Nikita said nothing but only shook his head, and carefully pouring some tea into his saucer began warming his hands, the fingers of which were always swollen with hard work, over the steam.
— from Master and Man by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

ridiculous, ludicrous; comical; droll, funny, laughable, pour rire, grotesque, farcical, odd; whimsical, whimsical as a dancing bear; fanciful, fantastic, queer, rum, quizzical, quaint, bizarre; screaming; eccentric &c. (unconformable) 83; strange, outlandish, out of the way, baroque, weird; awkward &c. (ugly) 846. extravagant, outre, monstrous, preposterous, bombastic, inflated, stilted, burlesque, mock heroic.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget

The northern coast of Africa was lined with their colonies, the most flourishing of which was Carthage, which rose to be one of the great powers of the world.
— from The Anabasis of Alexander or, The History of the Wars and Conquests of Alexander the Great by Arrian

In spring, as soon as the willow-leaves were full grown on the banks of the river, the Mandan Indians celebrated their great annual festival, one of the features of which was the expulsion of the devil.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

Happy was it for Mrs Waters that she was not of the weakest order of females; for no sooner did she perceive, by his tying a knot in his garter, and by his declarations, what his hellish intentions were, than she stood stoutly to her defence, and so strongly struggled with her enemy, screaming all the while for assistance, that she delayed the execution of the villain's purpose several minutes, by which means Mr Jones came to her relief at that very instant when her strength failed and she was totally overpowered, and delivered her from the ruffian's hands, with no other loss than that of her cloaths, which were torn from her back, and of the diamond ring, which during the contention either dropped from her finger, or was wrenched from it by Northerton.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

As the brig was completely full of water, we went to this work despondently, and with but little expectation of being able to obtain anything.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

He was silent for a few moments and then continued, with an air of conviction, and nodding his head: “All the same, we are very fond of women, we Frenchmen!”
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

No hope was left for him, accordingly, unless it were the slight chance of succeeding in the formidable operation which was imposed upon him; he decided to risk it, but it was not without first having addressed a fervent prayer to the manikin he was about to plunder, and who would have been easier to move to pity than the vagabonds.
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

The Protestant clergy, who have ever been like their Master, the sympathizing friends of woman, would be the last to enforce new and heavy responsibilities on our sex, contrary to the wishes even of a small, intelligent, and conscientious minority.
— from Woman's Profession as Mother and Educator, with Views in Opposition to Woman Suffrage by Catharine Esther Beecher

This, Schumann made the most wonderfully catholic and prophetic critical organ that ever existed for art; and in the editing of it he approved himself to posterity as a musical critic never approached for discriminating the good from the bad; for daring to discover and to acclaim new genius without fear, or without waiting for death to close the lifelong catalogue or to serve as a guide for an estimate.
— from The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 by Rupert Hughes

This is the first thing to find out when we undertake to determine the name of a pine tree.
— from Trees Every Child Should Know: Easy Tree Studies for All Seasons of the Year by Julia Ellen Rogers

But this state of things has long passed away: nor can I imagine how a devout population can endure to have the Psalms of David chanted, and the most holy and most beautiful form of words which ever was put together, recited in a tongue they understand not.
— from Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with Letters from Italy in 1847 Of Things and Persons Concerning the Church and Education by T. W. (Thomas William) Allies

"You said to yourself, 'Here is a man of foreign origin who will do anything for money,' and this opinion emboldened you to proceed with a scheme which needed an unscrupulous agent, such as you supposed me to be, to insure success.
— from The Shield of Love by B. L. (Benjamin Leopold) Farjeon

In the last-mentioned cave, or, more properly, crater, an elk fell one winter when the crater was level full with light snow.
— from The Yellowstone National Park: Historical and Descriptive by Hiram Martin Chittenden

On July 24th a great meeting of the Carlists was held at Trieste on the occasion of the funeral of Don Carlos, the most noteworthy feature of which was that on the evening of the same day Don Jaime left his followers to be entertained by his mother and sisters, and went himself, it was said, to Frohsdorf.
— from Spain from Within by Rafael Shaw

The General was anxious to find out whom we had on the wire.
— from The Boy Spy A substantially true record of secret service during the war of the rebellion, a correct account of events witnessed by a soldier by Joseph Orton Kerbey

Such had been the boom in base-ball in 1883, and so promising did the outlook seem from a monetary standpoint for a similar boom in 1884 that Henry V. Lucas, of St. Louis, evidently believing that there was millions in it, organized and took hold of the short-lived Union Association, the failure of which wrecked him in both purse and spirit.
— from A Ball Player's Career Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson by Adrian Constantine Anson