" Immediately a man came running and calls with great haste to Leif Ossurson, telling him to come as quickly as possible to Lagman Gille's tent; "for," says he, "Sirurd Thorlakson ran in just now into the mouth of the tent, and gave one of Gille's men a desperate wound."
— from Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson

I say the similitude of Passions, which are the same in all men, Desire, Feare, Hope, &c; not the similitude or The Objects of the Passions, which are the things Desired, Feared, Hoped, &c: for these the constitution individuall, and particular education do so vary, and they are so easie to be kept from our knowledge, that the characters of mans heart, blotted and confounded as they are, with dissembling, lying, counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are legible onely to him that searcheth hearts.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

Under the Persian branch, at least, of the house the degree of honour was indicated by the number of lions' heads upon the plate, which varied from 1 to 5.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Rustichello of Pisa

The lady of the house turned severely to Stavrogin as soon as he was seated.
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Now it happened one day that all the paper in the tub was taken out, and laid on the hearth to be burnt.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

They dined with my Lord, and one of them by name Alderman Wood talked much to my Lord of the hopes that we have now to be settled, (under the King he meant); but my Lord took no notice of it.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

But for sleep—I know I shall make nothing of it before I begin—I am no dab at your fine sayings in the first place—and in the next, I cannot for my soul set a grave face upon a bad matter, and tell the world—'tis the refuge of the unfortunate—the enfranchisement of the prisoner—the downy lap of the hopeless, the weary, and the broken-hearted; nor could I set out with a lye in my mouth, by affirming, that of all the soft and delicious functions of our nature, by which the great Author of it, in his bounty, has been pleased to recompence the sufferings wherewith his justice and his good pleasure has wearied us—that this is the chiefest (I know pleasures worth ten of it); or what a happiness it is to man, when the anxieties and passions of the day are over, and he lies down upon his back, that his soul shall be so seated within him, that whichever way she turns her eyes, the heavens shall look calm and sweet above her—no desire—or fear—or doubt that troubles the air, nor any difficulty past, present, or to come, that the imagination may not pass over without offence, in that sweet secession.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

If the stranger's nose took this liberty of thrusting himself thus into the dishes (Mr. Shandy's compliments to orators—is very sensible that Slawkenbergius has here changed his metaphor—which he is very guilty of:—that as a translator, Mr. Shandy has all along done what he could to make him stick to it—but that here 'twas impossible.) of religious orders, &c. what a carnival did his nose make of it, in those of the laity!—'tis more than my pen, worn to the stump as it is, has power to describe; tho', I acknowledge, (cries Slawkenbergius with more gaiety of thought than I could have expected from him) that there is many a good simile now subsisting in the world which might give my countrymen some idea of it; but at the close of such a folio as this, wrote for their sakes, and in which I have spent the greatest part of my life—tho' I own to them the simile is in being, yet would it not be unreasonable in them to expect I should have either time or inclination to search for it?
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

No one would ever look on the horrible thing.
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

From Lwow almost due west runs the line of the highway to Grodek where we get our first 15 glimpse of prisoners in bulk.
— from The Russian Campaign, April to August, 1915 Being the Second Volume of "Field Notes from the Russian Front" by Stanley Washburn

Doubtless he was an unconscious revolutionary, protesting against the overflowing luxury of the Roman court by his return to the love of the humble, the simplicity of the primitive Church.
— from The Three Cities Trilogy: Rome, Volume 3 by Émile Zola

It was really mostly Katrine's own fault: her previous acquaintance with school life ought to have taught her wisdom; but seventeen is a crude age, and not given to profiting by past experience.
— from The Jolliest Term on Record: A Story of School Life by Angela Brazil

"So this little lump of humanity is the future lord of the home that should have been mine.
— from The Lovels of Arden by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

The bleating and lowing of the herds that were crowded into the great Temple market—soon to suffer religious martyrdom—was mingled with the vast babel of other sounds and voices.
— from Victor Serenus: A Story of the Pauline Era by Henry Wood

In the photograph, the bare twigs of the perch tree show above the line of the horizon; the nest tree is the low oak beside it on the right.
— from A-Birding on a Bronco by Florence Merriam Bailey

There was the further fact to be considered, that the departure of the Harveys meant the departure of the people whom she liked best of all, and New York would be terribly dull when their mansion was no longer open to her to run in and out as she liked.
— from A Gamble with Life by Silas K. (Silas Kitto) Hocking

"Well, here's where we split," announced the cowboy, riding off to the left of the herd, Tad taking the right.
— from The Pony Rider Boys in Texas; Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains by Frank Gee Patchin

The second two had something more or less of the hat tribe, and Sir S. said this was because their elders considered them girls, and granted them the right to be frivolous in order to attract the opposite sex.
— from The Heather-Moon by A. M. (Alice Muriel) Williamson

Proceeding in this curious manner, 106 they called 50 strings 1 afo or head; and to illustrate their singular mode of reckoning—the king of the Dahomans, having made war on the Yorubans, and attacked their army, was repulsed and defeated with a loss of “two heads, twenty strings, and twenty cowries” of men, or 4820.
— from The Number Concept: Its Origin and Development by Levi L. (Levi Leonard) Conant