Then swoll'n with pride into the snare I fell Of fair fallacious looks, venereal trains, Softn'd with pleasure and voluptuous life; At length to lay my head and hallow'd pledge Of all my strength in the lascivious lap Of a deceitful Concubine who shore me Like a tame Weather, all my precious fleece, Then turn'd me out ridiculous, despoil'd, Shav'n, and disarm'd among my enemies.
— from The Poetical Works of John Milton by John Milton

People at this hour began to make their appearance in all the balconies in the street; for in warm climates every window has a balcony, in which they can breathe the fresh evening air, which is very necessary, even to those who are used to a heat that makes them as brown as mahogany; so that the street presented a very lively appearance.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

The neighbors were separated, the mother of the little girl was dead, and her father had thoughts of marrying again and of residing in the capital, where he had been promised a very lucrative appointment as messenger.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

Hataas nga panahun, A very long time.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

And I thought that from Cannes, where one poses, to Monaco, where one gambles, people come to this spot of the earth for hardly any other purpose than to get embroiled or to throw away money on chance games, displaying under this delicious sky and in this garden of roses and oranges all base vanities and foolish pretensions and vile lusts, showing up the human mind such as it is, servile, ignorant, arrogant and full of cupidity.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

Here, however, if we hoped for a picturesque and varied landscape, we should receive a great disappointment.
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea by Bronislaw Malinowski

Going by railroad I do not consider as travelling 25 at all; it is merely "being sent" to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

The wearer of this cloak was a young fellow, also of about twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age, slightly above the middle height, very fair, with a thin, pointed and very light coloured beard; his eyes were large and blue, and had an intent look about them, yet that heavy expression which some people affirm to be a peculiarity as well as evidence, of an epileptic subject.
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

CLEINIAS: That seems to be a charming poet of yours; I have read some other verses of his, which are very clever; but I do not know much of him, for foreign poets are very little read among the Cretans.
— from Laws by Plato

The reference is probably to some Shaman belief, for magic and the spirits of the dead play a very large part in this religion.
— from The Coverley Papers, From 'The Spectator' by Steele, Richard, Sir

I hope you will be ready to own publicly, whenever you shall be called to it, that by your great and frequent urgency you prevailed on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect account of my travels, with directions to hire some young gentleman of either university to put them in order, and correct the style, as my cousin Dampier did, by my advice, in his book called “A Voyage round the world.”
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

The very thick envelope of one of them first attracted her notice; then the masculine nature of the handwriting; and when, upon turning it over, she furthermore perceived a very large-sized monogram of the letters "H. P." upon the envelope, her mind underwent a sudden revolution as to the sending of her daughter's correspondence upstairs.
— from Vera Nevill Or, Poor Wisdom's Chance by Cameron, H. Lovett, Mrs.

The ushers, painstakingly adopting various lengths of stride to the requirements of the organ, passed in pairs; then followed an equal number of young women, among whom he instantly recognized the handsome presence of Kate Polder, in drooping blue bonnets, with prodigious panniers of celestial-hued silk, carrying white enamelled shepherd's crooks from which depended loops of artificial buttercups.
— from The Three Black Pennys: A Novel by Joseph Hergesheimer

If in an ecstasy of love, I should paint to her the charms of a modest life, and a little home on the banks of the Loire; if I were to ask her to sacrifice her Parisian life on the altar of our love, it would be, in the first place, a virtuous lie; in the next, I might only be opening the way to some painful experience; I might lose the heart of a girl who loves society, and balls, and personal adornment, and me for the time being.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

Those who [151] practise a virtuous life may observe this Law in their homes as well as in the wilderness.
— from The Gâtakamâlâ; Or, Garland of Birth-Stories by Aryasura

Your meal will in all probability consist of raw salmon eaten at The Sign of the Smoke Screen; while your dry bed of balsam boughs may turn out to be rain trickling down your neck, Niagara-like, and your resting place a veritable Lake Erie.
— from See America First by Charles J. Herr