Just as the sun rose, and the haze parted and drew up like a golden sheet of transparent gauze, through which the dark woods loomed out like giants, a noble buck dashed into the water, followed by four Indian hounds.
— from Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie

Some persons endeavour to prove that Onomacritus, the Locrian, was the first person of note who drew up laws; and that he employed himself in that business while he was at Crete, where he continued some time to learn the prophetic art: and they say, that Thales was his companion; and that Lycurgus and Zaleucus were the scholars of Thales, and Charondas of Zaleucus; but those who advance this, advance what is repugnant to chronology.
— from Politics: A Treatise on Government by Aristotle

I may here return to the case of goods in a chest delivered under lock and key, or in a bale, and the like.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Well, I was brought up in luxury; the first I remember is, playing about, when I was a child, in splendid parlors,—when I was kept dressed up like a doll, and company and visitors used to praise me.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

His face, with its tossed red hair and straggling moustache, had a driven uneasy look, as though life had become an unceasing race between himself and the thoughts at his heels.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Ces discours sont fort beaux dans un livre —All 35 that would be very fine in a book, i.e. , in theory, but not in practice.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

One burns to madness for the wedded dame; Unnatural lusts another's heart inflame.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

But had the coffers of this bank been filled ever so well, its excessive circulation must have emptied them faster than they could have been replenished by any other expedient but the ruinous one of drawing upon London; and when the bill became due, paying it, together with interest and commission, by another draught upon the same place.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

Then he gave Jack a sudden push that sent him sprawling upon the cushions in so awkward a fashion that he doubled up like a jackknife, and had hard work to untangle himself.
— from The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

In a sea-fight which took place the Syracusans were victorious, and took four of the ships, but were so elated by their victory, and, having none to rule them, celebrated their success with such reckless excesses of drinking and feasting, that while they imagined they had taken the citadel they really lost the city as well; for Nypsius, observing that discipline was everywhere at an end, as the populace were engaged in drinking to the sound of music from daylight until late at night, and that the generals were delighted at the festivity and were unwilling to summon the drunken men to their duty, seized his opportunity and attacked the Syracusan wall of investment.
— from Plutarch's Lives, Volume 4 (of 4) by Plutarch

It now came; his sharp teeth instantly met in the otter's throat, and when Crouch swung them both in the air, he still maintained his hold, showing how well he deserved his name, nor could he be disengaged until long after the sufferings of the tortured animal had ceased.
— from The Lancashire Witches: A Romance of Pendle Forest by William Harrison Ainsworth

Peter gave th' order an in a minit a young woman, donned up like a playacter coom wi three bottles o' beer, an six glasses.
— from Seets i' Paris Sammywell Grimes's trip with his old chum Billy Baccus, his opinion o' th' French, and th' French opinion o' th' exhibition he made ov hissen by John Hartley

The interior of China had for years been dammed up like a reservoir by the Taipings, so that when once tapped the stream of commerce gushed out, much beyond the capacity of any existing transport.
— from The Englishman in China During the Victorian Era, Vol. 1 (of 2) As Illustrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., D.C.L., Many Years Consul and Minister in China and Japan by Alexander Michie

A quiet Sunday here in a delightful Scotch manse, twenty-four hours in Ahmednagar, where we are received most hospitably by Americans of the Mahratti mission, and on we go to Agra, to which point the Taj Mahal is drawing us like a magnet.
— from The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, June 1883 by Chautauqua Institution

I was dat skeered one knee knocked ag'in de udder like a woodpecker a-hammerin' a rotten
— from Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 20, August 1877 by Various