Swordsmen thrust through, and dying in their blood on the arena sand; bulls goring horses disembowelled, made a meeker vision for the public—a milder condiment for a people's palate—than Vashti torn by seven devils: devils which cried sore and rent the tenement they haunted, but still refused to be exorcised.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

We can scarcely avoid regret that one of such splendid talents, and high toned feelings, should, after the former seemed to have been fully developed, and the latter had found an object in whom they might repose, after their eccentric and painful efforts to find a resting place—that such an one should at such a time, be cut off from life is something which we cannot contemplate without feeling regret; we can scarcely repress the murmur that she had not been removed ere clouds darkened her horizon, or that she had remained to witness the brightness and serenity which might have succeeded.
— from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects by Mary Wollstonecraft

They divide novels into two classes, stories and romances; the story being a form of the novel which relates certain incidents of life with as little complexity as possible; and the romance being a form of novel which describes life as led by strong emotions into complex and unusual circumstances.
— from English Literature Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World by William J. (William Joseph) Long

He was certain to knock the wind out of common sense, and render that unlucky adversary deaf to the call of time.
— from Hard Times by Charles Dickens

In the days of the now forgotten but once renowned and vigorously hated Mrs. Trollope, Memphis seems to have consisted mainly of one long street of log-houses, with some outlying cabins sprinkled around rearward toward the woods; and now and then a pig, and no end of mud.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

If you do not hear from me, or see me, before that time, break the seal when the clock strikes, and read the contents."
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

I shall never forget the poor wretch’s astonishment when I asked him to dine, with two counts, off gold plate, at the little room in the casino: he was made happy by being allowed to win a few pieces of us, became exceedingly tipsy, sang Cambridge songs, and recreated the company by telling us, in his horrid Yorkshire French, stories about the gyps, and all the lords that had ever been in his college.
— from Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

We shall therefore leave her in this comfortable situation, and return to our adventurer, whose appearance at Bristol was considered as a happy omen by the proprietor of the hot well, and all the people who live by the resort of company to that celebrated spring.
— from The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete by T. (Tobias) Smollett

It is the simplest, and therefore the oldest form, of the classificatory system, and reveals the primitive form on which the Turanian and Ganowánian were afterwards engrafted.
— from Ancient Society Or, Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery, through Barbarism to Civilization by Lewis Henry Morgan

At length he heard suppressed voices, and looking down he saw three boys come stealing along round the corner of a fence and enter a lane.
— from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXIV, May 1852, Vol. IV by Various

It was in a certain sense a relief to Phil and myself when the boats were made ready for independent action; as a matter of course, our strength was not increased one whit by such means, yet it seemed to us lads that we were in much better trim to meet an enemy than before such preparations had been made.
— from With Porter in the Essex A Story of His Famous Cruise in the Southern Waters During the War of 1812 by James Otis

It was not yet dark, though the moon was visible in the clear sky, and relieved, to find myself once more alone, I walked with purposely slow and leisure steps towards my home, rehearsing in my mind, with much genuine amusement, my recent brilliant and highly intellectual conversation with Miss Longfield.
— from The Doctor's Daughter by Vera

The famous Bayeux tapestry, possibly the most ingenious specimen of needlework that the world has known, calls up the most interesting of the castle scenes as related to woman.
— from Women of England by Bartlett Burleigh James

The two species of poisonous colubrine serpents already referred to are known respectively as the Elaps fulvius , and the Elaps euryxanthus , both of which occur in the southern portions of the United States.
— from Health on the Farm: A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene by H. F. (Henry Fauntleroy) Harris

“If you will return to your hotel, my dear sir,” Colonel Caraveo suggested, “and remain there until noon to-morrow, I feel confident I can guarantee you immunity from attack thereafter.
— from Webster—Man's Man by Peter B. (Peter Bernard) Kyne

But man, the domestic animals that serve him, the field and garden plants the products of which supply him with food and clothing, cannot subsist and rise to the full development of their higher properties, unless brute and unconscious nature be effectually combated, and, in a great degree, vanquished by human art.
— from The Earth as Modified by Human Action by George P. (George Perkins) Marsh