Where formerly I had only seen mystic constellations and weird shapes without meaning, I now found, flowing from innumerable sources, a stream of the most touching and heavenly melodies which delighted my heart.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

The pint was thrown out, sir, by those two friends when they did me the great service of waiting on the lady to try if a union betwixt the lady and me could not be brought to bear—the pint, I say, was thrown out by them, sir, whether if, after marriage, I confined myself to the articulation of men, children, and the lower animals, it might not relieve the lady's mind of her feeling respecting being as a lady—regarded in a bony light.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

The woods of Mount Atlas afforded an inexhaustible nursery of timber: his new subjects were skilled in the arts of navigation and ship-building; he animated his daring Vandals to embrace a mode of warfare which would render every maritime country accessible to their arms; the Moors and Africans were allured by the hopes of plunder; and, after an interval of six centuries, the fleets that issued from the port of Carthage again claimed the empire of the Mediterranean.
— 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

Of various forms unnumber’d spectres more, Centaurs, and double shapes, besiege the door.
— from The Aeneid by Virgil

Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight companion, and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the Galloping Hessian, now quickened his steed in hopes of leaving him behind.
— from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

His teeth protruded from between his lips and his eyes were blue with the colorless blueness of the marbles called "aggies" that the boys of Winesburg carried in their pockets.
— from Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life by Sherwood Anderson

"So I will," said Sancho Panza, and having cut some, he asked his master's blessing, and not without many tears on both sides, took his leave of him, and mounting Rocinante, of whom Don Quixote charged him earnestly to have as much care as of his own person, he set out for the plain, strewing at intervals the branches of broom as his master had recommended him; and so he went his way, though Don Quixote still entreated him to see him do were it only a couple of mad acts.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Very well, you must know that M. de Nucingen does not allow me the control of a single penny; he pays all the bills for the house expenses; he pays for my carriages and opera box; he does not give me enough to pay for my dress, and he reduces me to poverty in secret on purpose.
— from Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

In our wild moorland country, and in this great lonely house, we may well claim to be beyond the reach of the trivial conventionalities which hamper people in other places.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

“You must understand that they live in a very small style, Mr Carrados, and Millicent is almost entirely in the man’s power.
— from Max Carrados by Ernest Bramah

On arrival at the Ruo, Major Serpa Pinto returned to Mozambique for instructions, and in his absence Lieutenant Coutinho crossed the river, attacked the Makololo chiefs and sought to obtain possession of the Shire highlands by a coup de main.
— from The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia Volume 1 of 28 by Project Gutenberg

Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change.
— from The Mentor: Russian Music, Vol. 4, Num. 18, Serial No. 118, November 1, 1916 by Henry T. Finck

Mr. Soames stated that he had lost the cheque with a pocket-book; that he had certainly lost it on the day on which he had called on Mr. Crawley at Hogglestock; and that he missed his pocket-book on his journey back from Hogglestock to Barchester.
— from The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope

Still, my child, although there are many advantages for you, do not let me mislead you.
— from A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette by Charlotte M. Brame

'The contemptuous silence and disdainful listlessness of my cloaked adversary tended rather to enrage than calm me; so, with my revolver in full view, and my arm stretched forth, I advanced toward him.
— from The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, May, 1862 Devoted To Literature And National Policy by Various

This beautiful land, watered by the Garonne and Loire, whose clear and sparkling streams, flowing from vine-clad hills, stretched their silvery arms to irrigate the fairest fields and to enclose the finest harbors in the world, was in the twelfth century, inhabited by the most civilized and polished people on the face of the earth.
— from Heroines of the Crusades by C. A. (Celestia Angenette) Bloss

And that the others were vanquished might have been endured; but the death of Periclymenus is wonderful; to whom Neptune, the founder of the Neleian family, had granted to be able to assume whatever shapes he might choose, and again, when assumed, to lay them aside.
— from The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books VIII-XV by Ovid

I looked up, and saw a little dark man, shabbily dressed; his face did not seem unfamiliar to me, but I could not at first remember where I had seen it: my look, I suppose, testified my want of memory, for he said, with a low bow,— "You have forgotten me, Count, and I don't wonder at it; so please you, I am the person who once brought you a letter from France to Devereux Court."
— from Devereux — Volume 03 by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

He realized then that this yellow mongrel would never again try to bite—that he might collapse and succumb under violence, but never again would he twist and try to mangle the hand of punishment which once had broken him so mercilessly.
— from The Girl Philippa by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers