She boldly acknowledged herself flattered, and continued her enquiries.
— from Persuasion by Jane Austen

"That poor crazy man has been longing for a cauliflower," he explained between outbursts of mirth.
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

She reddened faintly, and casting her eyes down, began to play absently with her thin gold chain.
— from The Bet, and other stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

For of a truth Neither by counsel did the primal germs 'Stablish themselves, as by keen act of mind, Each in its proper place; nor did they make, Forsooth, a compact how each germ should move;
— from On the Nature of Things by Titus Lucretius Carus

He was still placidly engaged in this latter survey, when Mrs. Corney, hurrying into the room, threw herself, in a breathless state, on a chair by the fireside, and covering her eyes with one hand, placed the other over her heart, and gasped for breath.
— from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Laev lays his head on his fists, and closes his eyes.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

But while Geraint lay healing of his hurt, The blameless King went forth and cast his eyes On each of all whom Uther left in charge Long since, to guard the justice of the King: He looked and found them wanting; and as now Men weed the white horse on the Berkshire hills To keep him bright and clean as heretofore, He rooted out the slothful officer Or guilty, which for bribe had winked at wrong,
— from Idylls of the King by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

His Majesty having thus well chosen and bought a Friend and Companion, he enjoyed alternately all the Pleasures of an agreeable private Man and a great and powerful Monarch: He gave himself, with his Companion, the Name of the merry Tyrant; for he punished his Courtiers for their Insolence and Folly, not by any Act of Publick Disfavour, but by humorously practising upon their Imaginations.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

[7] But on this occasion it was not redundant population which made the descendant of Timur and Jenghiz abandon the Jaxartes for the Ganges, but unsuccessful ambition: for Babur quitted the delights of Samarkand as a fugitive, and commenced his enterprise, which gave him the throne of the Pandus, with less than two thousand adherents.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

"Good-by," said Mrs. Richard's faintly, and closed her eyes.
— from Other People's Business: The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale by Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith

It was thought, however, that this eastern bay communicated with that of Frederik Hendrik; and on this supposition (which has not proved correct), the land which Furneaux and Cook had erroneously thought to be Maria's Island, was named Ile d' Abel Tasman .
— from A Voyage to Terra Australis — Volume 1 Undertaken for the purpose of completing the discovery of that vast country, and prosecuted in the years 1801, 1802 and 1803, in His Majesty's ship the Investigator, and subsequently in the armed vessel Porpoise and Cumberland schooner by Matthew Flinders

But Henry made light of her fears, and closed his ears to her warning.
— from History of the Rise of the Huguenots Vol. 1 by Henry Martyn Baird

Clinton's flagrant violation of the caucus rule, that a minority must yield to the majority, not only broke the Republican party into the famous factions known as Clintonians and Bucktails; it alarmed local leaders throughout the State; made the rank and file distrustful of the Governor's i. 261 fealty, and consolidated his enemies, giving them the best of the argument and enabling Van Buren to build up an organisation against which the Governor was ever after compelled to struggle with varying fortune.
— from A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 by De Alva Stanwood Alexander

This was an extreme case, and probably imposed only on a very few: but less instances of the same thing are common: St. Paul's words about being baptized for the dead, have been twisted to all sorts of senses, from their natural and only possible meaning, because men could not bear to believe that the superstition of being baptized as proxies for another could have existed at a period which they were resolved to consider so pure: and so in the text, a force has been put upon the words which they cannot bear, in order to remove a supposed contradiction: and all that would have been gained by the change would be, to have one instructive illustration the less of our Lord's peculiar manner of discourse, and one instance the less of the inimitable way in which his language, addressed directly to the circumstances before him, contains, at the same time, a general lesson, for the use of all his disciples in all ages.
— from The Christian Life: Its Course, Its Hindrances, and Its Helps by Thomas Arnold

Frank Hazledean was the last to quit his ground behind Madame di Negra's chair; but when he found that the two began to talk in Italian, and he could not understand a word they said, he too—fancying, poor fellow, that he looked foolish, and cursing his Eton education that had neglected, for languages spoken by the dead, of which he had learned little, those still in use among the living, of which he had learned naught—retreated toward Randal, and asked wistfully, "Pray, what age should you say L'Estrange was?
— from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXIII.—April, 1852.—Vol. IV. None by Various

Starting to his feet, and casting his eyes hurriedly about him, he exclaimed; 'I tell you no; I tell you no , Michael Rust.
— from The Knickerbocker, Vol. 22, No. 4, October 1843 by Various

A flicker of that sinister shadow I have sometimes mentioned crossed Larkin's face, and contracted his eyes, as he said, a little sternly— 'I have nothing on earth to conceal, Sir; I never had.
— from Wylder's Hand by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

She prayed for him, hoping and believing everything; though at the hour in which she knelt, with the faint starlight shimmering upon her upturned face and clasped hands, Edward Arundel was lying, maimed and senseless, in the wretched waiting–room of a little railway–station in Dorsetshire, watched over by an obscure country surgeon, while the frightened officials scudded here and there in search of some vehicle in which the young man might be conveyed to the nearest town.
— from John Marchmont's Legacy, Volumes 1-3 by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

Therefore Mary had lighted the drawing-room fire, and Constance had ensconced herself by it, with Fossette in a basket.
— from The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett