Yesterday the scar itched, and after fifty years I recalled how it was dealt and the face of him who dealt it; dwelling a little in illusion.
— from Kim by Rudyard Kipling

When this was drawn it disclosed a large, brass-bound safe.
— from His Last Bow: An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

I made inquiries as to what was going to be done in Dresden, and learned that the King did not propose to call there at all, but was going direct to his summer residence at Pillnitz.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

Perhaps my day is dawning at last.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

They, because they have nothing to say and cannot invent anything from the matter in hand, are always dragging in Delos and Leto with her children, and then “swans singing their shrill song and the trees that echo them,” and “dewy meadows full of soft, deep grass,” and the “scent of flowers,” and “the season of spring,” and other figures of the same sort.
— from The Works of the Emperor Julian, Vol. 2 by Emperor of Rome Julian

Low on the earth her Ráma lies, And dark in death are Lakshmaṇ's eyes.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki

" But on these days I did at least know that I should not see her, whereas on others, without any warning, her mother would take her for a drive, or some such thing, and next day she would say: "Oh, yes!
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

Their wives never came to the island until late in May or early in June, for they did not care to be torn to pieces; and the young two-, three-, and four-year-old seals who had not begun housekeeping went inland about half a mile through the ranks of the fighters and played about on the sand dunes in droves and legions, and rubbed off every single green thing that grew.
— from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

But, meanwhile, it remains true of the man that no pleasure satisfies him and no happiness contents, and "death is desired, and life a thing unblest."
— from Shadows of the Stage by William Winter

At last I threw the packet down in despair, and, leaning over the table, clasped my bursting forehead with my hands.
— from Piccadilly: A Fragment of Contemporary Biography by Laurence Oliphant

"How did we do it, Dory?" asked Life Windham, utterly astonished at the result of the impromptu race, as were all the other members of the crew.
— from Square and Compasses; Or, Building the House by Oliver Optic

Well, then, a basin of soup, two plates of meat, one of vegetables, a salad when I can take it, compose the whole service; half a bottle of claret; which I dilute with a good deal of water, serves me for drink; I drink a little of it pure towards the end of the repast.
— from Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Volume 16 by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

But the paroxysm of the Bohemian had reached its height; from an incarnate devil, in demeanour and language, he rapidly dropped into childish helplessness, and finally into a deep uncontrollable slumber.
— from A Tramp's Wallet stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France by William Duthie

And, as I slowly drew, I dreamt a little sadly of the days, When I, too, roamed, untethered, And drinking in, unquestioning, The sunshine and the air, And all the rapture of the earth that turns, New every morning to the wondering sun, Refashioned in still nights of starry dews: But one, the while, unseen of me, Watched my unconscious hand, approving:
— from Akra the Slave by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

You will have no difficulty in discovering a lottery-office; page 136 p. 136 in well nigh every street there are one or more “Prenditoria di Lotti.”
— from Rome in 1860 by Edward Dicey

Pinned beneath so that it should not obtrude was an insignificant little medal, so small and trivial that it would require the closest scrutiny to distinguish its design and lettering.
— from The Secret of the League: The Story of a Social War by Ernest Bramah