An interrupted holiday is the worst of the minor worries, and one may be pardoned for feeling morbid when a business letter snatches one away from the sea and friends.
— from Howards End by E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster

I do not know how that can be accomplished, he said, nor do I desire that justice should be brought to light and temperance lost sight of; and therefore I wish that you would do me the favour of considering temperance first.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

But with all the precautions that Cosette had taken she did not perceive that one of the doll’s legs stuck out and that the fire on the hearth lighted it up very vividly.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Now, as there's nothing like 'taking time by the fetlock ,' as Winkle characteristically observes, allow me to present the new member;" and, to the dismay of the rest of the club, Jo threw open the door of the closet, and displayed Laurie sitting on a rag-bag, flushed and twinkling with suppressed laughter.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott

Time and space are so considerable, the circumstances out of which the action proceeds so public and little susceptible of alteration, that the coming event is either made known in good time, or can be discovered with reasonable certainty.
— from On War — Volume 1 by Carl von Clausewitz

on my funereal mind Like starlight on a pall— 3 Thy heart— thy heart!—I wake and sigh, And sleep to dream till day Of truth that gold can never buy— Of the trifles that it may. 1829.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

The monarch himself avowed the resolution, which he had so long suppressed, of avenging his private injuries; and the first winter after his victory, which he passed at Arles, was employed against an enemy more odious to him than the vanquished tyrant of Gaul.
— 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

About eight o'clock in the evening, a weary and travel-stained being—a cross between a farm-labourer and a vet—with a checked black-and-white plaid over his arm (for I did not dare to wear it south of the Border), descended at the little station of Artinswell.
— from The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

Him Turnus descried far on the open plain, and first following him with light javelin through long space of air, stops his double-harnessed horses and leaps from the chariot, and descends on his fallen half-lifeless foe, and, planting his foot on his neck, wrests the blade out of his hand and dyes its glitter deep in his throat, adding these words withal: 'Behold, thou liest, Trojan, meting out those Hesperian fields thou didst seek in war.
— from The Aeneid of Virgil by Virgil

One night we catched a little section of a lumber-raft—nice pine planks.
— from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade) by Mark Twain

Many of the dwellings were arranged in rows, rising like stairs one above another, all with an open space in front to serve as a place of meeting for the inhabitants.
— from Pictures of Hellas: Five Tales of Ancient Greece by Peder Mariager

Hundreds of freemen pressed forward, and offered their copies of their freedom, as an earnest that they would voluntarily give him their votes; but it struck me that all was talk, and no one appeared to take any efficient steps to promote or secure the election of Sir John Jarvis, who himself appeared to be all bluster, and to be acting without the least system or arrangement, calculated to secure even the first requisites to commence an election.
— from Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. — Volume 2 by Henry Hunt

“I’ll take a look,” volunteered Sid, and, with a quick motion he turned out the electric light, somewhat of an innovation in Randall.
— from For the Honor of Randall: A Story of College Athletics by Lester Chadwick

If the ring is sent in your absence I know what you have ordered and can return it if it does not comply with instructions––platinum set with diamonds, three large stones of a carat each and the twenty smaller stones surrounding them.
— from The Gorgeous Girl by Nalbro Bartley

Among the strange animal-gods and goddesses of Egypt none is more famous than the goddess Sekhet and Bast of Bubastis, who sometimes has the head of a lion, sometimes of a cat.
— from Human Animals by Frank Hamel

From that time to the present, different modifications of this representation have taken place on the continent, and the lofty scenes of ancient pantomime, are degenerated to the bizarre adventures of harlequin, pantaloon, zany, pierrot, scaramouch, &c.
— from The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 2 (of 3) or Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac by William Hone

Conflicting decisions come to by various benches of magistrates upon similar cases, allowing of the legal sale of an article in one district which in another had been declared illegal, rendered the position of merchants often unsatisfactory.
— from The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia Volume 1 of 28 by Project Gutenberg