President Monroe’s advisers were willing that their country should run some risk on its own account, but they had the traditional American aversion to entangling alliances.
— from Lineage, Life and Labors of José Rizal, Philippine Patriot by Austin Craig

“Here, brother Sancho Panza,” said Don Quixote when he saw it, “we may plunge our hands up to the elbows in what they call adventures; but observe, even shouldst thou see me in the greatest danger in the world, thou must not put a hand to thy sword in my defence, unless indeed thou perceivest that those who assail me are rabble or base folk; for in that case thou mayest very properly aid me; but if they be knights it is on no account permitted or allowed thee by the laws of knighthood to help me until thou hast been dubbed a knight.” “Most certainly, senor,” replied Sancho, “your worship shall be fully obeyed in this matter; all the more as of myself I am peaceful and no friend to mixing in strife and quarrels: it is true that as regards the defence of my own person I shall not give much heed to those laws, for laws human and divine allow each one to defend himself against any assailant whatever.”
— from The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“That is easily understood; it was you who took him, count,” said Raoul, smiling.
— from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

He uttered a low whistle and sauntered away to the window, where he stood for some minutes looking out upon the pleasing prospect of sullen grey clouds, streaming rain, soaking lawn, and dripping leafless trees, and muttering execrations on the weather, and then sat down to breakfast.
— from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

Kings and queens buried in this church are these: Sebert, king of the East Saxons, with his wife Athelgede; Harold, surnamed Harefoot, king of the West Saxons; Edward the Simple, surnamed Confessor, sometime richly shrined in a tomb of silver and gold, curiously wrought by commandment of William the Conqueror; Egitha his wife was there buried also; Hugolyn, chamberlain to Edward the Confessor; King Henry III., whose sepulture was richly garnished with precious stones of jasper, which his son Edward I. brought out of France for that purpose; Eleanor, wife to Henry III.; Edward I., who offered to the shrine of Edward the Confessor the chair of marble, wherein the kings of Scotland were crowned, with the sceptre and crown, also to the same king belonging.
— from The Survey of London by John Stow

This was all that could be done at that period, and the Church accomplished it, by taking the high hand; and with as much unselfishness as energy and courage, she regulated society, which had been abandoned by the civil power from sheer impotence and want of administrative capability.
— from Manners, Customs, and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period by P. L. Jacob

One may imagine her suffering on overhearing fragments of this sort of conversation:— "She rides splendidly,—who taught her?"
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott

Such a perfect face as hers I had never before set eyes upon, so beautiful, so clear-cut, so refined, so eminently the countenance of one well-born, and yet so ineffably sad, so full of blank unutterable despair.
— from The Czar's Spy: The Mystery of a Silent Love by William Le Queux

"Your hunch as to the key-word is partially correct," she replied slowly, "but it does not, however, reach quite to the last conclusion.
— from The Cab of the Sleeping Horse by John Reed Scott

Omnes ergo sciant, non modo eos memorata multa ferendos, qui clientelam susceperint rusticorum, sed eos quoque qui fraudandorum tributorum causa ad patrocinia solita fraude confugerint, duplum definitæ multæ dispendium subituros.'
— from The English Village Community Examined in its Relations to the Manorial and Tribal Systems and to the Common or Open Field System of Husbandry; An Essay in Economic History (Reprinted from the Fourth Edition) by Frederic Seebohm

There is in the history of every art (and for brevity's sake, I include in this term every distinct category, say, renaissance sculpture as distinguished from antique, of the same art) a moment when, for one reason or other, that art begins to come to the fore, to bestir itself.
— from Renaissance Fancies and Studies Being a Sequel to Euphorion by Vernon Lee

It was when the causes of its institution ceased, and nothing remained but its forms without its motive, that altered manners could safely ridicule some noble qualities which, though now displaced, have not always found equal substitutes.
— from Amenities of Literature Consisting of Sketches and Characters of English Literature by Isaac Disraeli

Therefore, when at dessert time his hostess asked the Norwegian whether he would come to one of her receptions, where he would have the opportunity of meeting many celebrities, she received such a sharp look from her husband, that the Norwegian declined the invitation decidedly.
— from Fair Haven and Foul Strand by August Strindberg

"I should have caught my death of cold," she retorted snappishly, "but perhaps you wouldn't have cared if I had.
— from Mildred at Roselands A Sequel to Mildred Keith by Martha Finley