Women drove the demon from their houses with clubs and knives, with which they made passes in the air; and the men, gathering round a fire, shot him with their rifles and crushed him under a heavy stone the moment that steam rose in a cloud from the smouldering embers, on which a tub of water had just been thrown.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

Up, Princes, and, with spirit of honour edged More sharper than your swords, hie to the field: Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France; You Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon, and of Berri, Alengon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy; Jaques Chatillon, Rambures, Vaudemont, Beaumont, Grandpre, Roussi, and Fauconbridge, Foix, Lestrake, Bouciqualt, and Charolois; High dukes, great princes, barons, lords, and knights, For your great seats now quit you of great shames.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

On that day all the inhabitants got up earlier, and the Grande Rue, although full of people, had something lugubrious about it, as if an execution had been expected.
— from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

On another occasion, when I dined out, and was sitting with two ladies and some gentlemen round a fire before dinner, one of the company fell short of the fireplace, six distinct times.
— from American Notes by Charles Dickens

There were now but three remaining; but by this time they had become aroused from their lethargy, and perhaps began to see that a deception had been practised upon them, for they fought with great resolution and fury, and, but for the immense muscular strength of Peters, might have ultimately got the better of us.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

And isn't it a pitiful thing when there is nothing left of a man who was a great rower and fisher, but a bit of an old shirt and a plain stocking? CATHLEEN
— from Riders to the Sea by J. M. (John Millington) Synge

Many of them are still in use, wonderful records of the engineering skill of their makers, and oftentimes beneath the surface of some grassy ride a few inches below the turf you may find the hard concreted road laid down by the Romans nearly eighteen hundred years ago.
— from English Villages by P. H. (Peter Hampson) Ditchfield

ANT: Pleasure, amusement, alleviation, recreation, gratification, relief, assuagement, facilitation, boon, treat.
— from A Complete Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms or, Synonyms and Words of Opposite Meaning by Samuel Fallows

It is plain that “Don Quixote” was generally regarded at first, and indeed in Spain for a long time, as little more than a queer droll book, full of laughable incidents and absurd situations, very amusing, but not entitled to much consideration or care.
— from The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Silk was little known in England at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, but it came into great request a few years later.
— from The Beginners of a Nation A History of the Source and Rise of the Earliest English Settlements in America, with Special Reference to the Life and Character of the People by Edward Eggleston

This is a side of Carlyle's nature which would naturally be hidden from the general reader, and from Mr Froude.
— from Thomas Carlyle by Hector Macpherson

Even girls ran away from home and parents sometimes, in the grip of a powerful love; and he, a man, a man "in the public eye" also—was he to let a beautiful girl like Leonora go away sorrowful and in tears, so that he could keep the respect of a city that bored him and the affection of a mother who had never really loved him?
— from The Torrent (Entre Naranjos) by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

Spitzer, misinterpreting the tone, his face grew rueful and full of trouble.
— from On the Iron at Big Cloud by Frank L. (Frank Lucius) Packard

'For a hundred good reasons,' answered Fergus.
— from Waverley; Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since by Walter Scott

Behind their marvelous and bewildering accomplishment there is a native gift, rich and full; and there is also the utmost rigor and perseverance in training.
— from A Book About the Theater by Brander Matthews

Pinkey she found without difficulty; also Mr. Hicks, who, awakened by the feeling that someone was looking at him, sat up and in a scandalized tone told her to go right away, from him.
— from The Dude Wrangler by Caroline Lockhart