They got the door open without noise, and passing into the street, stood still.
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

It happened once that the young one which was caressed and loved was smothered by the too great affection of the Mother, while the despised one was nurtured and reared in spite of the neglect to which it was exposed.
— from Aesop's Fables Translated by George Fyler Townsend by Aesop

Such also was the ambition of others upon the like occasion, as appeareth by that very sharp wars and of a long continuance have been made of old betwixt some residentiary kings in Cappadocia upon this only debate, of whose name a certain herb should have the appellation; by reason of which difference, so troublesome and expensive to them all, it was by them called Polemonion, and by us for the same cause termed Make-bate.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

For first her dress in every part Was studied with the nicest art Deck’d out with necklaces and rings, And twenty other foolish things; And she had curl’d and bound her hair With more than ordinary care
— from The Satyricon — Complete by Petronius Arbiter

At this sound the young man, as if electrified, was thoroughly aroused, and with frightful screaming seized the altar, and held it as if he did not dare or were not able to let it go, and as if he were fixed or tied to it; and the devil in him, with loud lamentation, besought that he might be spared, and confessed where and when and how he took possession of the youth.
— from The City of God, Volume II by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

for if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt you into one and let you grow together, so that being two you shall become one, and while you live live a common life as if you were a single man, and after your death in the world below still be one departed soul instead of two—I ask whether this is what you lovingly desire, and whether you are satisfied to attain this?'—there is not a man of them who when he heard the proposal would deny or would not acknowledge that this meeting and melting into one another, this becoming one instead of two, was the very expression of his ancient need (compare Arist.
— from Symposium by Plato

‘Tamb’ Itam told me the surprise was so great that, except for those who fell dead or wounded, not a soul of them moved for quite an appreciable time after the first discharge.
— from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

His haughty and inflexible spirit could not discover, or would not acknowledge, the advantage of preserving an intermediate power, however imaginary, between the emperor and the army.
— 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

In almost all trials of witches hills of this kind in the neighbourhood of the accused are mentioned, where the devil, on Walpurgis Night and St. John's Eve, feasts, dances, and wantons with them, and where warlock priests administer Satanic sacraments, which are mere mockeries of those of Divine institution.
— from Sidonia, the Sorceress : the Supposed Destroyer of the Whole Reigning Ducal House of Pomerania — Volume 2 by Wilhelm Meinhold

When living, full supply Ne'er lack'd me of what most I coveted; One drop of water now, alas!
— from The vision of hell. By Dante Alighieri. Translated by Rev. Henry Francis Cary, M.A. and illustrated with the seventy-five designs of Gustave Doré. by Dante Alighieri

And being inquisitive, 'twas his desire On winter nights, and by their frugal fire, That his dear father should to him make known What kind of ancestry they chanced to own.
— from The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales in Verse Together with Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects by Thomas Cowherd

Not a drop of water, not a particle of food, was to be had.
— from Forty-one years in India: from subaltern to commander-in-chief by Roberts, Frederick Sleigh Roberts, Earl

By day one was not aware of any sound; but at the close of day, when the air chilled, the silence was suddenly manifest.
— from The Lost Cabin Mine by Frederick Niven

We have seen that in the time of King Alfred, when the Navy, properly so-called, came into existence, ships had but one deck, or were nearly altogether open, and had but one or two masts with large square sails, being propelled in calms and contrary winds by long oars.
— from How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves Updated to 1900 by William Henry Giles Kingston

Our problem, of course, deals only with North Africa, but I have heard rumors in Geneva that much the same situation is developing in the south as well."
— from Border, Breed Nor Birth by Mack Reynolds

She was enjoying her life of perfect freedom with a kind of bravado, inasmuch as it seemed an innocent delight of which nobody approved.
— from Tiverton Tales by Alice Brown

The pixies were yet whispered of as frequenting this farmer's threshing-floor, or that housewife's dairy; the witch hare leapt from her lonely form; herbs and simples in wise hands acted for potions of might; and the little heath hounds were well known to hunt the Evil One through the darkness of winter nights and along the pathway of the storm.
— from The Virgin in Judgment by Eden Phillpotts