Let that one say so, And use thy freedome; els if thou pursuest her, Be as that cursed man that hates his Country, A branded villaine.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

Why, he who first the oyster saw Should be its eater, by the law; The other should but see him do it.
— from Fables of La Fontaine — a New Edition, with Notes by Jean de La Fontaine

The figures of the celestial signs being on the lip of the larger drum, and this drum being motionless, let the sign Cancer be drawn at the top, with Capricornus perpendicular to it at the bottom, Libra at the spectator's right, Aries at his left, and let the other signs be given places between them as they are seen in the heavens.
— from The Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius Pollio

She was seated by the open window, dressed in some sort of white diaphanous material, with a little touch of scarlet at the neck and waist.
— from The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle

This opinion is confirmed by the seeming encrease and diminution of objects, according to their distance; by the apparent alterations in their figure; by the changes in their colour and other qualities from our sickness and distempers: and by an infinite number of other experiments of the same kind; from all which we learn, that our sensible perceptions are not possest of any distinct or independent existence.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

It was with a sense of luxury that he recognized his power of viewing life here from its inner side, in a way that had been quite foreign to him in his student-days; and, much as he loved his parents, he could not help being aware that to come here, as now, after an experience of home-life, affected him like throwing off splints and bandages; even the one customary curb on the humours of English rural societies being absent in this place, Talbothays having no resident landlord.
— from Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy

It is, therefore, a fantastical way of thinking, when we promise our selves an Alteration in our Conduct from change of Place, and difference of Circumstances; the same Passions will attend us where-ever we are, till they are Conquered, and we can never live to our Satisfaction in the deepest Retirement, unless we are capable of living so in some measure amidst the Noise and Business of the World.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

Both sexes wore coloured bands on their shoes, which were tied round the ankles like those of sandals, and showed the shape of the foot.
— from Manners, Customs, and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period by P. L. Jacob

Prince Henry of Prussia, freshly arrived from London, brought the latest tidings of sentiment prevailing in England.
— from The Assault: Germany Before the Outbreak and England in War-Time by Frederic William Wile

So we raced away together, and we left the others standing,
— from The Man from Snowy River by A. B. (Andrew Barton) Paterson

The roads were excessively deep and dirty, and as I was riding at the head of the battalion, and had occasion to pull him a little to one side, for some purpose or other, he either would not, or could not, obey the pull of the rein; and as I had but one hand, he took advantage of it, and sat down completely on his haunches, in the very deepest of the mire.
— from Twenty-Five Years in the Rifle Brigade by William Surtees

A stray sunbeam, too, fluttered down on the floor like a pitying spirit, to light up that pale, thin face, whose classic outlines had now a sharp, yellow setness, like that of swooning or death; it seemed to linger compassionately on the sunken, wasted cheeks, on the long black lashes that fell over the deep hollows beneath the eyes like a funereal veil.
— from Agnes of Sorrento by Harriet Beecher Stowe

'Faith!' exclaimed the Vicompte, as he stood a little to one side and surveyed me, 'if you play up to your dress you are more likely to adorn, than raise the gallows Jacques spoke of.'
— from The Chevalier d'Auriac by S. (Sidney) Levett Yeats

The female, like the tamanoir, produces only one young at a birth, and like the other species, carries it upon her back until it is able to provide for itself.
— from Popular Adventure Tales by Mayne Reid

If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, May hope, O pensive Eve, to soothe thine ear, May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, Like thy own solemn springs, Like thy own brawling springs, Thy springs, and dying gales; O Nymph reserved, while now the bright-hair’d sun 5 Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, With brede ethereal wove, O’erhang his wavy bed: While air is hush’d, save where the weak-eyed bat Now air is hush’d, save where the weak-eyed bat With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing; 10 Or where the beetle winds
— from The Poetical Works of William Collins; With a Memoir by William Collins

In small communities, like that of Stoneground, such talk arises upon very slight provocation, and here was nothing at all to check it.
— from The Stoneground Ghost Tales Compiled from the recollections of the reverend Roland Batchel, the vicar of the parish. by E. G. (Edmund Gill) Swain

Captain Blake, strictest of martinets, would not be likely to overlook so grave an offence.
— from The Head Girl at the Gables by Angela Brazil