At one time hag was not a word of reproach: Drayton speaks of a "beautiful hag, all smiles," much as Shakespeare said, "sweet wench."
— from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

"When I see such persons now sitting here at the side of that same individual and summoned by him, alarm seizes me; and I, in my turn, summon any of the older men that may have such a person sitting next him not to let himself be shamed down, for fear of being thought a coward if he do not vote for war, but, remembering how rarely success is got by wishing and how often by forecast, to leave to them the mad dream of conquest, and as a true lover of his country, now threatened by the greatest danger in its history, to hold up his hand on the other side; to vote that the Siceliots be left in the limits now existing between us, limits of which no one can complain (the Ionian sea for the coasting voyage, and the Sicilian across the open main), to enjoy their own possessions and to settle their own quarrels; that the Egestaeans, for their part, be told to end by themselves with the Selinuntines the war which they began without consulting the Athenians; and that for the future we do not enter into alliance, as we have been used to do, with people whom we must help in their need, and who can never help us in ours.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

The bed had a spring mattress, and a special sort of bolster and silk pillowcases on the little pillows.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

After supper Mr. Fairbrother, who supped there with us, took me into a room by himself, and shewed me a pitiful copy of verses upon Mr. Prinn which he esteemed very good, and desired that I would get them given to Mr. Prinn, in hopes that he would get him some place for it, which I said I would do, but did laugh in my sleeve to think of his folly, though indeed a man that has always expressed great civility to me.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

For this reason, continued my father, with the most Cervantick gravity, I have the greatest veneration in the world for that gentleman, who, in distrust of his own discretion in this point, sat down and composed (that is at his leisure) fit forms of swearing suitable to all cases, from the lowest to the highest provocation which could possibly happen to him——which forms being well considered by him, and such moreover as he could stand to, he kept them ever by him on the chimney-piece, within his reach, ready for use.—I never apprehended, replied Dr. Slop, that such a thing was ever thought of——much less executed.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Margaret, the eldest of the four, was sixteen, and very pretty, being plump and fair, with large eyes, plenty of soft brown hair, a sweet mouth, and white hands, of which she was rather vain.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

McMurdo sprang to his feet and half drew his revolver; but his arm stopped midway as he became conscious that two Winchester rifles were levelled at his head.
— from The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle

"The two duchesses," writes the Ferrarese ambassador, on the 28th of April, "have been having a sparring match, and the Duke of Bari's wife has knocked down her of Milan."
— from Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 by Julia Cartwright

Margaret, the eldest of the four, was sixteen, and very pretty, being plump and fair, with large eyes, plenty of soft, brown hair, a sweet mouth, and white hands, of which she was rather vain.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott

Guidetto seems to have built here at S. Michele as a sort of trial for the Duomo, which is already less like an apparition.
— from Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa With Sixteen Illustrations in Colour by William Parkinson and Sixteen Other Illustrations, Second Edition by Edward Hutton

But especially mark, that yet these infants have much disadvantage in comparison of others, that know all these matters of fact by the same convincing evidence as their teachers; and that he that followeth on to learn it as he ought, may come to prove these subservient matters of fact, by such a concurrence of evidences, as amounteth to an infallibility or moral certainty, beyond mere human faith as such: as e. g. an illiterate person that hath it but from others, may be certain that it is indeed a Bible which is ordinarily read and preached to him; and that it is so truly translated as to be a sufficient rule of faith and life, having no mistake which must hazard a man's salvation; because the Bible in the original tongues is so commonly to be had, and so many among us understand it, and there is among them so great a contrariety of judgments and interests, that it is not possible but many would detect such a public lie, if any should deal falsely in so weighty and evident a case.
— from A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian Ecclesiastics by Richard Baxter

It also might have explained the continual allusions to the "yellow bird" in so many of the trials—based possibly on Dulcibel's canary, which had been given to her by the Captain, and whose habit of kissing her lips with its little bill had appeared so mysterious and diabolical to the superstitious inhabitants of Salem village.
— from Dulcibel: A Tale of Old Salem by Henry Peterson

He made more, but he also spent more, and, all else aside, it was a question as to whether Harry would not be able to provide the better home.
— from The Best Policy by Elliott Flower

But the Father of Lies had many tricks with which to circumvent Michael; he would conjure up sensuous images before his antagonist; succubi materialized as pretty housemaids, feminine devils put on tights and openwork stockings to encounter him from the pages of pink weekly papers, and sometimes Satan himself would sit at the foot of his bed in the darkness and tell him tales of how other boys enjoyed themselves, arguing that it was a pity to waste his opportunities and filling his thoughts with dissolute memories.
— from Sinister Street, vol. 1 by Compton MacKenzie

Warren, especially, as a medium of communication between Hooker and Sedgwick, made almost superhuman exertions to do without sleep and perform the important duties assigned him.
— from Chancellorsville and Gettysburg Campaigns of the Civil War - VI by Abner Doubleday

On the old coachman's box sat beside him a slave maid, and in the carriage the three Callenders and Charlie.
— from Kincaid's Battery by George Washington Cable

[395] reflected and studied and what an education she had found in her political aspirations, viewed by him as scarce more a personal part of her than the livery of her servants or the jewels George Dallow's money had bought.
— from The Tragic Muse by Henry James