Then piling up all the rest of the furniture, the mattresses, palliasses and chairs, he stopped up the windows as one does when assailed by an enemy.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

She scorned Rose Grafton's humble parentage and caused her son to break his faith, though, had she let him choose, he would have prized his Rosebud above the richest diamond.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

They remanded [52] him to prison again, confined him six days longer, and then, taking him prisoner with them to Greenwich, brought him to trial there.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

For how could he imagine that we simpletons would go on using his jury plan after circumstances had stripped it of its usefulness, any more than he could imagine that we would go on using his candle-clock after we had invented chronometers?
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

D Geometry has practical applications; Clearly, he said, we are concerned with that part of geometry which relates to war; for in pitching a camp, or taking up a position, or closing or extending the lines of an army, or any other military manoeuvre, whether in actual battle or on a march, it will make all the difference whether a general is or is not a geometrician. these however are trifling in comparison with that greater part of the science which tends towards the good,
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

Then Mrs Veneering had to relate, to a larger circle, how she had been to see the girl, and how she was really pretty, and (considering her station) presentable.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

When next morning, he read the humorous account in the Patriot and Clarion, he saw still more clearly what chance he would have had before the public in a fight with the railroad company.
— from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Charles Dudley Warner

The smell was so strong there that Rostóv held his nose and had to pause and collect his strength before he could go on.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

How else may man make straight his plan And cleanse his soul from Sin?
— from Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

The man, then, that he might maintain his primitive right and prerogative, and continue his sway and dominion over all, both vegetable and sensitive creatures, and knowing of a truth that he could not be well accommodated as he ought without the servitude and subjection of several animals, bethought himself that of necessity he must needs put on arms, and make provision of harness against wars and violence.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

Mr. Seward and Mr. Pearson, another clergyman here, supt with us at our inn, and after they left us, we sat up late as we used to do in London.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

How many, on how many rotten December and November evenings had he stopped, had he not stopped in the drizzle, in the front line of workmen, his nose crushed against a policeman, and craning his scraggy neck to see them getting out of their state barouche, going up the interminable front stairway to the big-windowed rococo palace; he muttering that the "Times" were at hand.
— from Instigations Together with An Essay on the Chinese Written Character by Ezra Pound

But though little could be objected against, and so much might be said in favour of the labours of the Association, it was not till nearly twelve months after its organization, when O'Connell proposed and carried his system of monthly penny subscriptions to the "Catholic Rent," that it took a firm and far-reaching hold on the common people, and began to excite the serious apprehensions of the oligarchical factions in Ireland and England.
— from A Popular History of Ireland : from the Earliest Period to the Emancipation of the Catholics — Complete by Thomas D'Arcy McGee

"I heard that you had gone to the Prés aux Clercs ," he said, looking at his cousin's dusty garb; "but you are not armed, I see."
— from One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

Then he laughed as he reverted to his father's efforts at correct pronunciation, and continued his story.
— from All He Knew: A Story by John Habberton

I looked appealingly at Basil, for they were such fun, so he said, "Yes, of course"; and they were very polite, and called him "sir," as they had Mr. Somerled the night before.
— from The Heather-Moon by A. M. (Alice Muriel) Williamson

Alone, looking at the hills as they passed in procession, Anne collected her scattered resolves, and fought her battle.
— from Anne: A Novel by Constance Fenimore Woolson

He came, as Mr Grey had explained, on business; and, not having been aware of the arrival of the strangers, would have retreated when his errand was done; but, as opposition was made to this by both parents and children he sat down for a quarter of an hour, to be taken into consultation about how the Miss Ibbotsons were to be conducted through the process of seeing the sights of Deerbrook.
— from Deerbrook by Harriet Martineau

Nay, the shaggy green waves themselves had been stealing occasional glimpses at the picture as clouds had swirled across the sky, gulls had uttered their insatiable scream, and the sun, dancing on the foam-flecked waters, had vested the billows, now in tints of blue, now in natural tints as of flaming jewels.
— from Through Russia by Maksim Gorky

That the Constitution should always be the supreme law of the land, they still believe, and the philosophic student of past and current history should be gratified to see the tenacity with which Southern people still cling to that idea.
— from The Abolition Crusade and Its Consequences: Four Periods of American History by Hilary A. (Hilary Abner) Herbert