485 All casuall joy doth loud and plainly say, Only by comming, that it can away.
— from The Poems of John Donne, Volume 1 (of 2) Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts by John Donne

He talked and jested with the other girls, exchanged books and puzzles with them, discussed lessons and plans, sometimes walked home with one or the other of them from prayer meeting or Debating Club.
— from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

When we struck the boat she was about done loading, and pretty soon she got off.
— from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

I flattened myself out in the dust like a postage stamp, and thought to myself if he mended his aim ever so little he would probably hear another noise.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

When he came to his father’s house, he said he was his son; but the merchant would not believe him, and said he had had but one son, his poor Heinel, who he knew was long since dead: and as he was only dressed like a poor shepherd, he would not even give him anything to eat.
— from Grimms' Fairy Tales by Wilhelm Grimm

He spent his vast fortune for food, as the stories go, and when he had only a quarter million dollars left (a paltry sum today but a considerable one in those days when gold was scarce and monetary standards in a worse muddle than today)
— from Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome by Apicius

A thing done has an end!' Which was an ill seed for the Tuscan people." "And death unto thy race," thereto I added; Whence he, accumulating woe on woe, Departed, like a person sad and crazed.
— from Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell by Dante Alighieri

A good many steamboat corpses lie buried there, out of sight; among the rest my first friend the 'Paul Jones;' she knocked her bottom out, and went down like a pot, so the historian told me—Uncle Mumford.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

The doctor, like a patriotic Swiss, would not allow it, but I think it was false shame on his part.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

A red-nos'd priest came hobbling after, With presents to redeem his daughter; Like a poor supplicant did stand, With an old garland in his hand Filch'd from a May-pole, and to boot A constable's short staff lugg'd out.
— from A Burlesque Translation of Homer by Bridges, Thomas, active 1759-1775

Les hommes qui se livrent au genre d’escroquerie dit chantage et qui dans leur argot, prétendent s’occuper de politique ... spéculent sur les habitudes vicieuses de certains individus, pour les attirer, par l’appât de leurs passions secrètes, dans des pièges où ils rançonnent sans peine leur honteuse faiblesse.
— from Argot and Slang A New French and English Dictionary of the Cant Words, Quaint Expressions, Slang Terms and Flash Phrases Used in the High and Low Life of Old and New Paris by Albert Barrère

The two ponies were put to the gallop as the peregrine began to "stoop"; and then down like a plummet she fell with closed wings, "raked" the quarry with her talons as she passed; recovered herself, and as Anthony came up holding out the tabur-stycke , returned to him and was hooded and leashed again; and sat there on his gloved wrist with wet claws, just shivering slightly from her nerves, like the aristocrat she was; while her master stroked her ashy back and the boy picked up the quarry, admiring the deep rent before he threw it into the pannier.
— from By What Authority? by Robert Hugh Benson

Some of us who can still remember having heard Lord Lyndhurst deliver long and powerful speeches in the House of Lords, compelling the attention and the admiration of every listener when the orator himself had long left his eightieth year behind him, will feel sure that Sir Robert Peel's first Administration was adequately represented in the hereditary chamber.
— from A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV by Justin H. (Justin Huntly) McCarthy