She seemed to have but half as much hair as Babbitt remembered, and that half was stringy.
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

He was tall and loose-jointed; his slight stoop, together with an innocent smile, made him appear benevolently ready to lend you his ear; his long arms with pale big hands had rare deliberate gestures of a pointing out, demonstrating kind.
— from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

Having undertaken that furious siege of Alexia, where there were fourscore thousand men in garrison, all Gaul being in arms to raise the siege and having set an army on foot of a hundred and nine thousand horse, and of two hundred and forty thousand foot, what a boldness and vehement confidence was it in him that he would not give over his attempt, but resolved upon two so great difficulties—which nevertheless he overcame; and, after having won that great battle against those without, soon reduced those within to his mercy.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

lēoht (ē, ī) I. ‘ light ,’ not heavy , AO, BH, Rd ; CP: slight, easy, trifling, inconsiderable , CP, Mt, Lcd : quick, agile , Ph : gentle , Wid .
— from A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary For the Use of Students by J. R. Clark (John R. Clark) Hall

William Cullen Bryant, whose birth-place was but twenty miles distant, wrote of this immediate locality: I stand upon my native hills again, Broad, round and green, that in the summer sky, With garniture of waving grass and grain, Orchards and beechen forests, basking lie; While deep the sunless glens are scooped between, Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen.
— from The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Ida Husted Harper

He was a tall man, over six feet high, and broad in proportion, and he had a bluff, rough-and-ready face, all roughened and reddened and lined in his long travels.
— from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

When I arrived, on the appointed day, at Madame Orio’s house, Nanette, who had watched for my coming, dexterously conveyed to my hand a billet, requesting me to find a moment to read it before leaving the house.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

I do not remember what I answered, but I know that I gave him a bitter reply in the hope of putting him in a bad temper and reducing him to silence.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

I heard a bustling rumour, like a fray, And the wind brings it from the Capitol.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

When Philip, or Alexander, defeated the Grecian armies, which were chiefly composed of soldiers of fortune, they found an easy conquest with the other inhabitants; and when the latter, afterwards supported by those soldiers, invaded the Persian empire, he seems to have left little martial spirit behind him; and by removing the military men, to have taken precaution enough, in his absence, to secure his dominion over this mutinous and refractory people.
— from An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition by Adam Ferguson

We are in the midst of the gay season, but its modes, until disturbed by the approach of spring, were fixed before the holidays, and for the most part have already been reported.
— from The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II by Various

On every side were the white-washed milk houses and bright red barns of thrifty German farmers.
— from Plowing On Sunday by Sterling North

Very soon he reached a small wood and had advanced but a little way in among the trees when his quick ears warned him that others were here before him; a bush rustled at no great distance and he caught the sound of a voice hoarse and subdued: "... heard someone behind us
— from Our Admirable Betty: A Romance by Jeffery Farnol

Some rifle bullets hummed and buzzed round and over us, but nothing to matter.
— from Mons, Anzac and Kut by Aubrey Herbert

Almost before he knew it, he all but ran over Gladys Ardmore, coming to meet him.
— from Curlie Carson Listens In by Roy J. (Roy Judson) Snell

The officialism of public opinion has always been ready to serve the demands of the base nature below.
— from On the Vice of Novel Reading. Being a brief in appeal, pointing out errors of the lower tribunal. by Young Ewing Allison

So she had always been; reckless, open-handed, generous, she had often risked her life for another, and now she had given it for him.
— from A Girl of the Klondike by Victoria Cross

He said he had a brother, Robert, who lived in Fort Worth.
— from Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by United States. Warren Commission

I had again become rampant, and keeping myself more erect, with a hand on either immense hip, I devoured with greedy eyes all the glories beneath my gaze.
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous