Tears came—she had never shed tears before since she left Windsor—tears and sobs of hysterical joy that she had still hold of life, that she was still on the familiar earth, with the sheep near her.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

He has shown very great courage and resolution, for he exposed his own life to stop the horses that were running away with us, and would certainly have dashed the carriage to pieces.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

skill'd 620 In every vertuous plant and healing herb That spreds her verdant leaf to th'morning ray, He lov'd me well, and oft would beg me sing, Which when I did, he on the tender grass Would sit, and hearken even to extasie, And in requitall ope his leather'n scrip, And shew me simples of a thousand names Telling their strange and vigorous faculties; Amongst the rest a small unsightly root, But of divine effect, he cull'd me out; 630 The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it, But in another Countrey, as he said, Bore a bright golden flowre, but not in this soyl: Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swayn Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon, And yet more med'cinal is it then that Moly That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave; He call'd it Haemony, and gave it me, And bad me keep it as of sov'ran use 'Gainst all inchantments, mildew blast, or damp 640 Or gastly furies apparition; I purs't it up, but little reck'ning made, Till now that this extremity compell'd, But now I find it true; for by this means I knew the foul inchanter though disguis'd, Enter'd the very lime-twigs of his spells, And yet came off: if you have this about you (As I will give you when we go) you may Boldly assault the necromancers hall; Where if he be, with dauntless hardihood, 650 And brandish't blade rush on him, break his glass, And shed the lushious liquor on the ground, But sease his wand, though he and his curst crew Feirce signe of battail make, and menace high, Or like the sons of Vulcan vomit smoak, Yet will they soon retire, if he but shrink.
— from The Poetical Works of John Milton by John Milton

The lama, haltingly at first, spoke to the Curator of his own lamassery, the Such-zen, opposite the Painted Rocks, four months' march away.
— from Kim by Rudyard Kipling

The child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, and told her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady, that she heard him say, “A life you love.”
— from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

‘And this, like every other trouble and anxiety I have had of late times, springs from that old dotard and his darling child—two wretched feeble wanderers!
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

To thee, O Prince, we flee, and crave Thy guardian help our lives to save.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki

I directed General Howard or Logan to send a brigade by a circuit to the left, to see if this stream could not be crossed higher up, but at the same time knew that General Slocum's route world bring him to Colombia behind this stream, and that his approach would uncover it.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

They returned with timorous obedience; and were saluted with the account of a heavy debt, of all the losses which their desertion had occasioned, the hire of lodgings, the sale of provisions, and the various expenses of servants and strangers who attended the court.
— 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

Understanding the dead man no less and no more than her uncle, she read new subtleties into the past before this bitterness, credited Myles with views that never existed in his mind at all, and concluded with herself that he had indeed taken his own life that she might be what she now was—the wife of Christopher Yeoland.
— from Sons of the Morning by Eden Phillpotts

They were copies of the proclamation wherewith the heroic adventurer—confident in the power of his diction—meant to reconquer the hearts of that army whom he had once led to such glorious victories.
— from The Bronze Eagle: A Story of the Hundred Days by Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness

"I have never given him one liberty—" Then she paused, for over her swept the memory of that single moment on the ice-boat when her heart had rested against his—her head pillowed upon his shoulder.
— from Mal Moulée: A Novel by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

She moved between him and a halo of light that seemed to be a part of her and to go with her, now at his bedside, now bending before the fireplace.
— from The Mountain Girl by Payne Erskine

She designed his retirement from the Royal Irish Artillery, and had negociated an immediate berth for him on the Staff of the Commander of the Forces, and a prospective one in the household of Lord Townshend; she had another arrangement 'on the anvil' for a seat in Parliament, which she would accomplish, if that were possible; and finally a wife.
— from The House by the Church-Yard by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

We were landing in a strange country, in an unknown town, we knew not where to go at this midnight hour, when we heard a voice asking for us, and Captain Daveney, secretary of the Northern Club, appeared, having very kindly come down at that late hour on learning the steamer was signalled.
— from Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water The Journal of a Tour Through the British Empire and America by Ethel Gwendoline Vincent

And with Charlotte, the dear adopted sister, would come the man she had once loved, to share whose cares had once been the brightest dream.
— from Charlotte's Inheritance by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

He remembered, as though it were yesterday, the chequered sunlight on the grain, the merry hum of life, the stalwart fellows raising their brawny arms in clock-like rhythm.
— from My Lords of Strogue, Vol. 3 (of 3) A Chronicle of Ireland, from the Convention to the Union by Lewis Wingfield

Arabia's scorching sands he cross'd, Where blasted Nature pants supine, Conductor of her tribes adust To Freedom's adamantine shrine; And many a Tartar horde forlorn, aghast, He snatch'd from under fell Oppression's wing, 70 And taught amidst the dreary waste The all-cheering hymns of liberty to sing.
— from Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes by Thomas Gray

At moments he hated, at moments he loved, but hating or loving, the seductive charms of the woman swayed before his eyes, mocking him as the mirage mocks the fainting pilgrim.
— from Mr. Claghorn's Daughter by Hilary Trent