First, we find by the side of the hero no other figure of tragic proportions, no one like Lady Macbeth or Iago, no one even like Cordelia or Desdemona; so that, in Hamlet's absence, the remaining characters could not yield a Shakespearean tragedy at all.
— from Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. (Andrew Cecil) Bradley

He gives us indeed no lovely natural objects like Leonardo or Titian, but only the coldest, most elementary shadowing of rock or tree; no lovely draperies and comely gestures of life, but only the austere truths of human nature; "simple persons"—as he replied in his rough way to the querulous criticism of Julius the Second, that there was no gold on the figures of the Sistine Chapel—"simple persons, who wore no gold on their garments"; but he penetrates us with a sense of that power which we associate with all the warmth and fulness of the world, and the sense of which brings into one's thoughts a swarm of birds and flowers and insects.
— from The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry by Walter Pater

Joy came first, in spite of the threatening train behind it—joy in the impression that it was really herself whom Will loved and was renouncing, that there was really no other love less permissible, more blameworthy, which honor was hurrying him away from.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

Mr. Isaacs married, secondly, in 1861, the eldest daughter of the Rev. S. H. Causton, Vicar of Highgate, and a niece of Lord Lilford, who died in 1866, leaving two children, Miss Annie Isaacs and the Rev. Wilfrid Henry Isaacs.
— from Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ by Aaron Bernstein

Guinevere Queen Guinevere had fled the court, and sat There in the holy house at Almesbury Weeping, none with her save a little maid, A novice: one low light betwixt them burned Blurred by the creeping mist, for all abroad, Beneath a moon unseen albeit at full, The white mist, like a face-cloth to the face, Clung to the dead earth, and the land was still.
— from Idylls of the King by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

This fawn-colored hair, or, perhaps the sort of ascendancy which she had over other women, gave her the name of “La Lionne.”
— from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

Rosanna’s acquaintance with them had begun by means of the daughter, who was afflicted with a misshapen foot, and who was known in our parts by the name of Limping Lucy.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

What are you stopping me for?' The only reply to this, was a great number of loud lamentations from the young woman who had embraced him; and who had a little basket and a street-door key in her hand.
— from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

This was a very welcome proposal to our hero, who found Sir Stentor just such a subject as he had long desired to encounter with; the more the Englishman laid, the more he lost, and Fathom took care to inflame his passions, by certain well-timed sarcasms upon his want of judgment, till at length he became quite outrageous, swore the dice were false, and threw them out at the window; pulled off his periwig, and committed it to the flames, spoke with the most rancorous contempt of his adversary's skill, insisted upon his having stripped many a better man, for all he was a Count, and threatening that, before they parted, he should not only look like a Pole, but also smell like a pole-cat.
— from The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete by T. (Tobias) Smollett

But as they regarded the fatal accuracy of an aim which had dared to immolate an enemy at so much hazard to a friend, the name of “La Longue Carabine” burst simultaneously from every lip, and was succeeded by a wild and a sort of plaintive howl.
— from The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757 by James Fenimore Cooper

To irritate turkeys boys will shout at them: Bubbly Jock, Bubbly Jock, Bubbly Jock the satter, Yor faithor’s deed, yor mother’s deed, ye canna flee nae fawthor ( Nhb. ); or: Lubber, lubber-leet, Look at your dirty feet ( Cor. ); or:
— from Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore by Elizabeth Mary Wright

We read of an endless series of illuminations, receptions, banquets and balls,--the whole of the Norman nobility of Leinster lavishing their great wealth in magnificent display.
— from Ireland, Historic and Picturesque by Charles Johnston

Sometimes they endeavored to take them by escalade, advancing for this purpose a number of long ladders against different parts of the walls, thus distracting the enemy’s attention and seeking to find a weak point.
— from The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2: Assyria The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations. by George Rawlinson

Those who clamoured for them were wretched enough to clutch at any change; or did not realise to themselves the dangers and drawbacks of what they desired; or intended at once to sell their land to some richer neighbour; or, lastly, longed to keep a slave or two, just as the primary object of the 'mean white' in America used to be to keep his negro.
— from The Gracchi Marius and Sulla Epochs of Ancient History by A. H. (Augustus Henry) Beesly

The men provided themselves with a number of little luxuries at the sutler's—the last store they would see for months—and "Billy" Brackett bought a cheese.
— from Campmates: A Story of the Plains by Kirk Munroe

A number of learned Latinists and archæologists soon gathered about him.
— from Italian Highways and Byways from a Motor Car by M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

Even this separation was foreshadowed in the Frog's egg, in which a number of lower layer cells were much smaller and more active at the two sides of the segmentation cavity than elsewhere.
— from The Works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume 1 (of 4) Separate Memoirs by Francis M. (Francis Maitland) Balfour

The number of local legends is unlimited.
— from The History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century by Leo Wiener

No one less likely than the ladies at The Haws to make trouble in such a matter.
— from Will Warburton by George Gissing