The respect was not diminished when Naumann, after drawing Will aside for a moment and looking, first at a large canvas, then at Mr. Casaubon, came forward again and said— "My friend Ladislaw thinks you will pardon me, sir, if I say that a sketch of your head would be invaluable to me for the St. Thomas Aquinas in my picture there.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

And he said, that a son of his was remaining, whose name was Mephibosheth, but that he was lame of his feet; for that when his nurse heard that the father and grandfather of the child were fallen in the battle, she snatched him up, and fled away, and let him fall from her shoulders, and his feet were lamed.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

Freedom and independence will bring with them industry and prosperity; and wherever these are found, arts and letters will flourish, and the improvement of the human race proceed.
— from The Life of Horatio, Lord Nelson by Robert Southey

In a room without a window, there burnt a fire guarded by a high and strong fender, and a lamp suspended from the ceiling by a chain.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

At this last question, following so many pertinacious ones, for the soul of him Captain Delano could not but look very earnestly at the questioner, who, instead of meeting the glance, with every token of craven discomposure dropped his eyes to the deck; presenting an unworthy contrast to his servant, who, just then, was kneeling at his feet, adjusting a loose shoe-buckle; his disengaged face meantime, [pg 157] with humble curiosity, turned openly up into his master's downcast one.
— from The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville

Gape-seed , something to look at, cause for astonishment; a lazy fellow, unmindful of his work, is said to be “looking for GAPE-SEED .”
— from The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal by John Camden Hotten

A respectable-looking gentleman was smoking a cigar beside him, a little farther away a laborer was smoking his pipe upside down, near the driver two rough fellows were joking, and clerks of every description were going to business for three cents.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

The practice grew familiar and at last became fatal.
— 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

But this is not matter of S YSTEM ; for I have delivered that above——nor is it matter of B REVIARY ——for I make no man’s creed but my own——nor matter of F ACT ——at least that I know of; but ’tis matter copulative and introductory to what follows.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Presently we saw the dark cloud rise gradually from behind the hills, completely clearing their summits, and then sweeping along until it hung over the valley, in form and appearance like some monstrous night-moth, resting the tips of its enormous wings on the mountains on either side.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 342, April, 1844 by Various

In the soft lamplight, with one fine feature after another looming up into sombre richness, it defied her not to pronounce it a triumph of taste.
— from The Spoils of Poynton by Henry James

But the excuse-seeking instinct of inexperienced youth made him instantly see his father as a loving father, who had done for his only son what his only son was so sorry he had done.
— from The Last Penny by Edwin Lefevre

So lovely is the scene still, in spite of all its injuries, that we shall find ourselves drawn there again and again at evening out of the narrow canals and streets of the city, to watch the wreaths of the sea-mists weaving themselves like mourning veils around the mountains far away, and listen to the green waves as they fret and sigh along the cemetery shore.
— from The Stones of Venice, Volume 2 (of 3), by John Ruskin

On its being opened he enquired for Madame Merle; whereupon the servant, a neat, plain woman, with a French face and a lady’s maid’s manner, ushered him into a diminutive drawing-room and requested the favour of his name.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 2 by Henry James

Each man had wooden clogs on his feet and a long pipe in his mouth.
— from Missing Friends Being the Adventures of a Danish Emigrant in Queensland (1871-1880) by Thorvald Peter Ludwig Weitemeyer

Clay is capable, when glazed, of receiving any amount of colour, and of preserving these colours in their beauty for almost any length of time.
— from Principles of Decorative Design Fourth Edition by Christopher Dresser

Get frightened at a little thing like a book hitting you.
— from The Hospital Murders by Means Davis

That a prince who had never left Germany till he was thirty-one, who succeeded to the throne when he was forty-four, after a life of such severe repression that his father even entertained the idea of transporting him to the plantations, should display that familiarity with his position, his political relations, and a strange nation, which alone could justify the independent action which is implied by the phrase 'political courage,' would have been astonishing; it would indeed have savoured of political recklessness.
— from Lord Chatham, His Early Life and Connections by Rosebery, Archibald Philip Primrose, Earl of