No: a new influence began to act upon my life, and sadness, for a certain space, was held at bay.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

He was tied up by the loins, and suspended for a considerable time.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

The moustache should be neat and not too large, and such fopperies as cutting the points thereof, or twisting them up to the fineness of needles—though patronized by the Emperor of the French—are decidedly a proof of vanity.
— 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

Lest anybody should feel a curiosity to know how Kit was clad, it may be briefly remarked that he wore no livery, but was dressed in a coat of pepper-and-salt with waistcoat of canary colour, and nether garments of iron-grey; besides these glories, he shone in the lustre of a new pair of boots and an extremely stiff and shiny hat, which on being struck anywhere with the knuckles, sounded like a drum.
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

[their madness], and not force him to destroy the city, whereby they would have those advantages of repentance, even in their utmost distress, that they would preserve their own lives, and so find a city of their own, and that temple which was their peculiar.
— from The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus

"The learned and studious Freemasonic antiquary can satisfactorily explain the metaphysics of this requisition in our Book of Constitutions.
— from The Principles of Masonic Law A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages and Landmarks of Freemasonry by Albert Gallatin Mackey

At the end of the season, the Lady Arabella selected from a crowd of admirers equally qualified, a young peer of great estate, and of the “old nobility,” a circumstance which, as her grandfather had only been an East India director, was very gratifying to the bride.
— from Sybil, Or, The Two Nations by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield

he reckoned without his host; for with a shriek of rage, Bulger leaped at his throat like a stone from a catapult, and struck his teeth deep into the fellow’s flesh.
— from Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey by Ingersoll Lockwood

From the upper room, meantime, (Ricciardetto being stationed in the adjoining closet) came such a terrible cry, that the page seized the arm of one of the women who were passing with warming-pans, baskets of linen, and so forth, and cried in an agony:— 'For God's sake, tell me what is the matter?'
— from The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci, the Forerunner by Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky

Then the back straightened suddenly and the hoofs struck the ground with such impact that, if the boy had not been very firmly in the stirrups, he would have been tossed in the air like a stone from a catapult.
— from In the Musgrave Ranges by Conrad H. (Conrad Harvey) Sayce

They struck the hard surface, which was like a smooth floor, and capable of bearing ten times the weight of the sleighs without yielding.
— from Among the Esquimaux; or, Adventures under the Arctic Circle by Edward Sylvester Ellis

She talked to him the whole evening, and afterward declared that never before had she met so intelligent a listener and so fine a conversationalist.
— from The Man Who Pleases and the Woman Who Charms by John A. (John Albert) Cone

To cap all, his landlady's little boy fell ill, and Stevenson, who had a great love and sympathy for all children, helped to nurse him, and this proved too much in the nervous and exhausted state he was in.
— from The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls by Jacqueline Overton

Still they must needs fall to muttering among themselves ere they would hoist me to the deck; but this they did at last, and straightway fed and clothed me.
— from The Black Box: A Tale of Monmouth's Rebellion by W. Bourne Cooke

We have offered our lives a sacrifice for a country that has not the magnanimity to treat us as men.
— from The Negro in the American Rebellion: His Heroism and His Fidelity by William Wells Brown

One face beaming out like a star from a cloud of amber tresses—one face of rose-tinted, childlike loveliness—a loveliness absolutely perfect, lighted up by two luminous eyes, large and black as night—one face in which the small, curved mouth smiled half provokingly, half sweetly!
— from Vendetta: A Story of One Forgotten by Marie Corelli