I let myself be led, and we soon got to just the kind of room I had imagined.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

While we were bantering in this edifying fashion, the table had been laid, and we sat down to supper.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

In order to reconstruct this hidden logic, a special kind of effort is needed, by which the outer crust of carefully stratified judgments and firmly established ideas will be lifted, and we shall behold in the depths of our mind, like a sheet of subterranean water, the flow of an unbroken stream of images which pass from one into another.
— from Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic by Henri Bergson

But when the spring, with a gentle stirring motion, announced her arrival, a new and busy life arose; with songs and hurrahs the ice was sawn asunder, the ships were fresh tarred and rigged, that they might sail away to distant lands.
— from Andersen's Fairy Tales by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

A little nearer to my old master’s, stood a very long, rough, low building, literally alive with slaves, of all ages, conditions and sizes.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

After a jolly hour over the skull, the bold one carried it back and left it where he got it; but as he was leaving the church, suddenly a tremendous blast like a whirlwind seized him, and so mauled and hauled him that his teeth chattered in his head and his knees knocked together, and he ever after swore that nothing should tempt him to such a deed again.
— from British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions by Wirt Sikes

It was divided in two, plaited, and then cut with the sickle by a girl, who, it was thought, would be lucky and would soon be married.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

Distressed at her daughter being left a widow so young, the mother wished to find another husband for her.
— from Myths and Legends of China by E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers) Werner

We isn't been livin' as we should.
— from Billy Topsail, M.D.: A Tale of Adventure With Doctor Luke of the Labrador by Norman Duncan

* * * While wave after wave of Germanic colonization poured over Romanized Europe, breaking down old boundary lines and working sudden and astonishing changes on the map, setting up in every quarter baronies, dukedoms, and kingdoms fermenting with vigorous political life; while for twenty generations this salutary but wild and dangerous work was going on, there was never a moment when the imperial sway of {xv} Rome was quite set aside and forgotten, there was never a time when union of some sort was not maintained through the dominion which the Church had established over the European mind.
— from The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries by James J. (James Joseph) Walsh

The youthful commander in chief was intimately acquainted with all the localities between the seat of government, and the falls of the river, (where Richmond now stands,) and he very ingeniously arranged his forces by land and water, so that he might at the same time drive the treacherous enemy before him through the peninsula, and avoiding a premature battle, concentrate the enemy at the point already indicated.
— from The Cavaliers of Virginia, vol. 2 of 2 or, The Recluse of Jamestown; An historical romance of the Old Dominion by William Alexander Caruthers

Besides that risk, escape is impossible by land; and we shall take care that you do not get away by sea.
— from Commodore Junk by George Manville Fenn

Thus my little blacksmith learned a whole series which were different from those acquired from the grandmother.
— from Old Country Life by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

On these articles they yielded, with all they had taken, which was worth in pearls alone above 100,000 pieces of eight, besides the vessel, provisions, goods, &c., all of which would have made this a greater prize than he could desire: which he had certainly carried off if his mainmast had not been lost, as we said before.”
— from The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 3 by Frederick Whymper

Miss Bonnicastle knew nothing, but looked anxious when she had seen the note and heard its explanation.
— from The Crown of Life by George Gissing

There was by times, a long sea swell, [Pg 213] and no sound but the tread of the oar behind like a woman's silken motion.
— from The Lovely Lady by Mary Hunter Austin

The horses left at the depot were much improved by their nine days' rest, and had we been provided with more shoes for them, I should have at once returned to the Ashburton, and traced that river up to the eastward, as it offered a fine opportunity of penetrating to the south-east probably at least another 100 miles; and our provisions on a reduced allowance would admit of our remaining out forty days longer; but the lameness of many of the horses and lacerated condition of their fetlocks convinced me that, should we meet with any more difficulties or rough country before obtaining a fresh supply of shoes, much valuable time would be lost, and we should probably fail to get many of the horses back.
— from Journals of Australian Explorations by Francis Thomas Gregory