I then glanced round the room; and besides the bedstead and centre table, could see no other furniture belonging to the place, but a rude shelf, the four walls, and a papered fireboard representing a man striking a whale.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

This is the same brisk Narbonne, who, last year, cut out from their entanglement, by force of dragoons, those poor fugitive Royal Aunts: men say he is at bottom their Brother, or even more, so scandalous is scandal.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

In our house such sayings as: "A penny saved is a penny gained," and "Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves," and so on, were frequently repeated, and my sister, weighed down by these vulgar maxims, did her utmost to cut down the expenses, and so we fared badly.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

He was much offended with me for remaining a mere spectator of the fray; but I told him very coolly that, being the aggressor, he was in the wrong, and in the second place I was not going to expose myself to be beaten to a jelly by two lusty peasants in another man’s quarrel.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Beside, to what purpose is it to lay down a definition for a faint resemblance, and mere shadow of me, while appearing here personally, you may view me at a more certain light?
— from In Praise of Folly Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts by Desiderius Erasmus

"I would fain return alone, monsieur," she reiterated with the persistence of a wilful child.
— from A Maid of Brittany: A Romance by Mabel Winifred Knowles

I speak for all-shaped blooms and leaves, Lichens on stones and moss on eaves, Grasses and grains in ranks and sheaves; Broad-fronded ferns and keen-leaved canes, And briery mazes bounding lanes, And marsh-plants, thirsty-cupped for rains, And milky stems and sugary veins; For every long-armed woman-vine That round a piteous tree doth twine; For passionate odors, and divine Pistils, and petals crystalline; · · · · · All tree-sounds, rustlings of pine-cones, Wind-sighings, doves' melodious moans, And night's unearthly undertones; All placid lakes and waveless deeps, All cool reposing mountain-steeps, Vale-calms and tranquil lotos-sleeps;— Yea, all fair forms, and sounds, and lights, And warmths, and mysteries, and mights, Of Nature's utmost depths and heights, [Pg 282] —These doth my timid tongue present, Their mouthpiece and leal instrument And servant, all love-eloquent.
— from Vocal Expression: A Class-book of Voice Training and Interpretation by Katherine Jewell Everts

Though far from being one of Molière's happiest efforts, as it was hastily strung together—the first act and the commencement of the first scene of the second are in verse, and the rest in prose—while the author's natural flow of wit and humour was checked by the necessity of accommodating himself to courtly conventions, it met with a very favourable reception, and, moreover, served to establish Armande's reputation as an actress.
— from Queens of the French Stage by H. Noel (Hugh Noel) Williams

Possibly the facts related above may serve to show that convoys were commenced by Admiralty direction, and that they were started as soon as and extended as rapidly as the necessary protecting vessels could be provided.
— from The Crisis of the Naval War by John Rushworth Jellicoe

he cried, in English, to Salvé, as if careless of further reticence, and made some remark then with an unpleasant laugh to his sister, who had evidently by her expression perceived at once how matters stood.
— from The Pilot and his Wife by Jonas Lie

I saw flying round about me several birds that I recognized as gulls, and ahead of me a turtle made his way into the sea, but I made no attempt to stop him, having plenty of food and to spare, but I was glad to see that my expectations, or rather desires, were more than fulfilled, and that my capture upon the other side of the island had not been an exceptional one, and I could look to this creature also for food; but that question, as well as the one of water and fire, was fast disappearing from my mind, as the certainty of providing all easily was being hourly forced upon me.
— from Perseverance Island; Or, The Robinson Crusoe of the Nineteenth Century by Douglas Frazar

And I have blessed the fate that was so kind In my life's agitations to include This moment's refuge where my sense can find Refreshment, and my soul beatitude.
— from Poems by Alan Seeger

And together we climbed up, and lay down, twelve or fifteen feet above the road, on the top of the sweet-scented trusses of hay; the carter cracked his whip, and away we went jolting over the road, with the stars above us, and my couch seeming delicious to my weary limbs, as the scent seemed to bring up my sleeping place by the hay-rick, when I ran away from Rowford and my slavery at Mr Blakeford’s house.
— from The Story of Antony Grace by George Manville Fenn

They should be intermingled, for reasons already mentioned (see pears, p. 12).
— from The Book of Pears and Plums; With Chapters on Cherries and Mulberries by Edward Bartrum