And we regard them as happy on this ground only, much as Socrates' friends in the opening of the Phaedo are described as regarding him; or as was said of another, 'they looked upon his face as upon the face of an angel.'
— from Gorgias by Plato

A memory, poignant still, that brought the scent of hay, the gleam of moonlight, a summer magic, into the reek and blackness of this London fog—the memory of a night when in the darkest shadow of a lawn he had overheard from a woman's lips that he was not her sole possessor.
— from The Forsyte Saga, Volume I. The Man Of Property by John Galsworthy

Jenny was, however, by the care and goodness of Mr Allworthy, soon removed out of the reach of reproach; when malice being no longer able to vent its rage on her, began to seek another object of its bitterness, and this was no less than Mr Allworthy, himself; for a whisper soon went abroad, that he himself was the father of the foundling child.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

There was something so strange in all this, something so weird and impossible to imagine, that there grew on me a sense of my being in some way the sport of opposite forces—the mere vague idea of which seemed in a way to paralyse me.
— from Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker

, the main engine which batters us is from others, we are merely passive in this business: from a company of parasites and flatterers, that with immoderate praise, and bombast epithets, glossing titles, false eulogiums, so bedaub and applaud, gild over many a silly and undeserving man, that they clap him quite out of his wits.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

I doubt whether any city was ever more terribly punished than Charleston, but, as her people had for years been agitating for war and discord, and had finally inaugurated the civil war by an attack on the small and devoted garrison of Major Anderson, sent there by the General Government to defend them, the judgment of the world will be, that Charleston deserved the fate that befell her.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

Crashing the lance, he snuffs the spouting gore Of man and steed, o'erthrown beneath his horn: The thronged arena shakes with shouts for more; Yells the mad crowd o'er entrails freshly torn, Nor shrinks the female eye, nor e'en affects to mourn.
— from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron

John Noble, 2d, one of the first three settlers in New Milford, sold his house and lot in the village Nov. 6, to William Gillett of Milford, and soon after settled at Gallows Hill, New Milford plains, and resided there during his life.
— from Two Centuries of New Milford Connecticut An Account of the Bi-Centennial Celebration of the Founding of the Town Held June 15, 16, 17, and 18, 1907, With a Number of Historical Articles and Reminiscences by Various

Her lovely eyes held a glint of mischief as she mentioned Kent's partner, then her expression grew serious.
— from The Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln

The snow of many a winter’s storm, the gleam of many a summer’s sun, had matted and tangled his shaggy mane and sweeping frontlet.
— from Red Cloud, the Solitary Sioux: A Story of the Great Prairie by Butler, William Francis, Sir

Its members, without exception, are called upon to steel themselves without delay to face an unexpected emergency, seize a God-given opportunity, meet a supreme challenge, and show forth a tenacity of purpose, a solidarity in sacrifice, an austerity in everyday life, worthy the Martyr-Prophet of their Faith as well as their heroic spiritual forebears, the hundredth anniversary of whose agonizing tribulations, including captivity, sieges, betrayals, spoliation and martyrdom, is being commemorated during this same period.
— from Citadel of Faith by Effendi Shoghi

The generality of men are so far degenerated, both from the impression of a divine majesty, and the sense of an immortal being within themselves, that they imagine to content and ease their own hearts in these outward, inconstant, perishing things, and so their life is spent in catching at shadows, in feeding on the wind, in labouring in the fire.
— from The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning by Hugh Binning

The committee, of which I was made chairman, was appointed in due course, my colleagues being Senator O. H. Platt, of Connecticut; Senator Warner Miller, of New York; Senator Arthur Pugh Gorman, of Maryland; and Senator Isham G. Harris, of Tennessee.
— from Fifty Years of Public Service Personal Recollections of Shelby M. Cullom, Senior United States Senator from Illinois by Shelby M. (Shelby Moore) Cullom

We ate of a thin, hot cake, baked in a frying-pan over that camp fire; gnawed a boiled bone fished out of the kettle swung under the three sticks; drank big bowls of coffee, sweetened with coarse brown sugar and guiltless of milk; and sat on the floor all the while, with our legs crossed, like so many Turks and tailors.
— from Summer Cruising in the South Seas by Charles Warren Stoddard