Still, though he loved and languished after the most orthodox models, and was only deterred from making a confidante of Kate by the slight considerations of having never, in all his life, spoken to the object of his passion, and having never set eyes upon her, except on two occasions, on both of which she had come and gone like a flash of lightning—or, as Nicholas himself said, in the numerous conversations he held with himself, like a vision of youth and beauty much too bright to last—his ardour and devotion remained without its reward.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

Little John twanged his bowstring with a shout, and when the Sheriff dashed in through the gates of Nottingham Town at full speed, a gray goose shaft stuck out behind him like a moulting sparrow with one feather in its tail.
— from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

XI The conversation went on for about an hour longer, and apparently made a deep impression on Andrey Yefimitch.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

It didn't matter whether he was called Shiladitya or Shaliban, whether he lived at Kashi or Kanauj.
— from The Hungry Stones, and Other Stories by Rabindranath Tagore

“Friend, if thou be'st indeed of the church, it were a better deed to show me how I may escape from these men's hands, than to stand ducking and grinning here like a morris-dancer.”
— from Ivanhoe: A Romance by Walter Scott

She had lost a little girl and boy.
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales With Condensed Novels, Spanish and American Legends, and Earlier Papers by Bret Harte

But I doubt high living and high learning 'ull make it harder for you, young man, nor it was for me."
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

He looked at me for a minute or two, pulling his untidy beard.
— from The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset (William Somerset) Maugham

Pitt looked down with complacency at his legs, which had not, in truth, much more symmetry or swell than the lean Court sword which dangled by his side—looked down at his legs, and thought in his heart that he was killing.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Mi helpis lin (al li) , I helped (gave aid to) him .
— from A Complete Grammar of Esperanto by Ivy Kellerman Reed

She has lost her lover and nobody else shall have him.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross

How long ago did Zara and her father come to Hedgeville, Bessie?"
— from The Camp Fire Girls at the Seashore; Or, Bessie King's Happiness by Jane L. Stewart

When they had finished they began to talk of pictures and of the lives of the painters, and he told her stories of Michael Angelo and Rembrandt: how Michael Angelo never took his boots off, and was never in love in his life; and how Rembrandt was practically starved to death.
— from Mendel: A Story of Youth by Gilbert Cannan

He looked as though he had on somebody else’s coat, and his beard was like a shopman’s.
— from The Wife, and Other Stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

I remember what a life she has led, and I ask myself if any human creature could have suffered as that girl has suffered without being damaged by it.
— from The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story by Wilkie Collins

If so the strange and seemingly unaccountable disappearance of whatever play-house papers he may have left at Stratford should not be obscure.
— from Shakespeare's England by William Winter

From the Terrace the boys saw the making up of the emigrant trains on the opposite side of the river, where the steamer had landed, and saw them disappear along the winding river, going to the great province of Ontario, the lone woods of Muskoka, and the far shores of the Georgian Bay.
— from Zigzag Journeys in Northern Lands; The Rhine to the Arctic; A Summer Trip of the Zigzag Club Through Holland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden by Hezekiah Butterworth