At length the champion paused beneath the balcony in which the Lady Rowena was placed, and the expectation of the spectators was excited to the utmost.
— from Ivanhoe: A Romance by Walter Scott

The tenderness and indulgence of her parents and the exemption from all ordinary occupations had fostered a natural grace and delicacy of character that accorded with the fragile loveliness of her form.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving

The marriage which Richard proposed, of his sister with the sultan's brother, was defeated by the difference of faith; the princess abhorred the embraces of a Turk; and Adel, or Saphadin, would not easily renounce a plurality of wives.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

But the fury of their passions, and the extent of their credulity, kept pace with the violence of the plague; every wonderful and preposterous story was believed.
— from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay

I said: "Quite probably; Nashville contained valuable stores of arms, ammunition and provisions, and the enemy is probably trying to carry away all he can.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

Hie with it, D'Espremenil, home to Paris; convoke instantaneous Sessions; let the Parlement, and the Earth, and the Heavens know it.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

Next day he took the unsuspecting Edward all over the Bowery and Grand Street, showed him the sights and drew his attention to the careless way the ladies carried their bags and purses and the easy thing it was to get them.
— from How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis

I asked the landlord why he did not go bail, as he had these persons and their effects as security.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

It is a superb specimen of that mixture of Grecian and Gothic which prevailed at the end of the sixteenth century; no grandeur of plan, but infinite ornament of detail, gilt reliefs (especially on the ceiling), carvings, and fine inlaid woodwork.
— from Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 307 New Series, Saturday, November 17, 1849 by Various

Since the enemy persisted in prospering at the expense of the old company, the moneyed men of the senior corporation had taken stock of their rivals.
— from On Canada's Frontier Sketches of History, Sport, and Adventure and of the Indians, Missionaries, Fur-traders, and Newer Settlers of Western Canada by Julian Ralph

above p. 55, p. 71 f. and p. 77, the passages against the Emperor, who “boasts so shamelessly of being the true, chief protector of the Christian faith
— from Luther, vol. 3 of 6 by Hartmann Grisar

“They explained,” he continued, “that before sailing you had expressed the hope that something really exciting and adventurous would befall the party—that you were tired of the monotonous humdrum of twentieth-century existence—that you regretted the decadence of piracy, and the expunging of romance from the seas.
— from The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Life may be painted according to either method; but the methods are different.
— from The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner

The subject changed to literature, and I inquired in Latin concerning the history of German poetry and the elder German poets.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

She had spoken on the subject to Linus, the bishop of the Gentile community; and, without revealing any name, had told him that a young stranger, for whom she could vouch as one who would not be guilty of any treachery, would be entrusted with the watchword, and would be present at the evening prayers.
— from Darkness and Dawn; Or, Scenes in the Days of Nero. An Historic Tale by F. W. (Frederic William) Farrar

He was thinking of his friend Blaine, and might have thought of all his predecessors, for all had suffered alike, and to Adams as historian their sufferings had been a long delight--the solitary picturesque and tragic element in politics--incidentally requiring character-studies like Aaron Burr and William B. Giles, Calhoun and Webster and Sumner, with Sir Forcible Feebles like James M. Mason and stage exaggerations like Roscoe Conkling.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams