Excited by which rumours and hearsays they will decide about the weightiest matters; and necessarily repent next moment that they did it, on such guidance of uncertain reports, and many a traveller answering with mere fictions to please them, and get off.'
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

Messer Cane, who was a gentleman of understanding, right well apprehended Bergamino's meaning, without further exposition, and said to him, smiling, 'Bergamino, thou hast very aptly set forth to me thy wrongs and merit and my niggardliness, as well as that which thou wouldst have of me; and in good sooth, never, save now on thine account, have I been assailed of parsimony; but I will drive it away with that same stick which thou thyself hast shown me.'
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

These allegations were not deemed exculpatory by the rest of the assembly, who with one voice pronounced him guilty of unwarrantable rashness and indiscretion, which, in time coming, must undoubtedly operate to the prejudice of his character and credit.
— from The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete by T. (Tobias) Smollett

The mirth of the humble and uneducated man received no check from the assumption of an unseasonable gravity or ungenerous reserve on the part of those with whom fortune had dealt more kindly, and to whom knowledge had opened her stores.
— from The Book of Christmas Descriptive of the Customs, Ceremonies, Traditions, Superstitions, Fun, Feeling, and Festivities of the Christmas Season by Thomas K. Hervey

Second by second they gained on us, relentlessly.
— from Project Gutenberg Complete Works of Winston Churchill by Winston Churchill

The Sagoths were gaining on us rapidly, for once they had sighted us they had greatly increased their speed.
— from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs

In his testimony, he deposed that the two defendants had no knowledge of the great opportunity until revealed by him at the time mentioned.
— from Minnesota, the North Star State by William Watts Folwell

In the bottom of his soul, he had a lingering hope that when he told his story, Madeleine might look up with a change of expression, a glance of unpremeditated regard, a little suffusion of the eyes, a little trembling of the voice.
— from Democracy, an American novel by Henry Adams

All the things by the side of the wall and the skirting-board (including the cobwebs) were either gone or unrecognisably reduced; cunningly compressed into semblances of Chesterfields and ottomans and settees.
— from The Post-Girl by Edward Charles Booth

"You made her an offer of your hand and heart?" "Which she refused," the young man said, with a glance of unutterable reproach.
— from The Baronet's Bride; Or, A Woman's Vengeance by May Agnes Fleming

The fame of Forrest, the Tennessee mountaineer, was already spreading, but a cavalryman could do little for the defense of a fort besieged by twenty thousand well equipped men, led by a general of unexcelled resolution.
— from The Guns of Shiloh: A Story of the Great Western Campaign by Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler

The creature in our rear was gaining on us rapidly when Nobs flew past me like a meteor and rushed straight for the frightful reptile.
— from The Land That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs