Heraclitus, after his many speculations on the conflagration of the world, died, swollen with water and plastered with cow-dung.
— from The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus A new rendering based on the Foulis translation of 1742 by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

Poor Smike was bashful, and awkward, and frightened enough, at first, but Kate advanced towards him so kindly, and said, in such a sweet voice, how anxious she had been to see him after all her brother had told her, and how much she had to thank him for having comforted Nicholas so greatly in their very trying reverses, that he began to be very doubtful whether he should shed tears or not, and became still more flurried.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

And this he had done, if Trypho had not hindered him, and diverted his preparations against Jonathan to a concern for his own preservation; for he now returned out of Arabia into Syria, with the child Antiochus, for he was yet in age but a youth, and put the diadem on his head; and as the whole forces that had left Demetrius, because they had no pay, came to his assistance, he made war upon Demetrius, and joining battle with him, overcame him in the fight, and took from him both his elephants and the city Antioch.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

Magnanimity— Contempt of little helps, and hindrances, MAGNANIMITY.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

The golden crown on her head glittered like the stars of heaven, and her mantle was formed of thousands of butterflies' wings sewn together.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

As a horse, stabled and fed, breaks loose and gallops gloriously over the plain to the place where he is wont to bathe in the fair-flowing river—he holds his head high, and his mane streams upon his shoulders as he exults in his strength and flies like the wind to the haunts and feeding ground of the mares—even so went forth Paris from high Pergamus, gleaming like sunlight in his armour, and he laughed aloud as he sped swiftly on his way.
— from The Iliad by Homer

Then he made the sick man drink some almond milk, which he had already had made for him.
— from The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 33, 1519-1522 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century by Antonio Pigafetta

She looked at him a minute, and there came to him as he met it, an inconsequent sense that her eyes, when one got their full clearness, were still as beautiful as they had been in youth, only beautiful with a strange cold light—a light that somehow was a part of the effect, if it wasn’t rather a part of the cause, of the pale hard sweetness of the season and the hour.
— from The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James

At once divining the meaning of this ingenious device, he applied his mouth to the tube, and sucked away, while the person outside poured spirit into the bowl.
— from Jack Sheppard: A Romance, Vol. 2 (of 3) by William Harrison Ainsworth

And here he is at Reinsberg; bustling about, in a brisk, modestly frank and cheerful manner: well liked by everybody; by his Master very well and ever better, who grew into real regard, esteem and even friendship for him, and has much Correspondence, of a freer kind than is common to him, with little Jordan, so long as they lived together.
— from History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 10 by Thomas Carlyle

In a situation of such security as this seemed to be, Stradella's fears for the safety of himself and his mistress began to abate, till one evening, walking for the air upon the ramparts of the city, he was set upon by the three assassins above mentioned, that is to say, the father of Hortensia, and the two ruffians, who each gave him a stab with a dagger in the breast, and immediately betook themselves to the house of the French embassador as to a sanctuary.
— from The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 by Rupert Hughes

A memory of Swedengorg’s Heaven and Hell mingled with the Egyptian fantasy.
— from The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

They have always, he might have added, lost the enthusiasm which once inspired and is alone able to explain their part in what they are trying to remember.
— from While I Remember by Stephen McKenna

The proprietor slunk back to his desk; the General and his hungry staff went on eating as calmly as ever; Eliza hung her embarrassed head, and her mistress idly twirled her useless fork—while the proprietor made $1.50 clear gain on two women that were too frightened to swallow a mouthful.
— from Tenting on the Plains; or, General Custer in Kansas and Texas by Elizabeth Bacon Custer

After his address, His Majesty graciously spoke a few words to individuals, of whom I had the signal honour of being one.
— from The Diary of a U-boat Commander With an Introduction and Explanatory Notes by Etienne by King-Hall, Stephen, Sir