You drag me to the seaside in spite of myself, when you have never once had such a whim during all the forty-four years that we have been married.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

For never a man Dying appears to feel the soul go forth As one sure whole from all his body at once, Nor first come up the throat and into mouth; But feels it failing in a certain spot, Even as he knows the senses too dissolve Each in its own location in the frame.
— from On the Nature of Things by Titus Lucretius Carus

I was stricken dumb, and trembled from fear of punishment, nor could I find anything to say, out of countenance as I was and hideous, for to the disgrace of a shaven poll was added an equal baldness in the matter of eyebrows; the case against me was only too plain, there was not a thing to be said or done!
— from The Satyricon — Complete by Petronius Arbiter

But the decrees of a general council could only be repealed by a similar assembly: the Iconoclasts whom she convened were bold in possession, and averse to debate; and the feeble voice of the bishops was reechoed by the more formidable clamor of the soldiers and people of Constantinople.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

Well, so I was, I hope, and so I did; and yet, though I say it, they all loved me and respected me; and would do any thing for me, as if I was a gentlewoman.
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

CHRISTY — [expanding with delight at the first confidential talk he has ever had with a woman.] — We had not then.
— from The Playboy of the Western World: A Comedy in Three Acts by J. M. (John Millington) Synge

The sun blazes in the windows of the houses on the Marine Parade all day, and the fine, dry, chalky dust from the Downs is apt to be irritating to delicate throats; but for all that, Brighton in August is delightful, at least to children.
— from Little Folks (September 1884) A Magazine for the Young by Various

Each boy as his name was called drew a ticket from the hat, and opened it; and most of the bigger boys, after drawing, left the hall directly to go back to their studies or the fifth-form room.
— from Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes

Each at the Head Level'd his deadly aime; thir fatall hands No second stroke intend, and such a frown Each cast at th' other, as when two black Clouds With Heav'ns Artillery fraught, come rattling on Over the Caspian, then stand front to front Hov'ring a space, till Winds the signal blow To joyn thir dark Encounter in mid air: So frownd the mighty Combatants, that Hell Grew darker at thir frown, so matcht they stood; 720 For
— from The Poetical Works of John Milton by John Milton

But in the end, as the divine part in them died away, they fell from virtue, and they and their island were submerged for ever beneath the waves.
— from The Sacred Tree; or, the tree in religion and myth by Philpot, J. H., Mrs.

[3] Letter from Longman and Co. to J.B. grumbling about bringing out the second edition, because they have, forsooth, 700 copies in hand out of 5000, five days after the first edition [4] is out.
— from The Journal of Sir Walter Scott From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford by Walter Scott

He had consulted with Pepay the dancing girl, and Pepay, who had no idea what he was talking about, executed a pirouette and asked him for twenty-five pesos to bury an aunt of hers who had suddenly died for the fifth time, or the fifth aunt who had suddenly died, according to fuller explanations, at the same time requesting that he get a cousin of hers who could read, write, and play the violin, a job as assistant on the public works—all things that were far from inspiring Don Custodio with any saving idea.
— from The Reign of Greed by José Rizal

In it he wheeled his little brother—afterwards well known as Sir Peter Fairbairn, mayor of Leeds—in various directions about the farm, and sometimes to a considerable distance from it; and the vehicle was regarded on the whole as a decided success.
— from Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool Makers by Samuel Smiles

With stockinged feet GLADYS, IVY, CONNIE, and MERCY, TIM CLYST, and BOBBIE JARLAND, a boy of fifteen, are dancing a truncated "Figure of Eight"; and their shadow are dancing alongside on the walls.
— from The Works of John Galsworthy An Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy by John Galsworthy

“You would then intimate that the face you saw in your dream and the face you saw in the hall last night were the same?”
— from The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katharine Green

But what made you do all that for a person who was nothing to you?
— from The Letter of Credit by Susan Warner

They might starve or not, as circumstances might dictate, after the fashion of European and American civilisation even of to-day, which denies any inherent right to ownership and enjoyment of the land and its resources on the part of its citizens.
— from Mexico Its Ancient and Modern Civilisation, History, Political Conditions, Topography, Natural Resources, Industries and General Development by C. Reginald (Charles Reginald) Enock

It has often been said with unquestionable truth, that from three to five hundred thousand miserable men in our nation, are confirmed drunkards, and that from thirty to fifty thousand go down every year to a drunkard's grave; and inasmuch, as the drunkard cannot inherit the kingdom of God, they must go down to the depths of hell.
— from Slaveholding Weighed in the Balance of Truth, and Its Comparative Guilt Illustrated by Charles Fitch