It hangs over the water about the height of a ship’s mast, and we can see something below it like a boat riding at anchor, with the white sea raging around her.’ ‘Now drop the curtain,’ said Meggie; ‘I am no stranger, my lasses, to sights and noises like these—sights and noises of another world; but I have been taught that God is nearer to me than any spirit can be; and so have learned not to be afraid.’
— from Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway

But it is exactly like a bluff reef.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

True love always begets reserve; we fear to be accused of exaggeration if we should give utterance to feelings inspired, by passion, and the modest lover, in his dread of saying too much, very often says too little.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Thor B. E. Fogelberg Thor, who was honoured as the highest god in Norway, came second in the trilogy of all the other countries, and was called “old Thor,” because he is supposed by some mythologists to have belonged to an older dynasty of gods, and not on account of his actual age, for he was represented and described as a man in his prime, tall and well formed, with muscular limbs and bristling red hair and beard, from which, in moments of anger, the sparks flew in showers.
— from Myths of the Norsemen: From the Eddas and Sagas by H. A. (Hélène Adeline) Guerber

" I hesitated, I thought it all very strange, I almost feared that her ladyship's mind had been a little affected by recent anxiety and suffering.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Bare trunks of trees jutted up occasionally; the ground was level and bare, rubble-strewn, with the ruins of buildings standing out here and there like yellowing skulls.
— from Second Variety by Philip K. Dick

The study door flew open, the little red wrapper appeared on the threshold, joy put strength into the feeble limbs, and Beth ran straight into her father's arms.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Thus many from too great impatience of spirit, or from misguided religious zeal, have preferred to live among brutes rather than among men; as boys or youths, who cannot peaceably endure the chidings of their parents, will enlist as soldiers and choose the hardships of war and the despotic discipline in preference to the comforts of home and the admonitions of their father: suffering any burden to be put upon them, so long as they may spite their parents.
— from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza

These Indians not only desired a free Commerce, but likewise to enter into a strict League of Friendship with us and our Six Nations , that they might be accounted the Seventh Nation in the League; and being received accordingly, they left their Calumet as a Pledge of their Fidelity.
— from Papers Relating to an Act of the Assembly of the Province of New-York For encouragement of the Indian trade, &c. and for prohibiting the selling of Indian goods to the French, viz. of Canada by Cadwallader Colden

In order to succour him the Portuguese did great deeds and killed so many men that they left a broad road behind them which no one dared to enter, and they fought so well that they got another horse for Salabatacao.
— from A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India by Nunes, Fernão, active 16th century

"You came here to talk about me," he said hoarsely, bending forward towards them like a beast ready for the spring.
— from Sweethearts at Home by S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett

I had seen him for the first time, some four years before, from the bridge of a steamer moored to a rickety little wharf forty miles up, more or less, a Bornean river.
— from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad

Lay a brilliant red
— from Things Worth Doing and How To Do Them by Lina Beard

In the scope of this volume it is not possible, nor is it necessary, to attempt an intimate analysis of the characters of Bacon and Shakespeare, but a resumé of the leading incidents in their lives, a brief review for the purpose of making a comparison of their respective temperaments, will not be out of place.
— from Bacon and Shakespeare by Albert Frederick Calvert

A deep purple silk, trimmed upon skirt and waist with velvet bands of darker purple, showed off her clear skin to fine advantage, and was saved from monotony of effect by a headdress of lace and buff ribbons.
— from At Last: A Novel by Marion Harland

There the floor rose sharply, affording a level apparently beyond reach of the tide, for some tiny land plants had found a lodging, ferns waved from the crannied vault and there was no sign of any marine growth.
— from The Spanish Chest by Edna A. Brown

If they would only come near—near enough so that of a sudden he could let go his grip and launch this squirming human shield full, like a battering ram, into those white eyes.
— from From Now On by Frank L. (Frank Lucius) Packard