They had been talking about wedding dresses, and wedding ceremonies; and Captain Lennox, and what he had told Edith about her future life at Corfu, where his regiment was stationed; and the difficulty of keeping a piano in good tune (a difficulty which Edith seemed to consider as one of the most formidable that could befall her in her married life), and what gowns she should want in the visits to Scotland, which would immediately succeed her marriage; but the whispered tone had latterly become more drowsy; and Margaret, after a pause of a few minutes, found, as she fancied, that in spite of the buzz in the next room, Edith had rolled herself up into a soft ball of muslin and ribbon, and silken curls, and gone off into a peaceful little after-dinner nap.
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Let us bring her into the light of day, and make an end of the inquiry.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

A man at the very lowest point of the social scale was easier and more agreeable for the fallen gentleman to encounter than a person at any of the intermediate degrees; and, moreover, as Clifford's young manhood had been lost, he was fond of feeling himself comparatively youthful, now, in apposition with the patriarchal age of Uncle Venner.
— from The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Then the attorney said, for he too was at the wedding in the palace: “Away there in the thicket dwells a maiden, and if you could but get her to lend you one-half of her porch-door I am certain that it will hold together.”
— from The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

Regarding freedom, the important thing to bear in mind is that it designates a mental attitude rather than external unconstraint of movements, but that this quality of mind cannot develop without a fair leeway of movements in exploration, experimentation, application, etc.
— from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey

We were all here then—mother and dad and dear Aunt Pet, and we hung our stockings at this very fireplace—and now there is no one but Miss Danvers and me, and uncle, who lives up aloft in his big house across the way, where he has a lookout tower.
— from The Gay Cockade by Temple Bailey

By and by comes in Pembleton, which begun to make me sweat, but I did give him so little countenance, and declared at one word against dancing any more, and bid him a short (God be with you) myself, and so he took as short a leave of my wife and so went away, and I think without any time of receiving any great satisfaction from my wife or invitation to come again.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Though to the death, against such cruelties With inward consolations recompenc’t, And oft supported so as shall amaze Thir proudest persecuters: for the Spirit Powrd first on his Apostles, whom he sends To evangelize the Nations, then on all Baptiz’d, shall them with wondrous gifts endue To speak all Tongues, and do all Miracles, As did thir Lord before them.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton

Then she would pat me on the arm and smooth my dress, as much as to assure me that she had a good opinion of me, the distance between us notwithstanding.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

I shall feel his disappointment as much as my own bad luck.
— from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Charles Dudley Warner

I have allowed him to overtax himself until he is down, and mother and Polly are north at our cottage.
— from A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter

Nothing more could be done; and so they could only resolve to drive back on the following day, and make a more careful search after the lost boy.
— from Among the Brigands by James De Mille

And this was not quite so difficult to do as might at first be imagined; for, Sierra Leone being the headquarters, so to speak, of the British Slave Squadron, the persons actually engaged in the slave-trade found that it paid them well to maintain agents there for the sole purpose of picking up every possible item of information relative to the movements and doings of that squadron.
— from A Middy of the Slave Squadron: A West African Story by Harry Collingwood

Such a road is tiring, because either the eye or the mind’s eye sees long, taunting, or menacing lengths before it, and is brought into conflict with sheer distance, and the mind is continually trying to carry the body over this distance with her own celerity, and being again and again defeated and more and more conscious of defeat, becomes irritated, if not happily numbed, by the importunate monotony.
— from The Icknield Way by Edward Thomas

They are going [Pg 62] to mob the palace, dethrone the King, seize the Dauphin, and make all the royal family prisoners.
— from When a Cobbler Ruled the King by Augusta Huiell Seaman

"Yes, I paid a dollar a month apiece; but that wouldn't be fair now—for then they went to a man, and only learnt books; but I guess now they'll find out how to be handy with the needle too, and that's worth as much as book learning to a woman—so I think double the old price would be fair now.
— from Aunt Kitty's Tales by Maria J. (Maria Jane) McIntosh

she asked, hurriedly, trying to go out into the hall, but her elder daughters and Miss Apsley held her back, thinking that it was much better to keep her quiet till they could ascertain what had really happened.
— from Digby Heathcote: The Early Days of a Country Gentleman's Son and Heir by William Henry Giles Kingston

The court then took a recess for dinner and Mr. Adams furnished for publication a copy of a letter received by Emma Borden.
— from The Fall River Tragedy: A History of the Borden Murders by Edwin H. Porter

“Now then, Lenny, overboard with the dummy, and make a good splash.
— from Jack at Sea: All Work and No Play Made Him a Dull Boy by George Manville Fenn