So far as Melitus is concerned, as it appears to me, I have been already acquitted; and not only have I been acquitted, but it is clear to every one that had not Anytus and Lycon come forward to accuse me, he would have been fined a thousand drachmas, for not having obtained a fifth part of the votes.
— from Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates by Plato

One night I recall that we camped near an abandoned log cabin, and my mother decided to build a fire in that for cooking, and afterward to make a "pallet" on the floor for our sleeping.
— from Up from Slavery: An Autobiography by Booker T. Washington

She was of an age which usually sleeps soundly, yet to-night she kept waking up, and every time she opened her eyes there was enough diffused light from the street to show her the white plaster figures, standing on the chest of drawers in odd contrast to their environment of text and martyr, and the Gothic-framed Crucifix-picture that was only discernible now as a Latin cross, the figure thereon being obscured by the shades.
— from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

So he drew nearer and nearer, and at last came up to them.
— from The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan Every Child Can Read by John Bunyan

I listened, and heard a soft rushing sort of noise and a low crackling and snapping.
— from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

Poor Margaret, whose visit was sentimental, not in any degree inspective, felt herself taken in; but as in some way bringing her in contact with little eager faces, once well-known, and who had received the solemn rite of baptism from her father, she sate down, half losing herself in tracing out the changing features of the girls, and holding Susan's hand for a minute or two, unobserved by all, while the first class sought for their books, and the Vicar's lady went as near as a lady could towards holding Mr. Bell by the button, while she explained the Phonetic system to him, and gave him a conversation she had had with the Inspector about it.
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

In a cafe in Blois, May, 1831, he praised the well-known commercial traveler, who treated him, nevertheless, as a "little cricket."
— from Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z by Anatole Cerfberr

Not only were we useful as evidence that powers who had votes, like themselves, would not, surely, join them in their expeditions, against their will, without the party attacked being in the wrong; but the same system also enabled them to lead the stronger states against the weaker first, and so to leave the former to the last, stripped of their natural allies, and less capable of resistance.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

Looking over his shoulder, I saw that on the pavement opposite there stood a large woman with a heavy fur boa round her neck, and a large curling red feather in a broad-brimmed hat which was tilted in a coquettish Duchess of Devonshire fashion over her ear.
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Who making himselfe his subiect, in time so wrought and tempered the matter, that the Soldan in person at his request passed ouer into Cyprus, besieged Duke Lewes in the castle of Nicosia, and at length compelled him to depart, leauing his kingdome.
— from The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 05 Central and Southern Europe by Richard Hakluyt

For some months, therefore, he now acted as Lutheran clergyman to a Lutheran congregation in Philadelphia; and meanwhile he issued a circular, inviting German Christians of all denominations to meet in Conference.
— from A History of the Moravian Church by J. E. (Joseph Edmund) Hutton

On some plantations cotton had been neglected, and a large crop of corn grown in its place.
— from Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field: Southern Adventure in Time of War. Life with the Union Armies, and Residence on a Louisiana Plantation by Thomas Wallace Knox

Every now and again, Lake crossed to the side of the man at the wheel and peered into the compass.
— from The Bungalow Boys in the Great Northwest by John Henry Goldfrap

A. No, as a license cannot be obtained for love, but must be bought with money.
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 108, February 16, 1895 by Various

A cat is sufficient unto himself, and a leopard is so; but a dog hangs on a man's nod, and a leopard can so be beguiled.
— from The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay by Maurice Hewlett

Louis Maunders was writing an anonymous novel, and a large circle of friends and acquaintances expected it to make a big hit.
— from The King of Schnorrers: Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zangwill

It is not as a literary critic that Pérez de Guzmán excels, nor is he a poet of any striking distinction; but as a painter of historical portraits he has rarely been surpassed.
— from Chapters on Spanish Literature by James Fitzmaurice-Kelly