And the trader leaned back in his chair, and folded his arm, with an air of virtuous decision, apparently considering himself a second Wilberforce.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

For the Jews that dwelt at Cesarea had a synagogue near the place, whose owner was a certain Cesarean Greek: the Jews had endeavored frequently to have purchased the possession of the place, and had offered many times its value for its price; but as the owner overlooked their offers, so did he raise other buildings upon the place, in way of affront to them, and made working-shops of them, and left them but a narrow passage, and such as was very troublesome for them to go along to their synagogue.
— from The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus

XXXVII 325 Then choosing out few words most horrible, (Let none them read) thereof did verses frame, With which and other spelles like terrible, He bad awake blacke Plutoes griesly Dame, ° And cursed heaven and spake reprochfull shame 330 Of highest God, the Lord of life and light; A bold bad man, that dar'd to call by name Great Gorgon, ° Prince of darknesse and dead night, At which Cocytus ° quakes, and Styx is put to flight.
— from Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I by Edmund Spenser

In fact, the only servant to disapprove of Bazarov was old Prokofitch, the butler, who looked sour whenever he handed the young doctor a dish, and called him a "sharper" and a "flaunter," and declared that, for all his whiskers, Bazarov was no better than "a dressed-up pig," whereas he, Prokofitch, was practically as good an aristocrat as Paul Petrovitch himself.
— from Fathers and Sons by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

[She kneels down again, crossing herself, and saying prayers under her breath.]
— from Riders to the Sea by J. M. (John Millington) Synge

There, the pale pearl and sapphire blue, And ruby red, and em'rald green, Dart from the domes a changing hue, And sparry columns deck the scene.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

He is a better dog driver and can handle a sledge better than any man living, except some of the best Esquimo hunters themselves."
— from A Negro Explorer at the North Pole by Matthew Alexander Henson

He opened the door and called her, and said over his shoulder to Bella— "What did you tell the woman downstairs?"
— from Fairfax and His Pride: A Novel by Marie Van Vorst

But here we only see the virtue of being placed in a station constantly demanding a cool head and steady nerves, and the misfortune of filling a post that does not at all times demand these qualities.
— from White Jacket; Or, The World on a Man-of-War by Herman Melville

"You've been gone twice as long—I declare, Almira, come here and see these fish.
— from Dab Kinzer: A Story of a Growing Boy by William O. Stoddard

"I'll sleep to-night at Elm Tree and ride soberly on to-morrow, take dinner at Cherry Hill, and sleep again at Malplaquet.
— from Lewis Rand by Mary Johnston

There is nothing here of the intimacy and charm which, as Dryden and Cowley had already shown, and Johnson himself was occasionally to show in his last years, a plain prose may possess; but of the lucidity and force which are its most necessary characteristics never prose exhibited more.
— from Dr. Johnson and His Circle by John Cann Bailey

The head-dress is a cap, a straw hat, a billy cock, or a tall silk "chimney pot," the latter denoting a chief; he also sports in full dress a broad coat, ending in a loin cloth of satin stripe or some finer stuff, about six feet long by four and a half broad; it is secured by a kerchief or an elastic waist belt; during work it is tucked up, but on ceremonial occasions it must trail upon the ground.
— from Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, Volume 1 by Burton, Richard Francis, Sir

The defeat at Cowpens had a serious influence on the campaign.
— from True to the Old Flag: A Tale of the American War of Independence by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty