La Esmeralda, in the judgment of Gringoire, was an inoffensive and charming creature, pretty, with the exception of a pout which was peculiar to her; a naïve and passionate damsel, ignorant of everything and enthusiastic about everything; not yet aware of the difference between a man and a woman, even in her dreams; made like that; wild especially over dancing, noise, the open air; a sort of woman bee, with invisible wings on her feet, and living in a whirlwind.
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

I'd changed the way I encrypted the stuff on my phone -- now I did have a fake partition that I could turn back into cleartext with one password, but all the good stuff was hidden, and needed another password to open up.
— from Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

"What can you hope for? I'm fifteen stone, as hard as nails, and play center three-quarter every Saturday for the London Irish.
— from The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle

Annually for three summers now, they and I have silently return'd together; at such long intervals I stand or sit among them, musing—and woven with the rest, of so many hours and moods of partial rehabilitation—of my sane or sick spirit, here as near at peace as it can be.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

Sometimes the severed hair and nails are preserved, not to prevent them from falling into the hands of a magician, but that the owner may have them at the resurrection of the body, to which some races look forward.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

I arrived here at noon and put up at a hotel not far from the cathedral.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

The poet mentions also the Arimi, whom Poseidonius says are meant here, and not a place in Syria or Cilicia, or any other country, but Syria itself.
— from The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3) Literally Translated, with Notes by Strabo

The old count went home, and Natásha and Pétya promised to return very soon, but as it was still early the hunt went farther.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

The impertinent scoundrel threatened to have me arrested, but I know that a just Government rules here, and not arbitrary power.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

He in the first instance established his Headquarters at Nanguari, a place on the right bank of the Lujendi River, which is one of the principal right affluents of the Rovuma.
— from The Gold Coast Regiment in the East African Campaign by Clifford, Hugh Charles, Sir

He is struck well forward, in head and neck, and pitches heavily earthwards, splitting his broad chest as it rebounds from the unyielding soil.
— from Wild Spain (España agreste) Records of Sport with Rifle, Rod, and Gun, Natural History Exploration by Abel Chapman

He completed the ziggurat of the Great Temple of Nin at Calah, which his father had left unfinished, and not content with the palace of that monarch, built for himself a new and (probably) more magnificent residence on the same lofty platform, at the distance of about 150 yards.
— from The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2: Assyria The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations. by George Rawlinson

She has, in Maggie, pictured herself as nearly as possible during childhood.
— from Home Life of Great Authors by Hattie Tyng Griswold

I wish I had two hundred copies to distribute among the poor, ignorant heathens at Newbern and Portsmouth.
— from Jack in the Forecastle; or, Incidents in the Early Life of Hawser Martingale by John Sherburne Sleeper

He thought it was a good deal like bottling an annoying ghost and selling him for clarified moonlight; or like haltering a nightmare and putting her to the cart.
— from Cobwebs from an Empty Skull by Ambrose Bierce

Three days later, at the same hour (for both seemed to regard the dessert as a field of battle), Flore spoke first, and said to her master,— “Have you anything against me?” “No, mademoiselle,” he answered, “No—” (a pause)
— from The Two Brothers by Honoré de Balzac

When the young lady saw the charcoal-burner, she said immediately, that most certainly it was not he; that it was a fine gentleman, on horseback, and not a pest of a man like him.
— from Basque Legends; With an Essay on the Basque Language by Wentworth Webster

Eric was here also naturally a prominent subject of conversation, and Frau Bella pressed the rose to her mouth, in order to hide her laugh, when Frau Ceres said,— "I should like to have the Herr Captain for myself."
— from Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine by Berthold Auerbach