I was puzzling to make out the subject of a picture on the wall, when the door opened, and an individual carrying a light entered; another followed close behind.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

I detained cars and locomotives enough at Burnsville to transport the whole of Ord's command at once, and if Van Dorn had moved against Corinth instead of Iuka I could have thrown in reinforcements to the number of 7,000 or 8,000 before he could have arrived.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

If you would have him apprehend shame and chastisement, do not harden him to them: inure him to heat and cold, to wind and sun, and to dangers that he ought to despise; wean him from all effeminacy and delicacy in clothes and lodging, eating and drinking; accustom him to everything, that he may not be a Sir Paris, a carpet-knight, but a sinewy, hardy, and vigorous young man.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

“Only don’t change anything, leave everything as it is,” he said in a shaky voice.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

H. H. Presently we came to an enormous pile, which we rightly took to be a temple covering at least eight acres of ground, and apparently arranged in a series of courts, each one enclosing another of smaller size, on the principle of a Chinese nest of boxes, the courts being separated one from the other by rows of huge columns.
— from She by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard

The Colossian and Laodicean Epistles are obviously regarded as in some sense companion epistles, of which the Apostle directs an interchange between the two Churches.
— from St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon A revised text with introductions, notes and dissertations by J. B. (Joseph Barber) Lightfoot

But when the cerebral plasm is fresh and well disposed and when the paths are clear, attention is consecutive and learning easy; a multitude of details can be gathered into a single cycle of memory or of potential regard.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

A cause and no curve, a cause and loud enough, a cause and extra a loud clash and an extra wagon, a sign of extra, a sac a small sac and an established color and cunning, a slender grey and no ribbon, this means a loss a great loss a restitution.
— from Tender Buttons Objects—Food—Rooms by Gertrude Stein

And since y e peace made with them by the Lord William Willoughby, although they have been kindly received and entertained by our inhabitants out of respect to the said peace, yett they soon begain their accustomed cruelties fore comeing to Parham Hill plantation in agreeable manner were civilly and librally entertained at their departure murdered several seamen that were taking in tobacco, and planters that were carrying the same to y e boats with out any manner of provocation.
— from Antigua and the Antiguans, Volume 2 (of 2) A full account of the colony and its inhabitants from the time of the Caribs to the present day by Mrs. Lanaghan

Hellenism might flourish in Jerusalem, but in Galilee it would not be tolerated; and the tough, sturdy Galileans alone would have moral and religious grit enough to maintain the old Hebrew customs and language, even amid the abounding inducements to an opposite course which a great commercial centre like Tarsus held out.
— from The Expositor's Bible: The Acts of the Apostles, Vol. 2 by George Thomas Stokes

This I heard from all quarters—from clergy and laity, Episcopalians and Presbyterians.
— from Gleanings by the Way by John A. (John Alonzo) Clark

At the sight of the suffering entailed by the destruction of the monasteries, those glorious asylums of religion, charity, and learning, even as enthusiastic a panegyrist of the Reformation as Froude cannot help exclaiming: “To the universities, the Reformation had brought with it desolation.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 15, Nos. 85-90, April 1872-September 1872 A Monthly Magazine by Various

Her pink cheeks and laughing eyes and little flirtatious ways were very popular with the boys–so popular that Mamie was vexed because many of her mates seemed to have eyes only for the city girl, as she called her behind her back.
— from Chicken Little Jane on the Big John by Lily Munsell Ritchie

From the saints and angels in that bright world beyond, where his pious thoughts continually rested, seemed to come a low, eager answer: "Death!"
— from Little Nobody by Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.

If Orpheus voyce had force to breathe such musicks Love Through pores of senseles trees, as it could make them move: If stones good measure daunst the Thebane walls to builde, To cadens of the tunes which Amphions Lyre did yeeld, More cause a like effect at least wise bringeth.
— from Sir P.S.: His Astrophel and Stella Wherein the excellence of sweete poesie is concluded by Philip Sidney

His Hope of Israel had been forwarded to Cromwell so {80} early as 1650; petitions praying for the readmission of Jews to England with full rights of worship, of burial, and of commerce secured to them, had been laid before the Long and the Rump Parliament, and Manasseh had now in hand, and approaching completion, a less elaborate and more impassioned composition than usual, entitled, Vindiciæ Judæorum .
— from Jewish Portraits by Magnus, Katie, Lady

Oft would he say, 'Who builds his house on sands, Pricks his blind horse across the fallow lands; Or lets his wife abroad with pilgrims roam, Deserves a fool's cap and long ears at home.'
— from The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 2 by Alexander Pope

He introduced me to the man who opened the door [123] saying that he was Giuseppe Calichio, a lithograph engraver, alias Don Peppe.
— from The Barrel Mystery by William J. (William James) Flynn