From the windows I could see that the suite of rooms lay along to the south of the castle, the windows of the end room looking out both west and south.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker

So home and to the office a little, and then to Sir W. Batten’s, where he tells me how he hath found his lady’s jewels again, which have been so long lost, and a servant imprisoned and arraigned, and they were in her closet under a china cup, where he hath servants will swear they did look in searching the house; but Mrs. Turner and I, and others, do believe that they were only disposed of by my Lady, in case she had died, to some friends of hers, and now laid there again.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

CHAPTER VII Knights, with a long retinue of their squires, In gaudy liveries march and quaint attires; One laced the helm, another held the lance, A third the shining buckler did advance.
— from Ivanhoe: A Romance by Walter Scott

So the girl packed her one trunk, folding away splendid hopes among her plain gowns, and filling every corner with happy fancies, utterly impossible plans, and tender little dreams, so lovely at the time, so pathetic to remember, when contact with the hard realities of life has collapsed our bright bubbles, and the frost of disappointment nipped all our morning glories in their prime.
— from Work: A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott

Laws they established, life allotted to the sons of men; destinies pronounced.
— from The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson by Snorri Sturluson

A regular custom was introduced, that on the decease of every emperor who had neither lived nor died like a tyrant, the senate by a solemn decree should place him in the number of the gods: and the ceremonies of his apotheosis were blended with those of his funeral.
— 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

Me repenteth, said Merlin; because of the death of that lady thou shalt strike a stroke most dolorous that ever man struck, except the stroke of our Lord, for thou shalt hurt the truest knight and the man of most worship that now liveth, and through that stroke three kingdoms shall be in great poverty, misery and wretchedness twelve years, and the knight shall not be whole of that wound for many years.
— from Le Morte d'Arthur: Volume 1 by Malory, Thomas, Sir

Avise Gibson, wife unto Nicholas Gibson, grocer, one of the sheriffs 1539, by license of her husband, founded a free school at Radclyffe, near unto London, appointing to the same, for the instruction of sixty poor men’s children, a schoolmaster and usher with fifty pounds; she also built alms houses for fourteen poor aged persons, each of them to receive quarterly six shillings and eight pence the piece for ever; the government of which free school and alms houses she left in confidence to the Coopers in London.
— from The Survey of London by John Stow

An old man was lying among the tumbled sheets.
— from The King in Yellow by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

Whene’er I think I’m growing proud I look at them to see What homely tasks I once performed, and learn humility.
— from A Party in Mother Goose Land: A One Act Play for Primary Children by Effa E. (Effa Estelle) Preston

The besiegers had lost a great number, and began to fall back, after fruitless efforts to break in the door, when a footman entered breathless, to inform Barnabas that the Wallachians were beginning to scale the opposite side of the castle with ladders, and that the servants were unable to resist them.
— from Hungarian Sketches in Peace and War Constable's Miscellany of Foreign Literature, vol. 1 by Mór Jókai

I felt I was in no position to take offence, so I bit my lips and tried to smile.
— from Captain Macklin: His Memoirs by Richard Harding Davis

The thought was in his mind when he came abreast of a house that was smaller than some others, but all finished and beautified like a toy; the steps of that house shone like silver, and the borders of the garden bloomed like garlands, and the windows were bright like diamond; and Keawe stopped and wondered at the excellence of all he saw.
— from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson

Still, he was hauled up at last, and the two slid down the perpendicular roof of the coach to the permanent way.
— from Scally: The Story of a Perfect Gentleman by Ian Hay

I told the Duke in my note I should stay in town till late to-morrow to sign the letter as to the six regiments if they passed it.
— from A Political Diary, 1828-1830, Volume II by Ellenborough, Edward Law, Earl of

The pupils all attend the service at the Mission Chapel, and have lessons appropriate to the Sabbath in the intervals of worship.
— from The Women of the Arabs by Henry Harris Jessup

The beauty, with a radiant expression of satisfied pride flushing her cheeks, listened attentively to the sound which grew fainter and fainter until it died away.
— from Romantic legends of Spain by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

For the Spartans, who were still waiting for their allies at the Isthmus, saw themselves baffled in all their calculations, and concluded that they had been misinformed by the Lesbians as to the state of affairs at Athens; and hearing that their own coast-lands were being ravaged by the Athenian fleet, they hastily decamped, and the plan of a second invasion came to nothing.
— from Stories from Thucydides by Thucydides