I After Prince Andrew’s engagement to Natásha, Pierre without any apparent cause suddenly felt it impossible to go on living as before.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

This theory is based upon the assumptions that the ancient Chinese ideograms include representations of tropical animals and plants; that the oldest and purest forms of the language are found in the south; and that the Chinese and the Indo-Chinese groups of languages are both tonal.
— from Myths and Legends of China by E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers) Werner

We are capable of willing to be good, of loving and being loved, of thinking to the end that we may [105] be wiser.
— from The World I Live In by Helen Keller

She is the same as Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty.
— from Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I by Edmund Spenser

Her ebony brows have the form and charm of the bow of Kama, the god of love, and beneath her long silken lashes the purest reflections and a celestial light swim, as in the sacred lakes of Himalaya, in the black pupils of her great clear eyes.
— from Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

In general, the length of the common carotid is considerable, and ranges between the sterno-clavicular articulation and the level of the os hyoides; throughout the whole of this length, it seldom or never happens that a large arterial branch is given off from the vessel, and the operation of ligaturing the common carotid is therefore much more likely to answer the results required of that proceeding than can be expected from the ligature of any part of the subclavian artery which gives off large arterial branches from every part of its course.
— from Surgical Anatomy by Joseph Maclise

You see the thing had gone off like a box of matches.
— from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

But if these old spells and enchantments for the growth of leaves and blossoms, of grass and flowers and fruit, have lingered down to our own time in the shape of pastoral plays and popular merry-makings, is it not reasonable to suppose that they survived in less attenuated forms some two thousand years ago among the civilised peoples of antiquity?
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

He got off like a bird, not but what they didn't have a go at him; the Raider, sir--most unfortunate, she come up just as we was getting ready for the kick-off, as you may say.
— from The Blue Raider: A Tale of Adventure in the Southern Seas by Herbert Strang

Try to catch one, and the whole herd goes off like a bomb.
— from The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations by William T. (William Temple) Hornaday

At eleven, the moon was risen, and the grim passenger, Paul Revere, had ridden up the Neck, encountered a foe, who opposed his ride into the country, and, after a brief delay, had gone on, leaving a British officer lying in a clay pit.
— from The Only Woman in the Town, and Other Tales of the American Revolution by Sarah J. (Sarah Johnson) Prichard

In addressing an assembly of Saints, I expect the benefit of their prayers, without the ceremony of asking, being assured they are aware, as well as I am, that our teachings and administrations in the Gospel of life are blest according to our faith and prayers and the diligence and attention we bestow.
— from Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Eliza R. (Eliza Roxey) Snow

writ the history of Europe with his famous sea-fight, in which he had taken risks such as no man ever took before in the world, and was withal as sympathetic as a woman; and this woman led even the chaplain to exclaim that she had, what the ancients prized above all things, that mysterious quality of VENUSTAS , which he endeavoured to explain to us as sheer loveliness—the possession of all the graces which went to form their conception of Venus, the goddess of love and beauty.
— from The Admiral: A Romance of Nelson in the Year of the Nile by Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen

Small articles of gold, intended chiefly for ornamental purposes, were found everywhere in greater or less abundance by the Spaniards, the gold being generally described as of a low grade.
— from The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 2, Civilized Nations The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 2 by Hubert Howe Bancroft

We’ll drink, too, to the rosy god, The god of love and beauty, For all who are his vot’ries Must tender him their duty.
— from The Night Side of London by J. Ewing (James Ewing) Ritchie

that awful God above, Is yet a gracious God of love— A bleeding Lamb—a wounded Dove— The sinner's God.
— from Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems by James Avis Bartley

You men get out lanterns and be ready to go into the woods.
— from The Young Engineers in Nevada; Or, Seeking Fortune on the Turn of a Pick by H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock