The dream of filling home with comforts, giving Beth everything she wanted, from strawberries in winter to an organ in her bedroom, going abroad herself, and always having more than enough, so that she might indulge in the luxury of charity, had been for years Jo's most cherished castle in the air.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

This exordium led me to expect something terrible.
— from The Monk: A Romance by M. G. (Matthew Gregory) Lewis

But, on the Sunday, he had a fainting fit; and when he came to himself, he told me that everything seemed to him confused, as if in a mist and in disorder, and that, nevertheless, this visitation was not unpleasing to him.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

“If you do not mind the expense, sir, trust to me, and I undertake to please you.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

But if there is a real desire on all hands to make the experiment successful, there needs seldom be any difficulty in not only preserving these diversities, but giving them the guaranty of a constitutional provision against any attempt at assimilation except by the voluntary act of those who would be affected by the change.
— from Considerations on Representative Government by John Stuart Mill

In short, as, though it may not be realized, it is strictly true, that a few first-class poets, philosophs, and authors, have substantially settled and given status to the entire religion, education, law, sociology, &c., of the hitherto civilized world, by tinging and often creating the atmospheres out of which they have arisen, such also must stamp, and more than ever stamp, the interior and real democratic construction of this American continent, to-day, and days to come.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

And so caused his boots to be pulled off, and his night-gown and night-cap and slippers to be sent for; and made the Emperor stay till he could go in his night-dress, since he might not go as a soldier.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Who could compare a statue made by man To everflowing streams, To blushing flowers of spring, To the sun’s rays, to beams o’ the golden morn, And to the ceaseless waves of mighty Ocean?
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

She felt more than ever sure that she had not been mistaken.
— from Under Padlock and Seal by Harold Avery

Aroused by these mutual chidings, they raise the shout anew, and press forward; and [Pg 456] first they made the enemy shrink, then made them give way, and at length fairly made them turn their backs.
— from The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 by Livy

Did either you, or your precious friend, Mr Tom, even speak to me?”
— from Jacob Faithful by Frederick Marryat

They have not moved to either side to take a decisive part for or against the Lord.
— from The Parables of Our Lord by William Arnot

The measurements of 100 eggs, furnished by Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain, averaged 39.4 by 28.7 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 42.7 by 29, 39.3 by 30.3 , 35 by 28.4 and 36.3 by 26.7 millimeters.
— from Life Histories of North American Shore Birds, Part 1 (of 2) by Arthur Cleveland Bent

If ever, stranger, on thy way, Sounds, more than earthly sweet, thy soul should move, It is the youth!
— from The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes by George Gilfillan by William Lisle Bowles

Well, methinks that ever since that day when the letter arrived which changed our destiny, I have not merely remembered, but learned to understand these words.
— from Penelope Brandling: A Tale of the Welsh coast in the Eighteenth Century by Vernon Lee

The measurements of 50 eggs average 16.5 by 12.1 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 18.3 by 12.7, 16.9 by 12.9 , 14.8 by 11.9, and 16.3 by 11.2 millimeters (Harris).
— from Life Histories of North American Wood Warblers, Part One and Part Two by Arthur Cleveland Bent