4. Let them take their pleasures then, and as [5159] he said of old, young men and maids flourishing in their age, fair and lovely to behold, well attired, and of comely carriage, dancing a Greek galliard, and as their dance required, kept their time, now turning, now tracing, now apart now altogether, now a courtesy then a caper, &c., and it was a pleasant sight to see those pretty knots, and swimming figures.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

And thus the new Berline rolls; and Drouet and Guillaume gallop after it, and Dandoins's Troopers or Trooper gallops after them; and Sainte-Menehould, with some leagues of the King's Highway, is in explosion;—and your Military thunder-chain has gone off in a self-destructive manner; one may fear with the frightfullest issues!
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

'Yea, surely,' said the dame, 'And gladly given again this happy morn.
— from Idylls of the King by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

It is fit for serene days, and graceful gifts, and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is the liver-vein, which makes flesh a deity, A green goose a goddess- pure, pure idolatry.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

Thence, meeting Mr. Moore, and to the Exchange and there found my wife at pretty Doll’s, and thence by coach set her at my uncle Wight’s, to go with my aunt to market once more against Lent, and I to the Coffee-house, and thence to the ‘Change, my chief business being to enquire about the manner of other countries keeping of their masts wet or dry, and got good advice about it, and so home, and alone ate a bad, cold dinner, my people being at their washing all day, and so to the office and all the afternoon upon my letter to Mr. Coventry about keeping of masts, and ended it very well at night and wrote it fair over.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

The feelings we have matured, the passions we have brooded over, the actions we have weighed, decided upon, and carried through, in short, all that comes from us and is our very own, these are the things that give life its ofttimes dramatic and generally grave aspect.
— from Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic by Henri Bergson

It was a deep and genuine grief; at least in his eyes and to his heart.
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

but I fear will hardly do any great good at it, because she is conceited that she do well already, though I think no such thing.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

It was absolutely impossible for any one to display a greater grace and nobility of demeanor.[8]" Madame d'Oberkirch, like herself, was German by birth; and Marie Antoinette begged her to speak German to her, that she might refresh her recollection of her native language; but she found that she had almost forgotten it.
— from The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France by Charles Duke Yonge

It is graphically described in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy : "Let them take their pleasures, young men and maides flourishing in their age, fair and lovely to behold, well attired, and of comely carriage, dauncing a Greek galliarde , and, as their dance required, kept their time, now turning, now tracing, now apart, now altogether, now a curtesie, then a caper, &c., that it was a pleasant sight."
— from Notes and Queries, Number 174, February 26, 1853 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. by Various

"Voila, my simple king, the thing for you to do: a grand gift, and to cost you nothing now. Come, read it out, and tell me what you think."
— from A Romany of the Snows, vol. 1 Being a Continuation of the Personal Histories of "Pierre and His People" and the Last Existing Records of Pretty Pierre by Gilbert Parker

It is not a matter of knowing whether nature has been able to produce in our day as great geniuses and as good works as those of Greek and Latin antiquity; but to know whether we have them in fact.
— from Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary by Voltaire

The more common way, however, is for the children to stand all in a row, and, when the counting-out rhyme has been applied once and again, the two who have been "hit out" face up together hand-in-hand in front, and, advancing and retiring, sing:— A dis, a dis, a green grass, A dis, a dis, a dis; Come all ye pretty fair maids, And dance along with us.
— from Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories A Book for Bairns and Big Folk by Robert Ford

For some probably economical reason it was usually a woman who was chosen for this particular duty, and Groby gave as his motive in selecting Tess that she was one of those who best combined strength with quickness in untying, and both with staying power, and this may have been true.
— from Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy

3 s. 6 d. A Gallant Grenadier : A Story of the Crimean War.
— from With the Dyaks of Borneo: A Tale of the Head Hunters by F. S. (Frederick Sadleir) Brereton

I joined a party consisting of Madame de B—— and her daughter, a Greek gentleman and his wife, and two or [Pg 105] three others, and we seemed much to have shortened a hot walk of an hour and a half up hill by chatting on various subjects.
— from Journal of a Tour in the Years 1828-1829, through Styria, Carniola, and Italy, whilst Accompanying the Late Sir Humphrey Davy by J. J. Tobin