But remembering Edna's whimsical turn of mind of late, and foreseeing that she had immediately acted upon her impetuous determination, he grasped the situation with his usual promptness and handled it with his well-known business tact and cleverness.
— from The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin

O ’t is none of our kith and none of our kin, (Her soul may our Lady assoil from sin!)
— from Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

We are all brethren in Christ, servants of one Lord, members of one body, and therefore are or should be at least dearly beloved, inseparably allied in the greatest bond of love and familiarity, united partakers not only of the same cross, but coadjutors, comforters, helpers, at all times, upon all occasions: as they did in the primitive church, Acts the 5. they sold their patrimonies, and laid them at the apostles' feet, and many such memorable examples of mutual love we have had under the ten general persecutions, many since.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

But on seeing that precious little face, which for the last three days she had only looked at from a distance, she trembled all over and her gray head began twitching spasmodically over the coffin.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Further, that it is the desire of the present possessor of that property, that he be immediately removed from his present sphere of life and from this place, and be brought up as a gentleman,—in a word, as a young fellow of great expectations.”
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

It affects both the leaf and the fruit and is known as the spot of leaf and fruit.
— from All About Coffee by William H. (William Harrison) Ukers

The one will be like the reflection of the moon in water; the other like a flower reflected in a mirror.
— from Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel, Book I by Xueqin Cao

Although in what were to prove his last months Dante might amuse himself with the composition of learned trifles, and in the society and correspondence of men who along with him, if on lines apart from his, were preparing the way for the revival of classical studies, the best part of his mind, then as for long before, was devoted to the Comedy ; and he was counting on the suffrages of a wider audience than courts and universities could supply.
— from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri

Notwithstanding the inquisitors still shifted him off, excusing themselves by lack of leisure, and for that they were occupied in more weighty affairs, and with such answers put him off, four months after.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

Gustave Dorè has painted a picture of ‘Love and Fate,’ in which the terrible hag is portrayed towering above the tender Eros, and while the latter is extending the thread as far as he can, the wrinkled hands of Destiny are the boundaries of his power, and the fatal shears close upon the joy he has stretched to its inevitable limit.
— from Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway

Once more we have to record a case of love at first sight.
— from The Prairie Chief by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne

Oh, dear, I am getting so tired of living and fighting and hoping!
— from The Life of Sophia Jex-Blake by Graham Travers

The same to Cidi Mahamet Ben Abdelgrim Nacasis, governor of Tetuan, refusing to supply him with a number of lances asked for in the name of King Muley Rexid (Rashid), on the plea that he is the ally of Hamed el Hader [ben Ali] Gaylan; Tangier, 27 Aug. 1666 (sent by Hadj Medina) f. 61 80.
— from Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Spanish Language in the British Museum. Vol. 4 by Pascual de Gayangos

While Pope Gelasius II. was celebrating mass in this church, he was attacked by armed bands of the inimical houses of Leone and Frangipani, and was only rescued by the assistance of his nephew Gaetano, after a conflict of some hours.
— from Walks in Rome by Augustus J. C. (Augustus John Cuthbert) Hare

Suppose a light cart or truck on three wheels, having a semicircular framework in front, against which might be lashed a rope-matting, and inside a sufficient number of sacks of wool or hay, propelled by means of a central cross-bar pushed against by four men within the semicircle, the engineers could advance, and on reaching the gate, perform their work through a central orifice in the outer matting, made to open like a flap.
— from The History of the Indian Revolt and of the Expeditions to Persia, China and Japan, 1856-7-8 by George Dodd

And thousands of voices answered, calling one to another; and like corn stalks bowing before the wind, the people fell upon their knees, line upon line, wave upon wave, crowding upon, striking against each other, like a flock of sheep panic-struck at the advance of a storm; and the long, agonising wail of penitents upon whom pressed the terror of immediate ruin, rose to Heaven, mingling with the pealing of music, shaking the ground, the marble pillars, and the vaults of the cathedral.
— from The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci, the Forerunner by Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky

Never had he dreamed of laying a finger on one of his owner's race, even in those long-ago days when stout thews and muscles made him fit to fight.
— from Tom Strong, Lincoln's Scout A Story of the United States in the Times That Tried Men's Souls by Alfred Bishop Mason

A monumental and sumptuous work of 14 quarto volumes, describing in great detail all the known trees of North America and their woods, with beautiful line drawings of leaves and fruits.
— from Wood and Forest by William Noyes