Not feeling sure that I had really seen the Sergeant—and not desiring to make needless mischief, where, Heaven knows, there was mischief enough going on already—I told Mr. Franklin that I thought one of the dogs had got into the house—and then begged him to describe what had happened between Rosanna and himself.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

The jocose talk of hay-makers is best at a distance; like those clumsy bells round the cows' necks, it has rather a coarse sound when it comes close, and may even grate on your ears painfully; but heard from far off, it mingles very prettily with the other joyous sounds of nature.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

They formed a congenial group sitting there that summer afternoon—Madame Ratignolle sewing away, often stopping to relate a story or incident with much expressive gesture of her perfect hands; Robert and Mrs. Pontellier sitting idle, exchanging occasional words, glances or smiles which indicated a certain advanced stage of intimacy and camaraderie.
— from The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin

One day, when he was in a merry mood, he made a looking-glass which had the power of making everything good or beautiful that was reflected in it almost shrink to nothing, while everything that was worthless and bad looked increased in size and worse than ever.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

Evil abounds and accumulates: no man has Faith to withstand it, to amend it, to begin by amending himself; it must even go on accumulating.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

I have heard that my excellent Grandfather—one of the least irregular of his unhappy Isosceles class, who indeed obtained, shortly before his decease, four out of seven votes from the Sanitary and Social Board for passing him into the class of the Equal-sided—often deplored, with a tear in his venerable eye, a miscarriage of this kind, which had occured to his great-great-great-Grandfather, a respectable Working Man with an angle or brain of 59 degrees 30 minutes.
— from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) by Edwin Abbott Abbott

Martin Eden got off at this corner.
— from Martin Eden by Jack London

The first of those principles I shall take notice of, as a foundation of the right of magistracy, is that which gives authority to all the most established governments of the world without exception: I mean, long possession in any one form of government, or succession of princes.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

Physicians, in the name of death, include all sorrow, anguish, disease, calamity, or whatsoever can fall in the life of man, either grievous or unwelcome.
— from Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients by Francis Bacon

She had no breath for more, except, “Go on—it's all alight.”
— from The Railway Children by E. (Edith) Nesbit

Nor was he acquainted, until he had finished his task, with a small specimen of the first book in English hexameters, which occurs in the History of English Rhythms , lately published by Mr E. Guest, of Caius College, Cambridge.
— from Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 by Various

How 'mid the shades, the queen of my desire Uprose with vivid splendour, and mine eyes Gazed on her closed, the lids not rising higher!
— from The Poems of Leopardi by Giacomo Leopardi

In the eleventh crore 697 the Mother [Earth] grows opaque, and in the fourteenth 698 the throes of adolescence take place.
— from The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2 of 4 by H. P. (Helena Petrovna) Blavatsky

In these lines we also find the most striking instances of the beauties of alliteration; and however some fastidious critics have affected to undervalue this excellence, it is no small triumph to those of a contrary sentiment to find, that next to our own incomparable author, the most exalted genius of the present age, has not disdained to borrow the assistance of this ornament, in many passages of the beautiful dramatic treasure with which he has recently enriched the stage.
— from The Rolliad, in Two Parts Probationary Odes for the Laureatship & Political Eclogues by Joseph Richardson

"Guilty of nothing but misfortune!" said the Moor, earnestly; "guilty of nothing but the crimes of others, and of griefs, which are reckoned against me for sins!—" "Guilty," said the cavalier, gravely, "of treating in secret with these barbarians, who are esteemed the enemies of thy Christian friends; and guilty of seducing into the same crime thy countrymen, the Moriscos; one of whom, I am persuaded, did but now pass me with the Indians, and one of whom, also, hath charged thee with tempting him."
— from Calavar; or, The Knight of The Conquest, A Romance of Mexico by Robert Montgomery Bird

To a small man every greater one is an exaggeration.
— from Journal 01, 1837-1846 The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume 07 (of 20) by Henry David Thoreau

This amount is by far the largest sum of money ever given or bequeathed to the society, and will place the name of Sibley among the greatest benefactors of historical research.
— from The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. by Various

All the most eminent grandees of the provinces, Orange, Aerschot, Berlaymont, Meghen, Brederode, were present with the troops, but the life and soul of the army, upon this memorable occasion, was the Count of Egmont.
— from The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Complete (1555-66) by John Lothrop Motley

Mr. Engelman got on his feet, and lifted his plump hands in mute and melancholy protest.
— from Jezebel's Daughter by Wilkie Collins