All the white beds—the "lits d'ange," as they were poetically termed—lay visible at a glance; all were empty: no sleeper reposed therein.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

although filthy garments, with a slightly unsteady swagger, thick sensual lips, and hearty-looking rubicund faces—others clothed in materials which had once been good, and which even now were scrupulously well brushed—men who walked with a more than naturally firm and springy step, but whose countenances were fearfully pale, whose eyes hideously wild and red, and who clutched with quivering fingers, as they strode through the crowd, at every object which came within their reach; beside these, pie-men, porters, coal—heavers, sweeps; organ-grinders, monkey-exhibiters and ballad mongers, those who vended with those who sang; ragged artizans and exhausted laborers of every description, and all full of a noisy and inordinate vivacity which jarred discordantly upon the ear, and gave an aching sensation to the eye.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

“Give me the journey-money, I will remain at Paris; but I will give a written engagement not to trouble you or your brother again.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

After the death, in 1702, of King William, who was himself a Mason, and a great patron of the craft, the institution began to languish, the lodges decreased in number, and the General Assembly was entirely neglected for many years.
— from The Principles of Masonic Law A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages and Landmarks of Freemasonry by Albert Gallatin Mackey

He on his part was no less glad, and was expecting nothing so little as to see me in this country.
— from Voyages of Samuel De Champlain — Volume 03 by Samuel de Champlain

could not err,” and whatsoever he did “no mortal man had power to condemn him, neither kings, nor emperors, nor the whole clergy,” nor yet all the people in the world together; no, and though he should carry away with him to hell a thousand souls from him who took upon him power to command, not only men, but even God’s angels, to go, to return, to lead souls into purgatory, and to bring them back again when he list himself: whom Gregory said, without all doubt, is the very forerunner and standard-bearer of Antichrist, and hath utterly forsaken the Catholic faith, from whom also these ringleaders of ours, who now with might and main resist the gospel, and the truth, which they know to be the truth, have ere this departed every one of their own accord and goodwill, and would even now also gladly depart from him, if the note of inconstancy and shame, and their own estimation among the people, were not a let unto them.
— from The Apology of the Church of England by John Jewel

Anyone, who has ever heard the execrations hurled at the head of a baseball umpire in the United States, when one of his decisions has failed to command general assent, will experience no difficulty, we are sure, in understanding the force of the impulse that provoked this outbreak of Gallic excitement.
— from Benjamin Franklin; Self-Revealed, Volume 2 (of 2) A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own Writings by Wiliam Cabell Bruce

Those waves that youth's light bark rode gallantly and with exhilaration, now flood the laboring vessel and shut out the light—the joy—of life.
— from Old Groans and New Songs Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes by Frederick Charles Jennings

To make matters worse, next week there was a circus coming to the neighbourhood, to which we had all been strictly forbidden to go; and without Edward no visit in contempt of law and orders could be successfully brought off.
— from The Golden Age by Kenneth Grahame

The Government at Washington expected nothing less than this.
— from The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct, Volume 2 (of 2) A Narrative and Critical History by George Cary Eggleston

9. From the narrowness of the road, on nearer approach, a side view of the carving can only be obtained by turning the head up at a somewhat uncomfortable angle; and probably for this reason the extraordinary fact had apparently quite escaped attention that this was in reality no human head at all, but a peculiar grotesque animal, with extended neck, crouching against the wall in a manner peculiar to gargoyles, and with a high arched back like a fighting cat, garnished with knobbly vertebræ.
— from The Gate of Remembrance The Story of the Psychological Experiment which Resulted in the Discovery of the Edgar Chapel at Glastonbury by Frederick Bligh Bond

gave, as was expected, nothing but blues.
— from Mendelism Third Edition by Reginald Crundall Punnett