" This letter was written in terms of great asperity to the Danish commander.
— from The Life of Horatio, Lord Nelson by Robert Southey

I knew—I was obliged to know—the green chintz of that little chair; the little snug chair itself, the carved, shining-black, foliated frame of that glass; the smooth, milky-green of the china vessels on the stand; the very stand too, with its top of grey marble, splintered at one corner;—all these I was compelled to recognise and to hail, as last night I had, perforce, recognised and hailed the rosewood, the drapery, the porcelain, of the drawing-room.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

Formerly, the slightest hint, or mere fancied coldness in tone or glance, had sufficed to repulse him: now, positive rudeness could not drive him away.
— from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

Similar establishments were formed in the other great cities of the empire.
— 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

Let me here protest against an Americanism of which modest ladies justly complain; it is that of gentlemen standing in groups round the doors of churches both before and after service.
— from The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness Being a Complete Guide for a Gentleman's Conduct in All His Relations Towards Society by Cecil B. Hartley

[Illustration: Mongol Armillary Sphere in the Observatory Garden]
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Rustichello of Pisa

My answer is, that our guardians may or may not be the happiest of men,—I should not be surprised to find in the long-run that they were,—but this is not the aim of our constitution, which was designed for the good of the whole and not of any one part.
— from The Republic by Plato

So to write my letters, and after all done I went home to supper and to bed, my mind being pretty well at ease from my letter to Creed, and more for my receipt this afternoon of L17 at the Treasury, for the L17 paid a year since to the carver for his work at my house, which I did intend to have paid myself, but, finding others to do it, I thought it not amisse to get it too, but I am afeard that we may hear of it to our greater prejudices hereafter.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

" Meg said no more, but a few minutes after he found her in the hall with her face buried in the old greatcoat, crying as if her heart would break.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Such, at least, was the apparent face of the business; but, in truth, one grand object of Captain Troubridge's mission had been secretly successful to a very high degree.
— from The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Volume 1 by James Harrison

I cannot tell the original story as my father told it to me here, but it was the tale of how a sergeant in the Old Guard, having shared his bivouac supper of roasted potatoes with the Emperor, was told by Napoleon that he should sup with his Emperor when they returned to Versailles.
— from When Valmond Came to Pontiac: The Story of a Lost Napoleon. Volume 1. by Gilbert Parker

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN ARMY SERVICE GROSSET & DUNLAP , PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK Copyright, 1918, by GROSSET & DUNLAP
— from Six Little Bunkers at Uncle Fred's by Laura Lee Hope

In other words, the income tax of Great Britain per capita is this year twenty-five times that of the United States.
— from The Audacious War by Clarence W. (Clarence Walker) Barron

But all these thoughts were swallowed up in the one great thought of the deliverance which they were bringing to their friends in the cove—a deliverance so much better than anything which they had hoped for, since it was in the form of old familiar friends, and not through the medium of strangers.
— from Picked up Adrift Illustrated by James De Mille

618 See Dr. Cleland’s “Extracts,” in Transactions of Glasgow Statistical Society , Part i. p. 13, etc. 619 Parliamentary History , vol. iii.
— from Archæological Essays, Vol. 2 by James Young Simpson

This period is fruitful in topics of great historical interest.
— from Harper's New Monthly Magazine No. XVI.—September, 1851—Vol. III. by Various

Happiness is the only good, suffering the only evil, and selfishness the only sin.
— from Arrows of Freethought by G. W. (George William) Foote

Moreover, as against this theory, there is the fact that quite half the Celtic place names mentioned in our early history and in that of Gaul had a similar termination.
— from The Historic Thames by Hilaire Belloc

But he did not go; he stood leaning upon the spade, looking into the open grave, forgetful of everything above the earth.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 59, September, 1862 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various