She turned round on her chair, flushed crimson, and rapidly moving her fingers, pinched the clasp of her belt first with one hand and then with the other.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

As this was the principal attack of which my uncle Toby was an eye-witness at Namur,—the army of the besiegers being cut off, by the confluence of the Maes and Sambre, from seeing much of each other's operations,—my uncle Toby was generally more eloquent and particular in his account of it; and the many perplexities he was in, arose out of the almost insurmountable difficulties he found in telling his story intelligibly, and giving such clear ideas of the differences and distinctions between the scarp and counterscarp,—the glacis and covered-way,—the half-moon and ravelin,—as to make his company fully comprehend where and what he was about.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

In 1829 he conducted for Canalis a love romance by correspondence, the heroine of the affair being Marie-Modeste-Mignon de la Bastie (of Havre).
— from Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z by Anatole Cerfberr

He had met her returning from the bakehouse as he came from church, and noticed her precarious footing; and, with the grave dignity with which he did everything, he relieved her of her burden, and steered along the p. 17 street by her side, carrying her baked mutton and potatoes safely home.
— from Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

The forest gave him colour for colour, music for music....
— from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo Edited with a Biography of Juliette Drouet by Louis Guimbaud

Diocletian and his colleagues frequently conferred the most important offices on those persons who avowed their abhorrence for the worship of the gods, but who had displayed abilities proper for the service of the state.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

This good man and his companion, Father Coppier, came frequently to visit us at Charmette, though the road was very rough and tedious for men of their age.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

But he, having a mind to return her cheat for cheat, being one day sent for by her to sup and sleep with her, went thither so chapfallen and so woebegone that it seemed as he would die.
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

Timasion with his cavalry followed close, and, considering their scant numbers, they did great execution.
— from Anabasis by Xenophon

She felt not only that Lily was cheapening herself by making use of an intimacy she would never have cultivated from choice, but that, in drifting back now to her former manner of life, she was forfeiting her last chance of ever escaping from it.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

"How little those people know of their own business!" said Salmon P. Chase to Mr. Richard B. Pullen, of Cincinnati, after a meeting of bankers the able Secretary of the Treasury had called for consultation.
— from Belford's Magazine, Vol 2, December 1888 by Various

They were familiar with the rolls of papyrus inscribed in the hieroglyphic and the hieratic character, for copies of several had been published, 1 but the texts in them were short and fragmentary.
— from The Book of the Dead by Budge, E. A. Wallis (Ernest Alfred Wallis), Sir

Now o’er the State, nor fear nor hate Could find companion, small or great.
— from Mr. Oseba's Last Discovery by George W. (George William) Bell

[pg 192] "Hit" come from Californy?"
— from The Covered Wagon by Emerson Hough

"I think I have told you how that the cardinal has been informed that the very men he introduced into Oxford have been foremost in the spread of those doctrines which are begun to be called heresy, though not one word has Master Clarke ever spoken for which he cannot find confirmation in the words of Holy Writ and in the pure teachings of the primitive church.
— from For the Faith: A Story of the Young Pioneers of Reformation in Oxford by Evelyn Everett-Green

Harrateen, Cheney, flowered cotton and checks (1748).
— from Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony by George Francis Dow

But an adroitly handled cavalry force can do a good deal in the way of “containing” an Oriental city.
— from The Cradle of Mankind; Life in Eastern Kurdistan by Edgar Thomas Ainger Wigram

The next morning, Hale called his pupils together, "gave them earnest counsel, prayed with them, and shaking each by the hand," took his leave, and during the same forenoon marched with his company for Cambridge.
— from Hero Stories from American History For Elementary Schools by Francis Kingsley Ball