As he had established it as a custom during peace to carry the boys out beyond the city for the sake of play and of exercise; that custom not having been discontinued during the existence of the war; then drawing them away from the gate, sometimes in shorter, sometimes in longer excursions, advancing farther than usual, when an opportunity offered, by varying their play and conversation, he led them on between the enemy's guards, and thence to the Roman camp into his tent to Camillus.
— from The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 by Livy

The sails glittered like silver, and six swans, each with a golden circlet round its neck, and a bright blue star on its forehead, drew the boat past the green wood, where the trees talked of robbers and witches, and the flowers of beautiful little elves and fairies, whose histories the butterflies had related to them.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

“I shall understand all your ways in time; but, coming down with the true London maxim, that everything is to be got with money, I was a little embarrassed at first by the sturdy independence of your country customs.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

I also use it as a research and communication tool and to broaden my views on matters to do with Canada's official languages (English and French).
— from Entretiens / Interviews / Entrevistas by Marie Lebert

Rebecca was a good economist, and the price poor Jos Sedley had paid for her two horses was in itself sufficient to keep their little establishment afloat for a year, at the least; there was no occasion to turn into money "my pistols,
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

On the north-east shore of the sea was a single tree, and this is the only tree of any size visible from the water of the lake, except a few lonely palms in the city of Tiberias, and by its solitary position attracts more attention than would a forest.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

One of them could speak a little English, and from him I learned a good deal about them.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

Of women he knew little enough and for women there had been no place reserved in his life; but, for all that and all that Zoraida Castlemar might be and might do, he had not learned to lift his hand against her sex.
— from Daughter of the Sun A Tale of Adventure by Jackson Gregory

It was the almost invariable practice at this period, as in the preceding centuries, to distinguish the pattern, whether of scroll or border, by relieving it against a background of contrasting colour, usually light against dark; but here the border is varicoloured, without other ground than the opaque pigment used for painting out the forms of the leaves, etc., and filling in between them.
— from Windows: A Book About Stained & Painted Glass by Lewis F. (Lewis Foreman) Day

The central figures are—O’Connell, who is making a contemptuous gesture, and his partner, Lord Melbourne; Wellington and Peel are vis-à-vis ; Stanley and Graham are jigging gaily together, so are Lords Abinger and Lyndhurst; Sir Francis Burdett and General de Lacy Evans are figuring back-to-back in approved Irish-jig style; and Spring Rice is getting on well to a lively measure along with Lord John Russell.
— from A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering in the Old Days Showing the State of Political Parties and Party Warfare at the Hustings and in the House of Commons from the Stuarts to Queen Victoria by Joseph Grego

At the close of the first Great Time--called Archæan--the continent south of the region of the great lakes, excepting a few islands, was still submerged beneath a shallow sea, and therefore no portion of the Mississippi was yet in existence.
— from Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 by Various

There is the sensuous medium, the sound; there is a life expressed, a feeling aroused in us, yet so completely objectified in the sound that it seems to belong to the latter on equal terms with color or quality or loudness; there is a unity and variety and orderly structure in the dominance of the fundamental among the overtones and the fusion of all in the total clang.
— from The Principles of Aesthetics by De Witt H. (De Witt Henry) Parker

And at her first words, and the sight of her loving eyes and flushed cheeks, his doubts had vanished, and his decision had been made.
— from The Princess Dehra by John Reed Scott

"Only to think that in forty-eight hours we shall be in London, even allowing for a two hours' stay in Cairo to pick up further mails and passengers."
— from The Phantom Airman by Rowland Walker

You are always ready with an opinion, like a lawyer expecting a fee; but remember, Marion, the attorney waits at least till he is asked!
— from Modern Flirtations: A Novel by Catherine Sinclair

how lightly ebbs and flows Your fickle mood," (he cries,) "aye prone to turn!
— from Orlando Furioso by Lodovico Ariosto