She held her apron before her: it was full of flowers; it was as if they sprung into life there, for the more she scattered around her, the more flowers did her apron contain.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

Three curates remained--those of St. Merri, St. Sulpice and St. Eustache.
— from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

All the inconveniences in the world are not considerable enough that a man should die to evade them; and, besides, there being so many, so sudden and unexpected changes in human things, it is hard rightly to judge when we are at the end of our hope: “Sperat et in saeva victus gladiator arena, Sit licet infesto pollice turba minax.”
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

To prevent myself thinking I distract my mind with work and try to tire myself out that I may sleep sound at night.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

I returned swiftly to the chamber where the life of my life reposed; before I entered the room I paused for a few seconds; for a few seconds I tried to examine my state; sickness and shuddering ever and anon came over me; my head was heavy, my chest oppressed, my legs bent under me; but I threw off resolutely the swift growing symptoms of my disorder, and met Idris with placid and even joyous looks.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

“He's a deal o' work upon him just now, Mother,” said Seth, “and I think
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

It caused in me such sensations as I was only able to express in my looks; my heart was so overpowered with gratitude that I could have kissed both of their feet.
— from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African Written By Himself by Olaudah Equiano

Saturday, December 22, 1788 HAMILTON To the People of the State of New York: IT WAS a thing hardly to be expected that in a popular revolution the minds of men should stop at that happy mean which marks the salutary boundary between POWER and PRIVILEGE, and combines the energy of government with the security of private rights.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton

The fashionable passion for lace, to which La Fontaine made such sacrifices, affected the art of book decorations, and Le Gascon’s beautiful patterns of gold points and dots are copies of the productions of Venice.
— from Books and Bookmen by Andrew Lang

Certainly this path, in its beginnings, is arduous, and leaves the natural man somewhat spare and haggard; he seems to himself to have fasted for forty days and forty nights, and the world regards his way of living afterwards as rather ghostly and poor.
— from Soliloquies in England, and Later Soliloquies by George Santayana

In condemnation of this class, Peter says (1 Pet 4, 11), "If any man speaketh, speaking as it were oracles of God," and not his own word.
— from Epistle Sermons, Vol. 2: Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost by Martin Luther

( c ) The prospective emigrant will necessarily have taken the most serious steps; and rejection at the port of entry will not be a much greater misfortune than rejection at the port of embarkation.
— from The Immigrant Tide, Its Ebb and Flow by Edward Alfred Steiner

"Tell me," said Saul Arthur Mann, "was he kind to his wife?"
— from The Man Who Knew by Edgar Wallace

The duke at once quitted Bamberg and marched southward, swept a strong detachment of the Bavarian army under John of Werth from his path, and pressing on reached Donauwurth in March 1633.
— from The Lion of the North: A Tale of the Times of Gustavus Adolphus by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty