The house was full of cries and lamentations, shrieks and screams, servants frantically tearing their hair, throwing themselves on the ground, or running distractedly about, lamenting.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

It was distracting to Jude, and his heart would have ached less had she appeared anyhow but as she did appear; essentially large-minded and generous on reflection, despite a previous exercise of those narrow womanly humours on impulse that were necessary to give her sex.
— from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

Now these differ from each other; for some possess only kingly power regulated by law, and rule those who voluntarily submit to their government; others rule despotically according to their own will.
— from Politics: A Treatise on Government by Aristotle

The book is a gallery of remarkably distinct and authentic portraits, the atmosphere is held in perfect restraint, and the overhanging theme is never, for an instant, abandoned.
— from Joseph Conrad by Hugh Walpole

Walking, she drank in the loveliness about her, marked the forms of trees, the light and shade of heavy leafage, the blendings of colour by the roadside, the grace of remote distances; all these things she was making part of herself, that in memory they might be a joy for ever.
— from A Life's Morning by George Gissing

"To the city gate only," replied D'Artagnan, "after which I will tell you what I told the king: 'I am on duty.'"
— from The Vicomte de Bragelonne Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" by Alexandre Dumas

What they gained through a diminution of ecclesiastical dues and taxes was more than lost through the growth of royal despotism and the exactions of hard-hearted lay proprietors.
— from A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. by Carlton J. H. (Carlton Joseph Huntley) Hayes

Even the Delphic oracle gave out replies discouraging and terrible; intimating, however, that the safety of Athens lay in the wooden wall, which, with extraordinary tact, was interpreted by Themistocles to mean that the true defense lay in the navy.
— from Ancient States and Empires For Colleges and Schools by John Lord

The girl, with a glare of recognition, dashed across the open as if under heavy fire; but heavy fire, alas—the extremi
— from The Two Magics: The Turn of the Screw, Covering End by Henry James

Wednesday, 24th, after John had gone off riding, Dick and I waited about for the directors' car, which we expected that morning, but alas!
— from The British Association's Visit to Montreal, 1884 : Letters by Rayleigh, Clara, Lady

Of Italy, after the greatness of Rome dropped as the Labarum was raised on high, and the Fisher of Galilee came to fill the desolate place of the Cæsars.
— from Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida Selected from the Works of Ouida by Ouida

Outside in the corridor was a gentleman of rather distinguished appearance, whom I had not seen before.
— from The Man Who Ended War by Hollis Godfrey