His contributions to the text seldom improved it, but barring that detail he was a good reader; I can say that much for him.
— from What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain

That he was greatly relieved, I could see.
— from The Hungry Stones, and Other Stories by Rabindranath Tagore

By means of these avocations I got the better of care, and learned to separate my ideas in such a manner that, whenever I was attacked by a gloomy reflection, I could shove it aside, and call in some agreeable reverie to my assistance.
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

The moon had spread over everything a thin layer of silver—over the rank grass, over the mud, upon the wall of matted vegetation standing higher than the wall of a temple, over the great river I could see through a sombre gap glittering, glittering, as it flowed broadly by without a murmur.
— from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

The fort of Massangano is small, but in good repair; it contains some very ancient guns, which were loaded from the breech, and must have been formidable weapons in their time.
— from Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa by David Livingstone

The lieutenant did the things receptionists do everywhere and looked up in a moment to say, "Go right in, Colonel Simonov."
— from Freedom by Mack Reynolds

The only place approaching a town in size and the number of inhabitants, from the Falls along the shores of Lake Erie for a great distance, beyond even Grand River, is Chippewa, situated on the river Welland, or Chippewa, which empties itself into Niagara Strait, just where the rapids commence and navigation terminates.
— from The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 1, October, 1884 by Various

Credit if answer to sixth question is correct, and governing rule is correctly stated.
— from Condensed Guide for the Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon Intelligence Tests by Lewis M. (Lewis Madison) Terman

The moon had spread over everything a thin layer of silver—over the rank grass, over the mud, upon the wall of matted vegetation standing higher than the wall of a temple, over the great river I could see through a somber gap glittering, glittering, as it flowed broadly by without a murmur.
— from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

His heart is as soft, as his hand is horny; with the wandering gipsy or the tramping beggar, thrust aside, perhaps deservedly, as impudent impostors from the rich man's gate, has he often-times shared his noon-day morsel: upright and sincere himself, he thinks as well of others: he scarcely ever heard the Gospels read in church, specially about Eastertide, but the tears would trickle down his weather-beaten face: he loves children—his neighbour's little ones as well as his own: he will serve any one for goodness' sake without reward or thanks, and is kind to the poor dumb cattle: he takes quite a pride in his little rod or two of garden, and is early and late at it, both before and after the daily sum of labour: he picks up a bit of knowledge here and there, and somehow has contrived to amass a fund of information for which few would give him credit from his common looks; and he joins to that stock of facts a natural shrewdness to use his knowledge wisely.
— from The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper by Martin Farquhar Tupper

These gentlemen represent, in Chicago, something more than the high professional standing of their firm; they are prominent socially and forward in civic activities; in short, just the sort of people needed by President Smith to bulwark his dubious enterprise with assured respectability.
— from The Great American Fraud The Patent Medicine Evil by Samuel Hopkins Adams

It took two of us an hour to dress his wounds, and afterwards, as I washed his beardless face in response to a gentle request, I could scarce refrain
— from Eighteen Months in the War Zone The Record of a Woman's Work on the Western Front by Kate John Finze