After dinner she remained a quarter of an hour with me, but I refrained from any amorous attempts.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

] LADY P: I pray you, view This tire, forsooth; are all things apt, or no? 1 WOM: One hair a little, here, sticks out, forsooth.
— from Volpone; Or, The Fox by Ben Jonson

In the nurseries of females of the meaner sort, the children are instructed in all kinds of works proper for their sex and their several degrees; those intended for apprentices are dismissed at seven years old, the rest are kept to eleven.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World by Jonathan Swift

That’s it, come on!” came a third voice just then, and “Uncle’s” red borzoi, straining and curving its back, caught up with the two foremost borzois, pushed ahead of them regardless of the terrible strain, put on speed close to the hare, knocked it off the balk onto the ryefield, again put on speed still more viciously, sinking to his knees in the muddy field, and all one could see was
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

I would fain ask any reasonable Man whether this Lad, in the Simplicity of his native Innocence, full of Shame, and capable of any Impression from that Grace of Soul, was not fitter for any Purpose in this Life, than after that Spark of Virtue is extinguished in him, tho' he is able to write twenty Verses in an Evening?
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

Sanctified by her love and her affliction, she went forth, and all the people gazed after her till she had journeyed up the hill and was lost behind its brow.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Leaving still unspecified several sterling parts of any model fit for the future personality of America, I must not fail, again and ever, to pronounce myself on one, probably the least attended to in modern times—a hiatus, indeed, threatening its gloomiest consequences after us.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

The szlachta , who formed about a tenth of the population of the country, were legally all of equal rank (p. 100 ); as a matter of fact, differences of property created great social and even (in practice) political distinctions between them.
— from Pan Tadeusz Or, the Last Foray in Lithuania; a Story of Life Among Polish Gentlefolk in the Years 1811 and 1812 by Adam Mickiewicz

If this principle be a just one our attention would be directed to a provision in favor of the State governments for an annual sum of about two hundred thousand pounds; while the exigencies of the Union could be susceptible of no limits, even in imagination.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton

He also selected virgins for Vesta, a priesthood derived from Alba, and not foreign to the family of the founder.
— from The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 by Livy

Yes, he was cynical about Belgians, also about France, also about the Foreign Office.
— from Cinderella in the South: Twenty-Five South African Tales by Arthur Shearly Cripps

Like a solid wall they met the Federals, and as part of the latter's columns charged, Colonel Baker received the whole contents of a revolver in the hands of one of the rebels, and fell dead.
— from The Blue and the Gray; Or, The Civil War as Seen by a Boy A Story of Patriotism and Adventure in Our War for the Union by Annie Randall White

Awhile a helpless prey, then once again Rises and spurns his chains, and fares anew Along the perilous ways.
— from The Epic of Hades, in Three Books by Lewis Morris

In one paragraph Winifred had written an explanation of her motives, and she prayed for an answer from the depths of her heart.
— from Dreamy Hollow: A Long Island Romance by Sumner Charles Britton

The Marshal’s plan was not to repeat the simple and simultaneous frontal attack all along the line by which he had carried the day at Braga.
— from A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. 2, Jan.-Sep. 1809 From the Battle of Corunna to the End of the Talavera Campaign by Charles Oman

Who can call to mind without amazement the extent to which the impression was fastened on the public judgment that a national bank was of vital necessity to the healthful action of the Federal Government, indispensable to the collection of its revenues, to the management of its finances, to the transfer of its funds from point to point, and, above all, to the execution and support of domestic exchanges, without which the most important business of the country would be unavoidably suspended, and now see that all this was sheer delusion; or who can reflect upon the bold and profligate action taken by the bank to force a compliance with its application, without acknowledging and admiring the wisdom of the Federal Convention in refusing, as it did almost in terms, to confer upon Congress the power to establish such an institution, so inefficient for good and so potent for mischief, or without applauding the true conservatism and patriotic spirit of the Democratic party during a forty years' struggle to expel from our system so dangerous an abuse, or without rejoicing that that great object was finally achieved and blessing the memory of the brave old man to whom the achievement is mainly to be credited.
— from Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States by Martin Van Buren

One evening, about three months after my return home, as I was sitting in the Dewan Khana of my house, surrounded by some friends, an attendant brought me word that a man was without, closely wrapped in a sheet, who desired to speak with me.
— from Confessions of a Thug by Meadows Taylor

The heads of flowers are about an inch in diameter, solitary on long, terminal stalks, surrounded by an oval involucre of closely-overlapping bracts with sharp points and toothed, membranous margins.
— from Field and Woodland Plants by William S. Furneaux

Then Holmes went moodily off with Keller, to use the cube-reading devices in the instrument-room and try to find, against all apparent probability, some clue or some communication which would enable something useful to be done.
— from The Wailing Asteroid by Murray Leinster