The pair seldom quarrelled; yet once a rupture occurred, in which her feelings received a severe shock.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

We had reached the first houses, and were close on the new Wesleyan college, before her set features relaxed and she spoke once more.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

We are not the little people now, which we were sixty years ago; at that time we might have trusted our property in the streets, or fields rather; and slept securely without locks or bolts to our doors or windows.
— from Common Sense by Thomas Paine

And now what happened during Antipater's absence augmented the honor to which he had been promoted, and his apparent eminence above his brethren; for he had made a great figure in Rome, because Herod had sent recommendations of him to all his friends there; only he was grieved that he was not at home, nor had proper opportunities of perpetually calumniating his brethren; and his chief fear was, lest his father should alter his mind, and entertain a more favorable opinion of the sons of Mariamne; and as he had this in his mind, he did not desist from his purpose, but continually sent from Rome any such stories as he hoped might grieve and irritate his father against his brethren, under pretense indeed of a deep concern for his preservation, but in truth such as his malicious mind dictated, in order to purchase a greater hope of the succession, which yet was already great in itself: and thus he did till he had excited such a degree of anger in Herod, that he was already become very ill-disposed towards the young men; but still while he delayed to exercise so violent a disgust against them, and that he might not either be too remiss or too rash, and so offend, he thought it best to sail to Rome, and there accuse his sons before Cæsar, and not indulge himself in any such crime as might be heinous enough to be suspected of impiety.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

Writers contemporary with the copyists naturally avail themselves of the obvious advantages of these marks in their own work, and with such assistance as the flies of their own household may be willing to grant, frequently rival and sometimes surpass the older compositions, in respect at least of punctuation, which is no small glory.
— from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

But yet all those propositions, how remote soever from reason are so sacred somewhere or other, that men even of good understanding in other matters, will sooner part with their lives, and whatever is dearest to them, than suffer themselves to doubt, or others to question, the truth of them.
— from An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2 by John Locke

I remember at my Aunt Agatha's place in Hertfordshire once being put on the spot and forced to enact the role of King Edward III saying goodbye to that girl of his, Fair Rosamund, at some sort of pageant in aid of the Distressed Daughters of the Clergy.
— from Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

The essential feature remains the facility in transforming, the inability to refrain from reaction (—a similar state to that of certain hysterical patients, who at the slightest hint assume any rôle).
— from The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist Complete Works, Volume Sixteen by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

And him beside rides fierce revenging Wrath, 290 Upon a Lion, loth for to be led; And in his hand a burning brond he hath, The which he brandisheth about his hed; His eyes did hurle forth sparkles fiery red, And stared sterne on all that him beheld, 295
— from Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I by Edmund Spenser

He darted forward among the first ranks and shouted saying, "Argives, shall we let Hector son of
— from The Iliad by Homer

His brow was bent, his eye was glazed; 240 He raised his arm, and fiercely raised, And sternly shook his hand on high, As doubting to return or fly; [cz] Impatient of his flight delayed, Here loud his raven charger neighed— Down glanced that hand, and grasped his blade; That sound had burst his waking dream, As Slumber starts at owlet's scream.
— from The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 3 by Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron

The President of the United States is far from receiving any such support or confidence, and it need not be said any act of his of the same nature as that of Mr. Davis would have created an immense outcry against him.
— from The Civil War in America Fuller's Modern Age, August 1861 by Russell, William Howard, Sir

Her French-heeled slippers of the same material as her gown and the silk embroidered hosiery of palest buff completed her “foolish rig” as she slangily dubbed it.
— from Marjorie Dean, Post-Graduate by Josephine Chase

So weeks multiplied and became months, winter passed, the snows fell from the mountains, the floods rose and subsided, summer was at hand with her white boughs and green grasses.
— from Arms and the Woman by Harold MacGrath

"And my long legs were made for running away," she supplemented with a tortured laugh, "Only, where am I to run to?
— from The Song of Songs by Hermann Sudermann

The coast had also an evil reputation for wrecking—not what the underwriters style "act of God," but the dark and mysterious crime of luring vessels on a rock-bound shore:— "God keep us from rocks and shelving sands, And save us from Breage and Germoe men's hands!"
— from The Cornwall Coast by Arthur L. (Arthur Leslie) Salmon

After a time the Indian whom the lad had seen sitting out in front rose, and, stepping softly to the tepee, looked in.
— from The Pony Rider Boys in Montana; Or, The Mystery of the Old Custer Trail by Frank Gee Patchin