"And if you condemn a bow of ribbon for a lady, Monsieur, you would necessarily disapprove of a thing like this for a gentleman?"—holding up my bright little chainlet of silk and gold.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

Sir, a man bred in London will carry a burthen, or run, or wrestle, as well as a man brought up in the hardiest manner in the country.'
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

YARMOUTH CAPON, a bloater, or red herring.—
— from A Dictionary of Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words Used at the Present Day in the Streets of London; the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; the Houses of Parliament; the Dens of St. Giles; and the Palaces of St. James. by John Camden Hotten

And to our chamber there was no entrance save by a lofty door of brass: and the door was fashioned by the artisan Corinnos, and, being of rare workmanship, was fastened from within.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

In 1455, Gérard, Duke of Cleves and Burgrave of Ravensberg, created the order of the Knights of St. Hubert, into which those of noble blood only were admitted.
— from Manners, Customs, and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period by P. L. Jacob

Yarmouth capon , a bloater, or red herring.
— from The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal by John Camden Hotten

In 1648 Louis the Fourteenth, crowned with a wreath of roses and carrying a bunch of roses in his hand, kindled the fire, danced at it and partook of the banquet afterwards in the town hall.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

come off well, come off successful, come off with flying colors; make short work of; take by storm, carry by storm; bear away the bell; win one's wings, win one's spurs, win the battle; win the day, carry the day, gain the day, gain the prize, gain the palm; have the best of it, have it all one's own way, have the game in one's owns hands, have the ball at one's feet, have one on the hop; walk over the course; carry all before one, remain in possession of the field; score a success.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget

He caught a blush of recognition beneath her veil; and as he drew near she raised a finger to her lip and faintly shook her head.
— from The Valley of Decision by Edith Wharton

Then comes a blaze of rifle-fire from the Turkish trenches on the beach, and the men who have landed charge them with the bayonet.
— from Days to Remember: The British Empire in the Great War by John Buchan

The magnificent edifice, the pope's cathedral, as bishop of Rome, was draped for a funeral.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 11, April, 1870 to September, 1870 by Various

In winter seal-skin is entirely discarded by the native Esquimaux as too cold, and boots of reindeer skin, called mit-co-lee-lee', from the leg of the animal, are substituted, and snow-shoes of the same sort of skin, with the hair inside, and a false sole of skin from the face of the buck, with the hair outside, complete the covering of his feet.
— from Schwatka's Search: Sledging in the Arctic in Quest of the Franklin Records by William H. (William Henry) Gilder

What black beads of eyes had Miss Vespertila from Servia, where her grandfather, General Vampire, still commands a brigade of rascals!
— from The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 A Typographic Art Journal by Various

It was the second view in La Masque's caldron, and but one remained to be verified.
— from The Midnight Queen by May Agnes Fleming

Pleasant little rooms, with the cleanest and brightest of rag carpets on the floor; a paper on the walls, cheap enough, but gay with scarlet rosebuds and green leaves, rivalled by the vines and berries on the pretty chintz curtains; chairs of a dozen ages and patterns, but all of them with open, inviting countenances and a hospitable air; a wood fire that looked like a wood fire crackling and sparkling on the hearth, shining and dancing over the ceiling and the floor and the walls, cutting queer capers with the big rocking-chair,—which turned into a giant with long arms,—and with the little figures on the mantel-shelf, and the books in their cases, softening and glorifying the two grand faces hanging in their frames opposite, and giving just light enough below them to let you read "John Brown" and "Phillips," if you had any occasion to read, and did not know those whom the world knows; and first and last, and through all, as if it loved her, and was loath to part with her for a moment, whether she poked the flame, or straightened a chair, or went out towards the little kitchen to lift a lid and smell a most savory stew, or came back to the supper-table to arrange and rearrange what was already faultless in its cleanliness and simplicity, wherever she went and whatever she did, this firelight fell warm about a woman, large and comfortable and handsome, with a motherly look to her person, and an expression that was all kindness in her comely face and dark, soft eyes,—eyes and face and form, though, that might as well have had "Pariah" written all over them, and "leper" stamped on their front, for any good, or beauty, or grace, that people could find in them; for the comely face was a dark face, and the voice, singing an old Methodist hymn, was no Anglo-Saxon treble, but an Anglo-African voice, rich and mellow, with the touch of pathos or sorrow always heard in these tones.
— from What Answer? by Anna E. (Anna Elizabeth) Dickinson

He appeared to be cleaving a bunch of reeds to pounce on a dace, just as he had done once too often on that memorable day.
— from The Yeoman Adventurer by George W. Gough

She came constantly to the Impasse Ronsin with her husband, a man of about seventy, and her cousin, a barrister of repute, and also to Vert-Logis , at Bellevue, with that cousin.
— from My Memoirs by Marguerite Steinheil

Poor Charles: a bit of right royal Swedish-German stuff, after his kind; and tragically ill bested now at last!
— from History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 04 by Thomas Carlyle