A weakness common to mankind made him curious to know who was there and what was going on, so he descended into the tomb and, catching sight of a most beautiful woman, he stood still, afraid at first that it was some apparition or spirit from the infernal regions; but he finally comprehended the true state of affairs as his eye took in the corpse lying there, and as he noted the tears and the face lacerated by the finger-nails, he understood that the lady was unable to endure the loss of the dear departed.
— from The Satyricon — Complete by Petronius Arbiter

Whether he goes or stays, he must pay a week’s board.
— from An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises by George Lyman Kittredge

“The rogue is gone out,” said he; and straightway makes for my red box where I keep my love-letters, my glass eye which I used to wear, my favourite lucky dice with which I threw the thirteen mains at Prague; my two sets of Paris teeth, and my other private matters that you know of.
— from Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

Whenever the bailiff said to him, “It might be well to have such-and-such a thing done,” he would reply, “Yes, that is not a bad idea,” and then go on smoking his pipe—a habit which he had acquired during his service in the army, where he had been looked upon as an officer of modesty, delicacy, and refinement.
— from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

Lively once, expansive and affectionate, in growing older she had become (after the fashion of wine that, exposed to air, turns to vinegar) ill-tempered, grumbling, irritable.
— from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Thomas at length advanced his batteries against Lakwa, on whose position a general assault was about taking place, when a tremendous storm, with torrents of rain which filled the stream, cut off his batteries from the main body, burst the gates of Shahpura, his point d’appui , and laid the town in ruins.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

He had heard, he said, that no one had ever got a kingfisher's nest out perfect, and that the British Museum, or the Government, or somebody, had offered 100 pounds to any one who could bring them a nest and eggs not damaged.
— from Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes

He seated himself upon it, half his body in the dim and flickering light, and the other half in shadow; and so, with his craving eyes bent upon the slumbering boy, he kept his patient vigil there, heedless of the drift of time, and softly whetted his knife, and mumbled and chuckled; and in aspect and attitude he resembled nothing so much as a grizzly, monstrous spider, gloating over some hapless insect that lay bound and helpless in his web.
— from The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

"His excellency, recognising your generous offering," said he, "presents you with the choicest gifts of his seraglio, two wives.
— from Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series by Bracebridge Hemyng

Here were specimens of all grades of the negro character, from the genuine pious, cheerful trusting christian, to the saucy, lazy, degraded creature, which generations of slavery has made almost on a level with the beasts of the field.
— from Nurse and Spy in the Union Army The Adventures and Experiences of a Woman in Hospitals, Camps, and Battle-Fields by S. Emma E. (Sarah Emma Evelyn) Edmonds

Going on Saturday, he would have very little time to stay.
— from Mary Gray by Katharine Tynan

England has been exceptionally rich in great engineers and inventive geniuses of such humble origin—working men who have introduced great improvements in manufactures or communications; and our modern English civilization has been immensely influenced by the lives of these able and successful mechanical toilers.
— from Biographies of Working Men by Grant Allen

It appeared that God would deny the blessing of children to the wife who desired them not from the holy instinct of maternal love, but to satisfy a base pride and a contemptible covetousness; not for the blessed glory of seeing herself surrounded by her offspring, but from the haughty and miserable desire of humiliating a rival—of triumphing over an enemy.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 05, April 1867 to September 1867 by Various

Much of the gratification given by a melody consists in the con­scious­ness of the relations between each group of sounds heard and the groups of sounds held in memory as having just passed, as well as those represented as about to come.
— from Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative; Vol. 2 of 3 Library Edition (1891), Containing Seven Essays not before Republished, and Various other Additions. by Herbert Spencer

Then he fancied he could hear a long distance off a sound, at first almost imperceptible, but which rapidly approached; and he soon recognized in it the wild galloping of several horses.
— from Stronghand; or, The Noble Revenge by Gustave Aimard

At the eleventh round, poor Ned refused to "give in;" the brawny pugilist, unhurt, in good wind, and pale with concentrated, and as yet, unslaked revenge, had the gratification of seeing his opponent seated upon his second's knee, unable to hold up his head, his left arm disabled; his face a bloody, swollen, and shapeless mass; his breast scarred and bloody, and his whole body panting and quivering with rage and exhaustion.
— from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. II, No. X., March 1851 by Various

These mountains, rising abruptly from the valley floors and, on the whole, densely forested, are scarcely inhabited by man except for scattered groups of seminomadic hill tribes, which exist there by hunting and a primitive agriculture.
— from Siam: Land of Free Men by H. G. (Herbert Girton) Deignan