The uniformity of the top and bottom lines of the wall is fully relieved by occasional trees of gigantic height, growing singly or in small groups, both along the plateau and in the domain behind the wall, but in close proximity to it; so that frequent limbs (of the black walnut especially) reach over and dip their pendent extremities into the water.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

But who ever reflects that, for certain boys, an unjust imposition may be as great a pang as the death of a friend in later years?
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

In the beginning of the winter the astounding news of the treaty between France and Austria was divulged—a treaty by which the political balance was entirely readjusted, and which was received with incredulity by the Powers.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

When all was ready for a start once more, the Mole, limp and dejected, took his seat in the stern of the boat; and as they set off, he said in a low voice, broken with emotion, ‘Ratty, my generous friend!
— from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Thrasymachus made all these admissions, not fluently, as I repeat them, but with extreme reluctance; it was a hot summer's day, and the perspiration poured from him in torrents; and then I saw what I had never seen before, Thrasymachus blushing.
— from The Republic by Plato

At that moment the uhlan, taking her hand in his left (his right hung in a sling, so that he was evidently wounded), addressed the lady with these words:— “Sophia, you positively must tell me this; before we exchange rings, I must be sure of it.
— from Pan Tadeusz Or, the Last Foray in Lithuania; a Story of Life Among Polish Gentlefolk in the Years 1811 and 1812 by Adam Mickiewicz

I have given the British Museum a copy of the "Odyssey" with the Iliadic passages underlined and referred to in MS.; I have also given an "Iliad" marked with all the Odyssean passages, and their references; but copies of both the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" so marked ought to be within easy reach of all students.
— from The Odyssey Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original by Homer

But if a human being was ever restrained from committing suicide by purely moral motives, the inmost meaning of this self-conquest (in whatever ideas his reason may [pg 517] have clothed it) was this: “I will not shun suffering, in order that it may help to put an end to the will to live, whose manifestation is so wretched, by so strengthening the knowledge of the real nature of the world which is already beginning to dawn upon me, that it may become the final quieter of my will, and may free me for ever.”
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

To effect this object both were equally resolved; and with respect to the means to be employed both were equally unscrupulous.
— from The Cock and Anchor by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

The current of blood was seen distinctly in several vessels, now flowing rapidly, now slowly, and now in a direction contrary to that in which it was first observed, but with equal rapidity.
— from Experiments and Observations Relative to the Influence Lately Discovered by M. Galvani and Commonly Called Animal Electricity by Richard Fowler

She whom Gilbert Fenton had sought so long and patiently, with doubt and anguish in his heart; she whose double John Saltram had followed across the Atlantic, had been within easy reach of them all the time, hidden away in that dreary old farm-house, the innocent victim of Percival Nowell's treachery, and Stephen Whitelaw's greed of gain.
— from Fenton's Quest by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

It was a stoutly-built brick house, and withstood the rebel fire, while the daily attacks of the mutineers upon the battery were easily repulsed by the defending force, which consisted of the Guides, the Sirmoor battalion, and three companies of the 60th Rifles.
— from The Battles of the British Army Being a Popular Account of All the Principal Engagements During the Last Hundred Years by Robert Melvin Blackwood

It was not his business to see that Major Coulthurst carried out the mining laws, and, in any case, Ingleby had found no gold that would render the sequestration of his claim a matter of very much moment; besides which Esmond reflected that it would be considerably more congenial to humiliate him openly in person instead of inflicting a malicious injury on him by the hand of another man.
— from Delilah of the Snows by Harold Bindloss

I fain Would use a stronger phrase, but hardly dare, Being, whatever else, respectable.
— from The Battle of the Bays by Owen Seaman