On a sudden Michael stopped the carriage; and, as St. Aubert looked from the window to enquire the cause, he perceived a figure at some distance moving up the avenue.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

Mindful of which, and also that his repetition in America was that of headlong foolhardiness rather, and want of brain not of heart, Charles Lameth does, on the eleventh day of November, with little emotion, decline attending some hot young Gentleman from Artois, come expressly to challenge him: nay indeed he first coldly engages to attend; then coldly permits two Friends to attend instead of him, and shame the young Gentleman out of it, which they successfully do.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

He would never have been easy to call his action anything else than duty; but in this case, contending motives thrust him back into negations.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

And as he cast his eyes around, he viewed, and he admired, the commanding situation of the city, the strength and beauty of the walls and public edifices, the capacious harbor, crowded with innumerable vessels, the perpetual concourse of distant nations, and the arms and discipline of the troops.
— 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

She remembered what Mr. Knightley had once said to her about Mr. Elton, the caution he had given, the conviction he had professed that Mr. Elton would never marry indiscreetly; and blushed to think how much truer a knowledge of his character had been there shewn than any she had reached herself.
— from Emma by Jane Austen

At dances organized during the War in the canteens for soldiers and sailors on furlough, the men refused to "cut in" because they thought it was rude and undoubtedly it is, except that custom has made it acceptable.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post

So, alighting with his son, they tied the legs of the Ass together and with the help of a pole endeavored to carry him on their shoulders over a bridge near the entrance to the town.
— from Aesop's Fables Translated by George Fyler Townsend by Aesop

The coffin of Edward the Confessor has been broken open, and his remains despoiled of their funereal ornaments; the sceptre has been stolen from the hand of the imperious Elizabeth; and the effigy of Henry the Fifth lies headless.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving

The evening breeze had sprung up, and though it was well warded off by the hill with the two peaks upon the east, the cordage had begun to sing a little softly to itself and the idle sails to rattle to and fro.
— from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

[412] Next to this famous monastery is the king’s principal palace, of what antiquity it is uncertain; but Edward the Confessor held his court there, as may appear by the testimony of sundry, and, namely, of Ingulphus, as I have before told you.
— from The Survey of London by John Stow

Even when he was only five years old, one sees that half whimsical wrinkling over his soft brown eyes that characterised his face.
— from The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

He pursued his Italian studies with a singleness of aim and effort that carried him on rapidly.
— from David Elginbrod by George MacDonald

It seemed to cost her a great effort to collect her scattered senses; the effort was made with pain, but with success.
— from Vivian Grey by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield

There was a something in Wilding's eye that cried him danger.
— from Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini

He never glided into victories of the pen by natural inevitable movement of brain or heart; he stopped always and everywhere to consider his pose .
— from English Lands, Letters and Kings, vol. 4: The Later Georges to Victoria by Donald Grant Mitchell

Time, and his retirement from the busy scene, long enough to cause him to be missed, not long enough for new favourites to supply his place, had greatly served to mellow and consolidate his reputation, and his country was proud to claim him.
— from Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

In fact, were the prisoner innocent, he would become inexcusable in his own eyes; and, in proportion as he reproached himself the more severely, and as the knowledge of his own failings grew, he felt the more disposed to try everything to conquer his former rival, even to abusing his own power.
— from The Lerouge Case by Emile Gaboriau

With disadvantages enough to call him down to humility, a Scotchman is one of the proudest things alive.
— 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.

However, after an hour of this struggle, the horse began to find that he had met with his master, and that his strength was becoming exhausted; the curb, held by a vigorous hand, compressed his jaws, his speed gradually relaxed, his bounds became less violent, and he ended by obeying the hand which guided him.
— from Wood Rangers: The Trappers of Sonora by Mayne Reid

At one time during the war, when men were not allowed to sleep in the country houses (to protect their owners), the page 260 p. 260 soldiers would very often burn these houses down, in order that, when the family had fled, they might use the fireplace and chimney for cooking; and so our men, forbidden to enter the country houses to buy or beg food, stole it.
— from Memoirs by Charles Godfrey Leland