ardour she had thrown into it, was so becoming to her that Ralph stood smiling at her for a moment after she had ceased speaking.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James

In less than six weeks three of her girls made excellent marriages, and six hundred crowns had been added to the yearly income of the house.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

To whirle out of the Lyon, if she mighte; And Signifer his candelse shewed brighte, 1020 Whan that Criseyde un-to hir bedde wente In-with hir fadres faire brighte tente.
— from Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer

With resolution,’ said my aunt, shaking her cap at me, and clenching her hand.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

I was so amazed that I had not power to move my eyes from such a ghastly object, but lay motionless and saw him come straight up to me: when he reached the bed, he wrung his hands, and cried, with a voice that did not seem to belong to a human creature, “Where is Ralph?”
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Human society, then, unlike animal society is mainly a social heritage, created in and transmitted by communication.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

And Korsunsky began waltzing with measured steps straight towards the group in the left corner, continually saying, “Pardon, mesdames, pardon, pardon, mesdames”; and steering his course through the sea of lace, tulle, and ribbon, and not disarranging a feather, he turned his partner sharply round, so that her slim ankles, in light transparent stockings, were exposed to view, and her train floated out in fan shape and covered Krivin’s knees.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

I could never go into the smoking-room but he would come wallowing towards me, and sometimes he came and gormandised round and about me while I had my lunch.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

“My advice,” said he calmly, “is that you change the play.”
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

He is so fully accustomed to the verification of the inner action of God, enlightening his mind and stinging his conscience, by God's external action in the Church, that he often confounds the two.
— from Life of Father Hecker by Walter Elliott

Next morning Telemachus went home, and comforted his mother, and told her how he had been with Nestor and Menelaus, and seen her cousin, Helen of the fair hands, but this did not seem to interest Penelope, who thought that her beautiful cousin was the cause of all her misfortunes.
— from Tales of Troy and Greece by Andrew Lang

And now, regretful of the joys his birth Had promised; deserts, mounts and streams he crost, To find, amid the loveliest spots of earth, Faint likeness of the heaven he had lost.
— from Zophiel A Poem by Maria Gowen Brooks

And it wuz more than Celestine's old mair and she herself could bear; she cramped right round in the road (the mair did) and set sail back to old Bobbet'ses, and that great concern a-puffin' and a-steamin' along after 'em.
— from Samantha among the Brethren — Volume 5 by Marietta Holley

Thebes is at length my own; and all my wishes, Which sure were great as royalty e'er formed, Fortune and my auspicious stars have crowned.
— from The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 06 by John Dryden

Then a servant fetched in the polluted, blue-eyed headsman, who asked: ‘Whose sun of life has come near its setting?’ took the prince by the arm, placed him upon the cloth of execution, and then, all merciless and stony hearted, cut his head from his body and hung it on the battlements.
— from The Brown Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

The cruelties which both the Magyars and Szeklers had committed in the struggle; the summary execution
— from The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany With Some Examination of the Previous Thirty-three Years by C. Edmund (Charles Edmund) Maurice

Did he know that my wife might bear me a son, how can I tell that his designs might not change into others still darker, and more monstrous, than those he now openly parades, though, after all, not more infamous and vile.
— from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXIII.—April, 1852.—Vol. IV. None by Various

"Ah, the world is beautiful," said Marie Antoinette, surveying her creation with a cheerful look.
— from Marie Antoinette and Her Son by L. (Luise) Mühlbach