“Very well; if ever you meet him again, wherever it may be, whether on the high road or in the street or in a church, anywhere that he or you may be, put your foot on his neck and crush him without pity, without mercy, as you would crush a viper or a scorpion!
— from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

But she has no great tenderness even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later—oftener soon than late—is apt to fling off her nestlings with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows.
— from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Their diet and exercises were carefully inspected by the Roman emperor; and when Innocence had earned her discharge, by a long course of meritorious service, the faithful animal was again restored to the freedom of her native woods.
— 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

Happily Marie and a follower of hers named Kitty could disguise themselves admirably in men’s clothes.
— from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

Yet each man remains no less dependent than formerly on his nation, although less swayed by its visible presence and example; he is no less concerned, materially and ideally, in the fortunes of the community.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

But people who go voluntarily to law, or are taken forcibly there, for the first time, may be allowed to labour under some temporary irritation and anxiety; and Sam, with a due allowance for the frailties of human nature, obeyed all his master’s behests with that imperturbable good-humour and unruffable composure which formed one of his most striking and amiable characteristics.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

And they will not, for no thing, eat flesh of hares, ne of hens, ne of geese; and yet they bring forth enough, for to see them and to behold them only; but they eat flesh of all other beasts, and drink milk.
— from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Mandeville, John, Sir

He had apparently been strangled; for there was no sign of any violence, except the black mark of fingers on his neck.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

He was not exhilarated by sunshine nor was he depressed by gloom; only the inner forces of his nature had power to quicken or control his moods.
— from The Voice of the People by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

[ Katerina falls on his neck .
— from The Storm by Aleksandr Nikolaevich Ostrovsky

Nothing brings out the unromantic features of human nature so unpleasantly as a lawsuit.
— from The Duchess of Trajetto by Anne Manning

I knew from the grim-ness that trouble was brewing, and I felt that if Absalom were caught and any evidence were found on him, no power on earth could save him.
— from The Spectre In The Cart 1908 by Thomas Nelson Page

[209] that the parallels between the dragon slain by Frotho and that slain by Beowulf the Geat are so remarkable as to exclude the possibility of mere accidental coincidence, and to lead us to conclude that the dragon story was originally told of that Beowulf who corresponds to Frothi, i.e. Beowulf the Dane, son of Scyld and father of Healfdene; not Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, the Geat.
— from Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem with a Discussion of the Stories of Offa and Finn by R. W. (Raymond Wilson) Chambers

The Holy Virgin was patroness of the foundation, and the day on which the church celebrates the festival of her nativity was annually observed as the grand holiday of the convent, when the monks, to do honor to this occasion, exhibited all the splendor and magnificence which Christian bounty had placed at their disposal, and spared no expense to entertain their guests in the most hospitable and sumptuous manner.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 05, April 1867 to September 1867 by Various

"Him who is spoken of by his kinsmen as a dutiful son, and whom the folks of his neighborhood call' good brother.'" "May I still venture to ask whom you would place next in order?" "Such as are sure to be true to their word, and effective in their work—who are given to hammering, as it were, upon one note—of inferior calibre indeed, but fit enough, I think, to be ranked next."
— from Chinese Literature Comprising the Analects of Confucius, the Sayings of Mencius, the Shi-King, the Travels of Fâ-Hien, and the Sorrows of Han by Faxian

The man who delays even for an hour in love is a fool, or has no experience.
— from Forest Days: A Romance of Old Times by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

“But how are we to get a fire, Pete?” said Nic anxiously, for an intense feeling of hunger now set in.
— from Nic Revel: A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land by George Manville Fenn