A magistrate or lawgiver might well address an old man who marries a young girl in the words of Sophokles: "Poor wretch, a hopeful bridegroom you will be;" and if he found a young man fattening like a partridge in the house of a rich old woman, he ought to transfer him to some young maiden who is without a husband.
— from Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4) by Plutarch

Yet he did not leave a foot of this granite wall, as impenetrable as futurity, without strict scrutiny; he did not see a fissure without introducing the blade of his hunting sword into it, or a projecting point on which he did not lean and press in the hopes it would give way.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

As soon as they returned to the carriage, Mrs. Jennings was eager for information; but as Elinor wished to spread as little as possible intelligence that had in the first place been so unfairly obtained, she confined herself to the brief repetition of such simple particulars, as she felt assured that Lucy, for the sake of her own consequence, would choose to have known.
— from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

But you are right in one thing: I am lonely, and perhaps if Teddy had tried again, I might have said 'Yes,' not because I love him any more, but because I care more to be loved than when he went away."
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott

If a candle made of the fat of a malefactor who had also died on the gallows was lighted and placed in the Hand of Glory as in a candlestick, it rendered motionless all persons to whom it was presented; they could not stir a finger any more than if they were dead.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

I am lonely, and perhaps if Teddy had tried again, I might have said 'Yes', not because I love him any more, but because I care more to be loved than when he went away."
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Howsoever pleased the rest of the company were with such a favourable change in the appearance of this poor creature it soured on the stomach of Mrs Tabby, who had not yet digested the affront of his naked skin—She tossed her nose in disdain, saying, she supposed her brother had taken him into favour, because he had insulted her with his obscenity: that a fool and his money were soon parted; but that if Matt intended to take the fellow with him to London, she would not go a foot further that way—My uncle said nothing with his tongue, though his looks were sufficiently expressive; and next morning Clinker did not appear, so that we proceeded without further altercation to Salthill, where we proposed to dine—There, the first person that came to the side of the coach, and began to adjust the footboard, was no other than Humphry Clinker—When I handed out Mrs Bramble, she eyed him with a furious look, and passed into the house—My uncle was embarrassed, and asked him peevishly, what had brought him hither?
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. (Tobias) Smollett

On receiving it from Cross I immediately went with it to the old lady, and presented it to her.
— from Percival Keene by Frederick Marryat

I made off to the left, and passed into the High Street by the end of St. Peter’s Church, now disused.
— from The Invasion of 1910, with a full account of the siege of London by William Le Queux

Then, hearing that he had no horse to ride, he sent for a favourite horse of his own, called Luggieri, and presented it to him; and when Giulio had mounted upon it, they rode to a spot a bow-shot beyond the Porta di S. Bastiano, where His Excellency had a place with some stables, called the Tè, standing in the middle of a meadow, in which he kept his stud of horses and mares.
— from Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi by Giorgio Vasari

He has been, therefore, entirely blind to the grandest political contest of the sixteenth century—that between France and Austria; a contest that holds too large a place in the history of that century not to be noticed and made mention of, at least by introducing into the sketch the princes in whom it was personified—Charles V. and Francis I. Francis I., the enlightened patron of letters, the founder of the College of France, the friend of Benvenuto Cellini and Leonardo da Vinci, the secret supporter of the Lutherans of the empire, should have had, by these by-passages of his life, some right not to be forgotten by the pencil of the German painter.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 08, October, 1868, to March, 1869. by Various

She had lived her faith and proved it; and she could not help feeling it like a personal insult to have him speak so of her Saviour.
— from A Voice in the Wilderness by Grace Livingston Hill

He is prevailed upon to exert his greatest efforts, and to undertake the most arduous task, by shewing him a vessel full of these liquors, and promising it to him as the reward of his labours.
— from Buffon's Natural History. Volume 07 (of 10) Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c by Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de

In Bellini, Carpaccio, Cima, and other early masters, the features, forms, and dress are mainly modern and Venetian; and Giorgione, Titian, and even the eclectic Tintoret, were more interested in the bright lights of a steel breastplate than in the shape of a limb; and preferred in their hearts a shot brocade of the sixteenth century to the finest drapery ever modelled by an ancient.
— from Euphorion - Vol. I Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the Renaissance by Vernon Lee

There is no greater mistake than to suppose that Eastern ladies are prisoners in the harem, and that they are to be pitied for the want of liberty which the jealousy of their husbands condemns them to.
— from Visits to Monasteries in the Levant by Robert Curzon

It is true that, according to this argument, God was the first tailor; it is not, however, the less evident, on account of that ludicrous and profane inference, that he was the first inquisitor.
— from A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 06 by Voltaire