He was conducted to a tolerably neat chamber, but grated and barred, and its appearance, therefore, did not greatly alarm him; besides, the words of Villefort, who seemed to interest himself so much, resounded still in his ears like a promise of freedom.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

To the Cat it was almost as if he already had a plump young Mouse under his claws, when an old Rat, who had had much experience with Cats and traps, and had even lost a part of his tail to pay for it, sat up at a safe distance from a hole in the wall where he lived.
— from The Aesop for Children With pictures by Milo Winter by Aesop

Now I am certain that this is not an invention of my own, who am well aware that I know nothing, and therefore I can only infer that I have been filled through the ears, like a pitcher, from the waters of another, though I have actually forgotten in my stupidity who was my informant.
— from Phaedrus by Plato

For as soon as two reflex arcs capacitate it mechanically to swim toward light , it was no longer exactly like a pinwheel; it could respond specifically toward at least one thing in its environment.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

He would keep open house and entertain like a prince.
— from Martin Eden by Jack London

It was exactly like a play.
— from The Garden Party, and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield

The host unfolded it eagerly, like a person who is expecting a reply.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Now, as we are required to use every legitimate and practical method of economy, it should at once occur to us that the plates must be painted on both sides; indeed, this is such a common practice in cases of this kind that it would readily occur to most solvers.
— from Amusements in Mathematics by Henry Ernest Dudeney

If they see no harm in thy request, thou mayst crack open the crystal gates that have for so many centuries shut the manlike creature in his silent cell, and take him forth in order to study the mystic words graven on his collar; but upon the strict condition that in cleaving open his house of crystal my quarry men so apply their wedges of flint as to break the block into two equal pieces, that when thou hast read what may be there, the two parts be closed upon the little man again, edge fitting edge, like a perfect mould, so exactly that to the eye no sign of line or joint be visible.
— from Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey by Ingersoll Lockwood

If Edgerton spoke to her, which he did not frequently, his address was marked by a trepidation and hesitancy akin to fear—a manner which certainly indicated anything but a foregone conclusion between them; while her answers, on the other hand, were singularly cold, merely replying, and calculated invariably to discourage everything like a protracted conversation.
— from Confession; Or, The Blind Heart. A Domestic Story by William Gilmore Simms

In person he was tall and rather stout, his face was handsome, his complexion fair, his forehead lofty, his hair auburn, his eyes large and penetrating, his cheeks ruddy and healthy.
— from The Lion of the North: A Tale of the Times of Gustavus Adolphus by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

Mrs. Macfarlane told me she would show me the burying-place of the lairds of Glengyle, and took me to a square enclosure like a pinfold, with a stone ball at every corner; we had noticed it the evening before, and wondered what it could be.
— from Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 by Dorothy Wordsworth

He's my particular friend, and will stand in the halls of Congress as great a statesman as ever lisped a political sentiment.”
— from Manuel Pereira; Or, The Sovereign Rule of South Carolina by F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams

He ascertained the breadth of the strait between America and Asia to be eighteen leagues, a point left unsettled by Behring, and many years passed before any navigator penetrated farther to the north than he had done.
— from Captain Cook: His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries by William Henry Giles Kingston

Though the tribal customs had shaped her body and formed her manners, a rare essence of personality escaped like a perfume from the hereditary mould of the race.
— from One Man in His Time by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

Before we enter upon the history of that intellectual movement which thus occasioned the ruin of the ancient system, we must bring to ourselves the ideas of the Greek of the eighth century before Christ, who thought that the blue sky is the floor of heaven, the habitation of the Olympian gods; that the earth, man's proper abode, is flat and circularly extended like a plate beneath the starry canopy.
— from History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) Revised Edition by John William Draper