His accustomed exaggeration and false emphasis are nowhere so little perceptible as when {298} he deals with Ben Cruachan or the Old Man of Coniston, with the Four Great Lakes of Britain, East and West (one of his finest passages), or with the glens of Etive and Borrowdale.
— from Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 by George Saintsbury

Quite young ladies in the carriages wore bonnets with strings tied under their chins, daintily small bonnets of delicate colours, primrose, heliotrope, and peach; those that wore hats had them perched in the queerest manner, on the back of the head, sideways, at angles; all of them held up flounced or laced parasols of rich dark tints, and their great sleeves ballooned so widely as almost to conceal gentlemen who were accompanying them—elderly gentlemen, these, like father, in top hats and open frock coats; or comparatively youthful gentlemen, like our brother Eustace, in top hats and buttoned frock coats.
— from Spinster of This Parish by W. B. (William Babington) Maxwell

On the wall behind him lettered in gold leaf on black enamel, hung the apothegm (not from the eloquent pen of Doctor Wilde)—“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
— from The Trufflers: A Story by Samuel Merwin

A solitary grey line of broken earth ran like a mole burrow up the bare knuckle and vanished over the top.
— from Letters from France by C. E. W. (Charles Edwin Woodrow) Bean

He'll kill plenty of Germans before he's done.” Col. Ronald Campbell was a great lecturer on bayonet exercise.
— from Now It Can Be Told by Philip Gibbs

He is a great lender of books, especially of Carlyle and Ruskin, which authors for some absolutely inscrutable reason he considers provocative of Bagarrowism, and he goes to the County Council lectures on dairy-work, because it encourages others to improve themselves.
— from Certain Personal Matters by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

His works include translations from the Greek and German; moral and religious and other philosophy; also, “Lays of the Highlands and Islands,” “Language and Literature of the Scottish Highlands,” “Wisdom of Goethe,” “Life of Burns,” “Essays on Subjects of Moral and Social Interest,” “Self-Culture,” etc.
— from Through the Year with Famous Authors by Mabel Patterson

The East Greenlanders look on begging, especially for food, as a disgrace....
— from True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World by A. W. (Adolphus Washington) Greely

Her Greek love of beauty expressed itself in all her appointments.
— from The Women of the French Salons by Amelia Gere Mason

She did notice a good lot of bluish, evil-smelling smoke coming from about the bearings between his feet, but she thought this was one of the natural concomitants of motor-traction, and troubled no more about it, until abruptly it burst into a little yellow-tipped flame.
— from The War in the Air by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells