This garden was no longer a garden, it was a colossal thicket, that is to say, something as impenetrable as a forest, as peopled as a city, quivering like a nest, sombre like a cathedral, fragrant like a bouquet, solitary as a tomb, living as a throng.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Seeing the waiters busy over washing up the crockery and setting in order their plates and wine-glasses, seeing their calm and cheerful faces, Levin felt an unexpected sense of relief as though he had come out of a stuffy room into the fresh air.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

“One doesn’t come to Italy for niceness,” was the retort; “one comes for life.
— from A Room with a View by E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster

At dinner comes my Lord Carlingford from London, going to Portsmouth: tells us that the Duchess of York is brought to bed of a girl,—[Mary, afterwards Queen of England.]—at which I find nobody pleased; and that Prince Rupert and the Duke of Buckingham are sworn of the Privy Councell.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Nevertheless, he went back to live at Geneva, whence there continue to come the most contradictory accounts of his motives of sojourn: a report that he is “studying” hard—an intimation that he is much interested in a very clever foreign lady.
— from Daisy Miller: A Study by Henry James

I walked up and down Deptford yarde, where I had not been since I come from living at Greenwich, which is some months.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

The last part runs: “The canoe flies, the canoe flies in the morning, the canoe flies at sunrise, the canoe flies like a flying witch,” ending up with the onomatopoetic words “ Saydidi, tatata, numsa ,” which represent the flapping of pandanus streamers in the wind, or as others say, the noises made by the flying witches, as they move through the air on a stormy night.
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea by Bronislaw Malinowski

English Ben was sent aft, and in a few moments came forward, looking as though he had received his sentence to be hung.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far more palpable origin—to the severe and long-continued illness—indeed to the evidently approaching dissolution—of a tenderly beloved sister—his sole companion for long years—his last and only relative on earth.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

One day, when the king had halted to fly the magpie, and the four friends, according to their custom, instead of following the sport had stopped at a cabaret on the high road, a man coming from la Rochelle on horseback pulled up at the door to drink a glass of wine, and darted a searching glance into the room where the four Musketeers were sitting.
— from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

According to their reckoning, Sylvia's personal choice counted for little in the matter.
— from The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley by Louis Tracy

a quelle fiere isnelle: Chiron prese uno strale, e con la cocca fece la barba in dietro a le mascelle.
— from Divina Commedia di Dante: Inferno by Dante Alighieri

More generally the surface is covered with coarse sand—the debris of granite or quartz-rock—upon which no vegetable, save the lichen or the moss, can find life and nourishment.
— from Popular Adventure Tales by Mayne Reid

So a flower looks between the cold pages of a botanist's album, so a bird sings in his case: for life is to do that for which we were created, and if that be the praise of God in His sanctuary, to stand impotently by under the gaze of innumerable unbelievers in a museum is to die.
— from Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa With Sixteen Illustrations in Colour by William Parkinson and Sixteen Other Illustrations, Second Edition by Edward Hutton

In this way nests of law-breakers and anarchists were allowed too much opportunity by local officials, where in a similar case a compact force like our Mounted Police with no local strings on them and with intense sentiment for the honour of the whole force, never permitted a situation to get out of hand in any locality however remote from the centre of government.
— from Policing the Plains Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police by R. G. (Roderick George) MacBeth

He then called, first low, and then louder, 'Davie—Davie Gellatley!'
— from Waverley; Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since — Volume 2 by Walter Scott

While at work upon this translation, Caxton found leisure to visit several of the German towns where printing presses were established, and to get an insight into the mysteries of the art, so that by the time he had finished the volume, he was able to [Pg 30] print it.
— from Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in Art and Science by J. Hamilton (James Hamilton) Fyfe

They are stuffed then by brushing with an abundant amount of concentrated fat liquor.
— from Animal Proteins by Hugh Garner Bennett

The soul of Persia calls for light.
— from The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ The Philosophic and Practical Basis of the Religion of the Aquarian Age of the World and of The Church Universal by Levi