In her hands she carried a small round tray on which stood a full but uncorked bottle of champagne and two glasses, neither more nor less.
— from Short Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

3 It has been urged by one writer that we should not prefer the huge disproportioned Colossus to the Doryphorus of Polycletus.
— from On the Sublime by active 1st century Longinus

I have read of those who sowed in tears, and whose harvest, so far from being reaped in joy, perished by untimely blight, or was borne off by sudden whirlwind; and, alas!
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language.
— from A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles Dickens

Then we delivered the whole discourse of our fortunes to him; whereupon he began to tell us likewise of his own adventures, how that he also was a man, by name Endymion, and rapt up long since from the earth as he was asleep, and brought hither, where he was made king of the country, and said it was that region which to us below seemed to be the moon; but he bade us be of good cheer and fear no danger, for we should want nothing we stood in need of: and if the war he was now in hand withal against the sun succeeded fortunately, we should live with him in the highest degree of happiness.
— from Lucian's True History by of Samosata Lucian

“You have saved us a long walk, which would have brought us back on our own traces.
— from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

They fled in real or affected disorder, engaged the Palmyrenians in a laborious pursuit, harassed them by a desultory combat, and at length discomfited this impenetrable but unwieldy body of cavalry.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

Mull affords several bays, where there is safe anchorage: in one of which, the Florida, a ship of the Spanish armada, was blown up by one of Mr Smollett’s ancestors—About forty years ago, John duke of Argyle is said to have consulted the Spanish registers, by which it appeared, that this ship had the military chest on board—He employed experienced divers to examine the wreck; and they found the hull of the vessel still entire, but so covered with sand, that they could not make their way between decks; however, they picked up several pieces of plate, that were scattered about in the bay, and a couple of fine brass cannon.
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Once more the poor fellow is back at his home in fair Provence, and sees the sundial that stood in his childhood’s garden—sees his mother, and the long-since forgotten face of that little dear sister—(he sees her, he says, on a Sunday morning, for all the church bells are ringing); he looks up and down through the universe, and owns it well piled with bales upon bales of cotton, and cotton eternal—so much so that he feels—he knows—he swears he could make that winning hazard, if the billiard-table would not slant upwards, and if the cue were a cue worth playing with; but it is not—it’s a cue that won’t move—his own arm won’t move—in short, there’s the devil to pay in the brain of the poor Levantine; and perhaps, the next night but one he becomes the ‘life and the soul’ of some squalling jackal family, who fish him out by the foot from his shallow and sandy grave.”
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain

During the first four or five months nothing but childish trifles took place between us; but one night, coming home very late and finding her fast asleep on my bed, I did not see the necessity of waking her up, and undressing myself I lay down beside her....
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

The Carnutes of the Eure and Loire, under a new chief named Gutruatus, 7 and the Bituriges, untaught by or savage at the fate of Bourges, were still defiant.
— from Caesar: A Sketch by James Anthony Froude

“Why don’t you buy us both out?”
— from Mr. Opp by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice

All his furniture and effects are broken up, burnt or stolen.
— from The French Revolution - Volume 1 by Hippolyte Taine

The work of the two officers thus removed should, under these conditions, be undertaken by officers who should preferably be Flag Officers, with experience in command at sea, having the titles of Directors of Operations, whose emoluments should be commensurate with their position and responsibilities.
— from The Crisis of the Naval War by John Rushworth Jellicoe

One finds it intervening on the ground that the poverty of tenants makes it impossible for them to go to law, or that the offenders concerned are so powerful as to be able to disregard inferior authorities, or that the local authorities themselves have been unfairly biassed, or to prevent disturbances by hearing tenants' grievances, or to compel a great noble, like the Earl of Shrewsbury, to reinstate tenants whom it thinks to have been wrongfully evicted, or to stop action being taken by a landlord pending a decision by the courts in his favour.
— from The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century by R. H. (Richard Henry) Tawney

Only the insect-chorus faintly hums, Chirping around the patient, sleepless dead Scattered, or fallen in heaps all wildly spread; Forgotten fragments left in hurried flight; Forms that, a few hours since, were human creatures, Now blasted of their features, Or stamped with blank despair; Or with dumb faces smiling as for gladness, Though stricken by utter blight Of motionless, inert, and hopeless sadness.
— from Dreams and Days: Poems by George Parsons Lathrop

The former word would be used by one who should look upon a nation as made up of portions of distinct languages, clans, or families; this word would be used by one who should look on such an assembled people as a mere mass of human beings, with no reference to their difference of clanship, origin, or language.
— from Notes on the New Testament, Explanatory and Practical: Revelation by Albert Barnes

Nor will there be any danger in this after we have gained the great body of the people; to whom I am become acceptable enough; having passed all bygones, upon bonds of regular carriage hereafter.’
— from Viscount Dundee by Louis A. Barbé

We cannot conceive any action either of bodies upon bodies or of monads upon monads; consequently, of the organs upon the conscious being, still less.
— from Hesperus; or, Forty-Five Dog-Post-Days: A Biography. Vol. II. by Jean Paul

Before Lugard could cross the frontier into the provinces eastward of Oude, it was found necessary to bring smaller forces to bear upon bodies of rebels infesting those provinces, and threatening to command the region between the rivers Goomtee and Gogra.
— from The History of the Indian Revolt and of the Expeditions to Persia, China and Japan, 1856-7-8 by George Dodd