Frank Churchill had danced once at Highbury, and longed to dance again; and the last half-hour of an evening which Mr. Woodhouse was persuaded to spend with his daughter at Randalls, was passed by the two young people in schemes on the subject.
— from Emma by Jane Austen

Then dinner being done, and the tables drawn and removed, when Pantagruel had very cordially and affectionately thanked his invited guests for the favour which he had enjoyed of their company, he presented them with several rich and costly gifts, such as jewels, rings set with precious stones, gold and silver vessels, with a great deal of other sort of plate besides, and lastly, taking of them all his leave, retired himself into an inner chamber.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

The prow is pointed, and has a hole, through which doubtless a rope was passed, in order to fasten it to the little harbour of the lake village.
— from English Villages by P. H. (Peter Hampson) Ditchfield

The only light was one gleaming in the widows’ gardens near the river; the village, over three miles away, and everything in the distance all round was plunged in the cold evening mist.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

For in a little controversy between us on the subject of French poetry, he made me feel my own ill behaviour by the silent reproof of contrast, and when I afterwards apologized to him for the warmth of my language, he answered me with a cheerful expression of surprise, and an immediate compliment, which a gentleman might both make with dignity and receive with pleasure.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Two rifles were banging from two nails, on the wall; and in the corners of the rooms were spades, fishing poles, dried palm leaves, every imaginable thing set down at random when people came home in the evening and ready to hand when they went out at any time, or went to work.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

We look with prejudice on the stranger whom we dissociate, and receive with prestige the stranger who is dissociated.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

Approaching, disparate, at relaxed walking pace they crossed both the circus before George’s church diametrically, the chord in any circle being less than the arc which it subtends.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

The Murderer Executed The following day a report was presented to the Emperor, who gave orders for the immediate arrest and execution of the murderer of Ch’ên Kuang-jui.
— from Myths and Legends of China by E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers) Werner

In July she had received the following invitation: By a unanimous vote of the Union Agricultural Society of Dundee a resolution was passed to tender you an invitation to deliver the annual address at our next fair.
— from The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Ida Husted Harper

English-speaking Ireland had meanwhile no poetic voice, for Goldsmith had chosen to celebrate English scenery and manners; and Swift was but an Irishman by what Mr. Balfour has called the visitation of God, and much against his will; and Congreve by education and early association; while Parnell, Denham, and Roscommon were poets but to their own time.
— from The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 8 (of 8) Discoveries. Edmund Spenser. Poetry and Tradition; and Other Essays. Bibliography by W. B. (William Butler) Yeats

Whereas formerly the wealthy native kept open house on feast days, and received with pleasure the visits of Spaniards, generally elderly men used to the country and speaking the language of the people, he now found his house invaded by a crowd of young officials new to the country and its ways, who fell on the eatables like a swarm of famishing locusts, and soon devoured the turkeys and hams and other good things he had provided to entertain his friends.
— from The Inhabitants of the Philippines by Frederic H. Sawyer

I cast a corner of my eye farther down, and read, without pretending to see anything:— "Total balance = 4 s .
— from My New Curate by Patrick Augustine Sheehan

“I am sorry for him,” she said, as I described his cheerful disposition and rather winning personality, “and if I can do anything to help him, I will do it.
— from The Man Who Fell Through the Earth by Carolyn Wells

They passed each other in the dark and Rick was pleased, until he tripped on a rock and stumbled into the pile.
— from The Blue Ghost Mystery: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story by Harold L. (Harold Leland) Goodwin

Its membership, officers, dues, and regulations were properly established—one-half day in each week devoted by each member to the work in its sewing-rooms, with a woman in charge to prepare it.
— from A Story of the Red Cross; Glimpses of Field Work by Clara Barton

Joseph again sent him with positive orders to purchase, but Brother Knight, finding that White had raised the price still another hundred dollars, again returned without purchasing.
— from Early Scenes in Church History Eighth Book of the Faith-Promoting Series by Various

[152] “In 1876 the dwellings of 4,000 persons in this parish (Whitechapel) were condemned as uninhabitable, and the official scheme for their demolition and reconstruction was prepared.
— from The Sanitary Evolution of London by Henry (Henry Lorenzo) Jephson

Besides the French , the Traders of some Companies and Countries often set the Indians on to injure the English on the Frontiers, out of a barbarous inhuman Design; and often private Injuries done by some of our ordinary or vile People (who esteem and use the Indians as Dogs) are repaid with publick Barbarity.
— from The Present State of Virginia by Hugh Jones

During a recess, which preceded the hour when the man-of-all-work took us to the Charlemagne Lyceum, the well-to-do pupils used to breakfast with the porter, named Doisy.
— from The Lily of the Valley by Honoré de Balzac