.
— from A Red Wallflower by Susan Warner