Michel de Bourges, seated in a corner of the fireplace, or leaning on a table enveloped in his great coat, his black silk cap on his head, had an answer for every suggestion, gave back to occurrences blow for blow, was on his guard for danger, difficulty, opportunity, necessity, for his is one of those wealthy natures which have always something ready either in their intellect or in their imagination.
— from The History of a Crime The Testimony of an Eye-Witness by Victor Hugo

I saw Epictetus there, most gallantly apparelled after the French fashion, sitting under a pleasant arbour, with store of handsome gentlewomen, frolicking, drinking, dancing, and making good cheer, with abundance of crowns of the sun.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

His glance fell directly down into the barricade.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Since we consider that we have conquered dream-distortion, we must continue the investigation to see whether our hypothesis of wish-fulfillment holds good for distorted dreams also.
— from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud

On a strict and literal interpretation, I doubt if claims lie against Germany for damage done,— e.g. by the Turks to the Suez Canal, or by Austrian submarines in the Adriatic.
— from The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes

At length corruption, like a general flood, Did deluge all; and avarice creeping on, Spread, like a low-born mist, and hid the sun.
— from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay

Come 'l ramarro sotto la gran fersa dei di` canicular, cangiando sepe, folgore par se la via attraversa, si` pareva, venendo verso l'epe de li altri due, un serpentello acceso, livido e nero come gran di pepe; e quella parte onde prima e` preso nostro alimento, a l'un di lor trafisse; poi cadde giuso innanzi lui disteso.
— from Divina Commedia di Dante: Inferno by Dante Alighieri

The porter and the glass finally disappeared down the aisle, and Robert Allison, now wide awake and flooded with returning energy, remembered with a whimsical smile the illusion that had overtaken him at midday.
— from The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit; Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos by Hildegard G. Frey

The ex-secretary Rigos was greatly affected at the appearance of this female school; and, after surveying it attentively for some moments, pointed to the Parthenon on the summit of the Acropolis, and said to Mrs. Hill, with deep emotion, "Lady, you are erecting in Athens a monument more enduring and more noble than yonder temple;" and the king was so deeply impressed with its value, that, a short time before my arrival, he proposed to Mr. Hill to take into his house girls from different districts and educate them as teachers, with the view of sending them back to their districts, there to organize new schools, and carry out the great work of female education.
— from Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland, Vol. 1 (of 2) by John L. Stephens

The old city walls—(the “ gar gute Fortification, dass der Churfürst sicher genug darinnen Hof halten kann ” of Johann Hübner’s description)—were already partially destroyed.
— from The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume I by Alexander Wheelock Thayer

In one place he wrote: Twice the Empress entered Vienna in state; the first time was in 1854, when she was a bride of seventeen, & when she rode in measureless pomp through a world of gay flags & decorations down the streets, walled on both hands with the press of shouting & welcoming subjects; & the second time was last Wednesday, when she entered the city in her coffin, & moved down the same streets in the dead of night under waving black flags, between human walls again, but everywhere was a deep stillness now & a stillness emphasized rather than broken by the muffled hoofbeats of the long cavalcade over pavements cushioned with sand, & the low sobbing of gray-headed women who had witnessed the first entrance, forty-four years before, when she & they were young & unaware….
— from Mark Twain: A Biography. Volume II, Part 2: 1886-1900 by Albert Bigelow Paine

Hence you may often hear the departing believer saying, as his last audible utterance, Who loved me , and GAVE HIMSELF FOR ME ; and his conscious assurance of this great fact disarms death of his sting, and he passes onward into the eternal world with a hope full of immortality."
— from The Sheepfold and the Common; Or, Within and Without. Vol. 1 (of 2) by Timothy East

The German Civil Code ( Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch für das Deutsche Reich ), which became law [Pg 62] on January 1, 1900, has been described by Professor Maitland as “the most carefully considered statement of a nation’s law that the world has ever seen.”
— from Marriage and Divorce Laws of the World by Hyacinthe Ringrose