The grassy margin of the bank, and the nearest hedgerow boughs, were powdered by the dust that had been stirred over them by hasty vehicles, the same dust as it lay on the road deadening their footfalls like a carpet; and this, with the aforesaid total absence of conversation, allowed every extraneous sound to be heard.
— from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

The prospect of visiting the city from which foreigners had been rigidly excluded ever since the ports were opened in 1859 was enticing, especially as we were now being invited thither by the very people who, we were told by the Tycoon's officials, had all along tried to keep us out.
— from A Diplomat in Japan The inner history of the critical years in the evolution of Japan when the ports were opened and the monarchy restored, recorded by a diplomatist who took an active part in the events of the time, with an account of his personal experiences during that period by Ernest Mason Satow

Followed by Captain Nemo, I climbed onto the platform, and from there my eyes eagerly scanned the horizon.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne

I have broken every engagement since that afternoon I was to address the drunkards at Casterbridge Fair.
— from Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy

mas sublimado por el Sacramento así como por su saber y respetabilidad, habían derramado extraordinario esplendor sobre toda la 10 familia.
— from Doña Perfecta by Benito Pérez Galdós

They have assumed that because common property is good, all property should be common; that because associated effort can produce marvels, individual effort is to be regarded as dangerous, or at least futile, some extremists even seeking to abolish altogether the idea of the family or home.
— from Garden Cities of To-Morrow Being the Second Edition of "To-Morrow: a Peaceful Path to Real Reform" by Howard, Ebenezer, Sir

Behold a reverend sire, whom want of grace Has made the father of a nameless race, Shoved from the wall perhaps, or rudely pressed By his own son, that passes by unblessed: Still to his haunt he crawls on knocking knees, And envies every sparrow that he sees.
— from An Essay on Man; Moral Essays and Satires by Alexander Pope

At that moment you entered (at my invitation)—and all the time you were present you were exceedingly embarrassed; so that three times you jumped up in the middle of the conversation and tried to make off.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I decide on remaining; I will stay and see the end, even should the terrible Pyat and the sweet Vermorel both of them be living under the same roof with me, even if my concierge be M. Delescluze himself!
— from Paris under the Commune The Seventy-Three Days of the Second Siege; with Numerous Illustrations, Sketches Taken on the Spot, and Portraits (from the Original Photographs) by John Leighton

Just as a policeman was not an employee but a policeman , so a minister was not a person of the trading-class who happened to have been through a certain educational establishment, subscribed to certain beliefs, submitted to certain ceremonies and adopted a certain costume,--but a minister , a being inexplicably endowed with authority,--in fact a sort of arch-policeman.
— from These Twain by Arnold Bennett

The theory that the injury is caused through the malice or envy of the person casting the evil eye seems to be derivative and explanatory.
— from The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1 by R. V. (Robert Vane) Russell

The captain, breathing a little fast, leaned against a tin-topped mooring-pile, and with eager eyes scrutinized the on-coming vessel.
— from Cursed by George Allan England

Was there any joy of life in this too beautiful city and these people who lived in it—this place where even enthusiasms seemed to be formal and have no wings, where everything was settled and sophisticated as the very chapels and cloisters?
— from The Dark Flower by John Galsworthy

Pelham noticed with what ease Elizabeth spoke to this type of man, the smiling, tactful answers she gave to his pleasant but rather blunt questions.
— from Mrs. Darrell by Foxcroft Davis

Nevertheless, many of the fragments of superstition and tradition that we were able to collect agree remarkably with what has been observed among the Eskimo elsewhere, so that it is highly probable that their religion is of the same general character as that of the Greenlanders, namely, a belief in a multitude of supernatural beings, who are to be exorcised or propitiated by various observances, especially by the performances of certain specially gifted people, who are something of the nature of wizards.
— from Ethnological results of the Point Barrow expedition Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1887-1888, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1892, pages 3-442 by John Murdoch