Saint Mary Axe!' With a gleam of new intelligence in her sharp face, the dolls' dressmaker pulled at Fledgeby's bell.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

A most small idea, near at hand for the whole world: but a living one, fit; and which waxed, whether into greatness or not, into immeasurable size.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

" As if endowed with the spirit of prophecy, Bathsheba gasped out, "No, it is not true; it cannot be true!"
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

He made his way along the corridors through force of habit; he threw aside his magisterial robe, not out of deference to etiquette, but because it was an unbearable burden, a veritable garb of Nessus, insatiate in torture.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

This resultant object of pursuit, conceived in reflection and in itself the initial goal of neither impulse, is the ideal of a mind occupied by the two: it is the aim prescribed by reason under the circumstances.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

It is, however, written on the face of the whole world, and the same process is going on now in its every phase.
— from Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway

"You see," said my guardian, "our neighbourhood is in Woodcourt's way, and he can come here to see her as often as he likes, which is agreeable to them both; and she is familiar to us and fond of you."
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

As for Mr. Fairlie, I believe I am guilty of no injustice if I describe him as being unutterably relieved by having the house clear of us women.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Certainly from this formidable gathering of notables, it is clear that there was about to take place in Leyte what our friends of the Lambs’ Club in New York would call “An all star performance.”
— from The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 by James H. (James Henderson) Blount

Similar to that in the Royal Gallery of Naples, it is distinguished by the Prince holding a flute, and not a staff, a ring on his finger and an amulet in his fur cap.
— from Catalogue of the Gallery of Art of The New York Historical Society by New-York Historical Society

The business of letters, howsoever simple it may seem to those who think truth-telling a gift of nature, is in reality two-fold, to find words for a meaning, and to find a meaning for words.
— from Style by Raleigh, Walter Alexander, Sir

But this is not a proof of imagination, it is a proof of an unsatisfied desire; it is not an activity bound up with gifts of nature; it is a manifestation of conscious, sensitive poverty.
— from Spontaneous Activity in Education by Maria Montessori

“He sha'n't come to grief over Norma if I can prevent it,” she had said to herself.
— from Where Love Is by William John Locke

In speaking of the neuter gender of nouns, I informed you, that neuter means neither; from which it follows, that neuter gender implies neither gender; that is, neither masculine nor feminine.
— from English Grammar in Familiar Lectures Accompanied by a compendium, embracing a new systematic order of parsing, a new system of punctuation, exercises in false syntax, and a system of philosophical grammar, in notes, to which are added an appendix and a key to the exercises : designed for the use of schools and private learners by Samuel Kirkham

Dance, Music, and Song in Latium From the defectiveness of our traditional information it is not possible to trace the development of artistic ideas among the several groups of nations in Italy; and in particular we are no longer in a position to speak of the poetry of Italy; we can only speak of that of Latium.
— from The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) by Theodor Mommsen