I hear the rustling of her gown, I scent the odor of her breath's delicious fragrance, I mark her step divine, her curious eyes a-turning, rolling, Upon this very scene.
— from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

When I got there and see it was gone, I says to myself, ’They’ve got into trouble and had to leave; and they’ve took my nigger, which is the only nigger I’ve got in the world, and now I’m in a strange country, and ain’t got no property no more, nor nothing, and no way to make my living;’ so I set down and cried.
— from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Then the lieutenant swore by God I should tell; after which my two fore-fingers were bound together, and a small arrow placed between them, they drew it through so fast that the blood followed, and the arrow brake.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

There is a water-clock in the palace which shows the hours; and at the end of every hour a very large Chinese gong is struck, the sound of which is so loud that it is not only heard all over the palace, but over most part of the city; and the peculiarity of the gong, as of every Chinese gong, was that nearly one minute must elapse after the first stroke before the second stroke could be made, to allow the gong to give out the whole of its sound.
— from Folk-Tales of Bengal by Lal Behari Day

One who deserves and has narrowly escaped the gallows, a slip-gibbet, one for whom the gallows is said to groan.
— from 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose

To which, as we are next informed, his Excellency replied: "Gentlemen: I shall transmit your address to His Majesty's Ministers, in order that their expression of your approbation of my past administration may be laid at the feet of His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent.
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

“It seems to me,” said Ayrton, who had reclined so as to place his ear to the ground, “it seems to me that I can hear a dull, rumbling sound, like that of a wagon loaded with bars of iron.”
— from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

I might have guessed——" I saw that I had divined correctly the cause of her strange mood.
— from Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

I should have been too glad, I see, Too lifted for the scant degree Of life's penurious round; My little circuit would have shamed This new circumference, have blamed
— from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete by Emily Dickinson

AFTER THE WAR In the foregoing pages I have endeavored to describe the public events in which I was an actor or spectator before and during the civil war of 1861-'65, and it now only remains for me to treat of similar matters of general interest subsequent to the civil war.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

"They have gone," I said to Bowyer.
— from The Four Corners of the World by A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason

He quotes his father in the inscription as "Alderman of London," which is supposed to be inaccurate, as the prospective alderman, though represented in the official gown, is said to have declined office for political reasons.
— from Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral Formerly the Collegiate Church of St. Saviour, Otherwise St. Mary Overie. A Short History and Description of the Fabric, with Some Account of the College and the See by George Worley

Thinking the matter over she decided that it was her best policy to encourage him in his friendship for the old woman, and she did so gradually, insidiously, so that Abner should not guess what she was doing or wonder why she was doing it.
— from The Black Diamond by Francis Brett Young

"But, monsieur," said she, "if I were to ask you for a word of explanation, my word is good, it seems to me?"
— from Marguerite de Valois by Alexandre Dumas

The Countess seized the doctor’s hand, and grasped it so tightly that he could hardly bear the pain.
— from Caught in the Net by Emile Gaboriau

It there be a dispute between a player and the dealer, as to the number of cards demanded, the evidence of the person at the left hand of the dealer (whether he be playing in that game or have retired) shall be taken as deciding the matter; and if the person at the left hand of the dealer cannot give evidence, or if he be the player who is disputing with the dealer, the evidence of the person to the right of the dealer shall be taken, and shall be held conclusive, and if the person to the right of the dealer cannot give evidence, the evidence of the first person (beginning with the first person to the left of the disputing player, and going in succession to each person from right to left) who can give evidence, shall be taken as conclusive; and if no person at the table can give evidence, the disputing player shall be held to have demanded the proper number of cards.
— from Round Games with Cards A Practical Treatise on All the Most Popular Games, with Their Different Variations, and Hints for Their Practice by W. H. Peel

To this meagre number of positive faculties furnished by observation, he applied an analysis so intuitive that he discovered, behind the small facts amassed by him in no unusual quantity, the profound forces, the generative influences, so to speak.
— from Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Part 1 by Anatole Cerfberr

A tender pity, too, gave its spur to his passion; he saw that, all Queen of the Serail though she might be, this fettered gazelle was not happy in her rose-chains, and to Galahad, who had a wonderful twist of the knight-errant and lived decidedly some eight centuries too late, no wiliest temptation would have been so fatal as this.
— from Beatrice Boville and Other Stories by Ouida

Let her name remain pure, uncontaminated by any considerations, whether of mere gain or of the fraud which the gain is supposed to involve.
— from Confession; Or, The Blind Heart. A Domestic Story by William Gilmore Simms