They were but four in all, but to the panic-stricken weasels the hall seemed full of monstrous animals, grey, black, brown and yellow, whooping and flourishing enormous cudgels; and they broke and fled with squeals of Page 332
— from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

PENNY-A-LINER, a contributor of local news, accidents, fires, scandal, political and fashionable gossip, club jokes, and anecdotes, to a newspaper; not regularly “on the paper;” one who is popularly believed to be paid for each contribution at the rate of a penny a line , and whose interest is, therefore, that his article should be horribly stuffed with epithets.
— from A Dictionary of Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words Used at the Present Day in the Streets of London; the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; the Houses of Parliament; the Dens of St. Giles; and the Palaces of St. James. by John Camden Hotten

In the secret sittings of the Committee Madier de Montjau, that firm and generous heart, De Flotte, brave and thoughtful, a fighting philosopher of the Devolution, Carnot, accurate, cold, tranquil, immovable, Jules Favre, eloquent, courageous, admirable through his simplicity and his strength, inexhaustible in resources as in sarcasms, doubled, by combining them, the diverse powers of their minds.
— from The History of a Crime The Testimony of an Eye-Witness by Victor Hugo

He once, when he was sent by his father into the fields to look for a sheep, turned out of the road at mid-day and lay down in a certain cave and fell asleep, and slept there fifty-seven years; and after that, when he awoke, he went on looking for the sheep, thinking that he had been taking a short nap; but as he could not find it he went on to the field and there he found everything changed, and the estate in another person’s possession, and so he came back again to the city in great perplexity, and as he was going into his own house he met some people who asked him who he was, until at last he found [51] his younger brother who had now become an old man, and from him he learnt all the truth.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

Each at the head Levelled his deadly aim; their fatal hands No second stroke intend; and such a frown Each cast at th' other as when two black clouds, With heaven's artillery fraught, came rattling on Over the Caspian,—then stand front to front Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow To join their dark encounter in mid-air.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton

At the time he never even dreamed that he needed to apologize, though the press shouted it at him from every corner, and though the Mount Vernon Street conclave agreed with the press; yet he could not plead ignorance, and even in the heat of the conflict, he never cared to defend the coalition.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

Such a Fact, that Louis XIV., for example, could answer the expostulatory Magistrate with his "L'Etat c'est moi ( The State?
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

Now, when she knew better how to be useful, and how to forbear, and when her mother could be no longer occupied by the incessant demands of a house full of little children, there would be leisure and inclination for every comfort, and they should soon be what mother and daughter ought to be to each other.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

The former glanced at Walter’s flushed, excited countenance, and then at mine—a little flushed and excited too, I daresay, though from far different causes.
— from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

Before she went to bed she had pondered, analyzed, turned on all sides, examined on all points, the words, the steps, the gestures, the signs, and even the silence of her interlocutors; and of this profound, skillful, and anxious study the result was that Felton, everything considered, appeared the more vulnerable of her two persecutors.
— from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

It was sly, fraudulent, false, extremely courteous, and thoroughly un-English.
— from Lord Palmerston by Anthony Trollope

On breaking the battery contact, the magnetic curves (which are mere expressions for arranged magnetic forces) may be conceived as contracting upon and returning towards the failing electrical current, and therefore move in the opposite direction across the wire, and cause an opposite induced current to the first.
— from Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 by Michael Faraday

From the hill above Baxter a sniper daily fired with a long range rifle at the toluol tank in the center of one of the mills, and had so far escaped capture, as the tank had escaped damage.
— from A Poor Wise Man by Mary Roberts Rinehart

This was an important step in advance, in overthrowing all formerly established conclusions as to the agency being produced by a succession of waves, like sound, and as such, moving slowly through space.
— from Lightning Conductors: Their History, Nature, and Mode of Application by Anderson, Richard, F.C.S.

He began to explain in a loud voice that some people weren't fit to be in gentlemen's society, and that though, of course, he wouldn't like to mention names, nevertheless, if certain persons thought about it long enough, they would probably find that the cap fitted, and that if only people could occasionally see themselves as others saw them—well, it might be better for everyone concerned, and then perhaps there would be a chance of their behaving decently in decent society, although of course, if one's education had been neglected....
— from The Gods and Mr. Perrin: A Tragi-Comedy by Hugh Walpole

"And for settling and ascertaining the value of such slaves,— "It is further voted and resolved, that a committee of five be appointed, to wit: "One from each county; any three of whom, to be a quorum, to examine the slaves who shall be so enlisted, after they shall have passed muster, and to set a price upon each slave according to his value, as aforesaid.
— from History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens by George Washington Williams

During the morning I visited the post on Waschout Hill, found everything correct, and took the opportunity of showing the detachment the exact limits of our position in the river-bed, and explained what we were going to do.
— from The Defence of Duffer's Drift by Ernest Dunlop Swinton

For Emile Coué at the moment of autosuggestion, does not call in the will in any way, on the contrary; there must be no question of the will at that moment, but the imagination, the great motive force infinitely more active than that which is usually invoked, the imagination alone must be brought into play.
— from Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion by Emile Coué