“And why did I promise that telegraph clerk, like a silly?” Dymov hurriedly drank a glass of tea, took a cracknel, and, smiling gently, went to the station.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

And rising out of the midst, tall-topt, ship-hemm'd, modern, American, yet strangely oriental, V-shaped Manhattan, with its compact mass, its spires, its cloud-touching edifices group'd at the centre—the green of the trees, and all the white, brown and gray of the architecture well blended, as I see it, under a miracle of limpid sky, delicious light of heaven above, and June haze on the surface below.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

“Snap goes our third thread, and we end where we began,” said he.
— from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

Occasional glimpses could be caught of groups of the toiling artillerymen.
— from The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War by Stephen Crane

Pantagruel soon knew the cause of it, having discovered a small cylinder or roller that joined the gates over the threshold, and, turning like them towards the wall on a hard well-polished ophites stone, with rubbing and rolling caused that harmonious murmur.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

At the same moment Blachevelle, supported by Listolier and Fameuil, struck up to a plaintive air, one of those studio songs composed of the first words which come to hand, rhymed richly and not at all, as destitute of sense as the gesture of the tree and the sound of the wind, which have their birth in the vapor of pipes, and are dissipated and take their flight with them.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

But still she watched the daily growth of the temple, and so did old Walter Gascoigne, who now made that spot his continual haunt, leaning whole hours together on his staff and giving as deep attention to the work as though it had been indeed a tomb.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

By agreement, the conversation in Roxy’s presence was all about the man’s “upcountry” farm, and how pleasant a place it was, and how happy the slaves were there; so poor Roxy was entirely deceived; and easily, for she was not dreaming that her own son could be guilty of treason to a mother who, in voluntarily going into slavery—slavery of any kind, mild or severe, or of any duration, brief or long—was making a sacrifice for him compared with which death would have been a poor and commonplace one.
— from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain

If indeed his Majesty would consent to go over to the Assembly!
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

Veronica had simply gone out to take a walk in the moonlight; possibly she had a headache or was unable to sleep.
— from The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit; Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos by Hildegard G. Frey

In all the departments of thought, and not only in the world of thought but in that of action, the spirit of human infallibility is the greatest obstacle to truth and goodness.
— from Life and Correspondence of David Hume, Volume 1 (of 2) by John Hill Burton

The secret instructions which they had opened only upon reaching Milan were supposed to have contained certain communications which had been exchanged between the Governments of the Transvaal and Great Britain but which it was alleged had not been published in the Blue Books.
— from Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War by Robert Granville Campbell

But tarry ye in the edge of the wood opposite the west gate of the town, and ye may be of service ere to-morrow night.”
— from Robin Hood by J. Walker (Joseph Walker) McSpadden

Tortoises are represented by two African or wide-spread genera of Testudinidæ, Testudo and Chersina , and by one peculiar genus, Pyxis ; and there are also two African genera of Chelydidæ.
— from The Geographical Distribution of Animals, Volume 1 With a study of the relations of living and extinct faunas as elucidating the past changes of the Earth's surface by Alfred Russel Wallace

If it be granted—as it seems to be—that the great and stirring events in a nation's life will, under ordinary circumstances, be remembered (apart from all written memorials) for the space of 150 years, being handed down through five generations, it must be allowed (even on mere human grounds) that the account which Moses gives of the Temptation and the Fall is to be depended upon, if it passed through no more than four hands between him and Adam.
— from Essays Upon Some Controverted Questions by Thomas Henry Huxley

Chabot called the garden of the Tuileries “a second Coblentz,” in reference to the German fortified town where the allied sovereigns, who were plotting against the Revolution, had their head-quarters.
— from Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 1 by H. Sutherland (Henry Sutherland) Edwards

An agricultural settlement they may establish; a few forts, where Scotchmen will grumble for a few years before they go over to the Americans, but never a community that will deserve the name of a British colony.
— from A History of Oregon, 1792-1849 Drawn From Personal Observation and Authentic Information by W. H. (William Henry) Gray

"This aboue written testor is redy when called to giue oath to the aboue written testimony."
— from The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) by John M. (John Metcalf) Taylor

His laughter, which Maeterlinck has defined so admirably as "the laughter of the soul," is the laughter of Pierrot, more than half a sob, and shaken out of him with a deplorable gesture of the thin arms, thrown wide.
— from The Symbolist Movement in Literature by Arthur Symons