Pure white curtains fluttered before the open windows, and beautiful flowers stood in shining, transparent vases; and in one of them, which looked as if it had been cut out of newly fallen snow, the apple-branch was placed, among some fresh, light twigs of beech.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

Her act has rescued Paris' forfeit life, Though great Atrides gain'd the glorious strife.
— from The Iliad by Homer

The searchlight followed her, and a shudder ran through all who saw her, for lashed to the helm was a corpse, with drooping head, which swung horribly to and fro at each motion of the ship.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker

Walker argued that, whatever might afterwards have been the necessity for legal tender, there was no necessity for it at the time the Act was passed.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

He spak o' the darts in my bonie black e'en, And vow'd for my love he was diein, I said, he might die when he liked for Jean— The Lord forgie me for liein, for liein; The Lord forgie me for liein!
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns

The dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss'd, 2 When she, as thou, Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight Of overflowing blooms, and earliest shoots Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits, Which in wintertide shall star The black earth with brilliance rare.
— from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

520 Sam: His pardon I implore; but as for life, To what end should I seek it?
— from The Poetical Works of John Milton by John Milton

The Canoes arrive at 12 oClock & unloade to Dry &c. finished & Lanced the 2 Canoes, Some rain this afternoon.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

In his lust of meat he makes straight at them but in vain, for darts from strong hands assail him, and burning brands which daunt him for all his hunger, so in the morning he slinks sulkily away—even so did Menelaus sorely against his will leave Patroclus, in great fear lest the Achaeans should be driven back in rout and let him fall into the hands of the foe.
— from The Iliad by Homer

There we were all four locked together, pounding away at each other, while with our larboard guns we were engaging the ‘Bucentaur,’ and now and then getting a shot at the big Spaniard, the ‘Santissima Trinidade’.
— from The Grateful Indian, and Other Stories by William Henry Giles Kingston

Close to the lodge, they overtook Sir Harry, riding dejectedly homewards, and, glad to be saved going up to the house, they stopped and inquired for Lady Tyrrell.
— from The Three Brides by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge

"From what station?" "The ticket," said Gebb, producing it from his pocket-book, "Is dated the twenty-fourth of July, and is a return portion from London to Norminster!"
— from The Lady from Nowhere: A Detective Story by Fergus Hume

To a man who habitually shrank from the public eye, it was bad enough to be dragged into the fierce light that beats on the witness-box in an inquiry such as this, but it was far worse to feel in his inmost heart that he was now looked upon with suspicion by millions of people in England and America.
— from The de Bercy Affair by Louis Tracy

All your breast was fragrant like the flowers Of the grape on hills toward the south.
— from Ebony and Crystal: Poems in Verse and Prose by Clark Ashton Smith

It had been a long tough trip from Lima to the cañon, but I had made it without interference.
— from A Trace of Memory by Keith Laumer