Presently, he espied two men coming towards him with a lantern and fearing they might be officers of the watch or other ill-disposed folk, he stealthily took refuge, to avoid them, in a hovel, that he saw hard by.
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

A man who has thus, so to speak, put his ear to the heart-chamber of the cosmic will, who feels the furious desire for existence issuing therefrom as a thundering stream or most gently dispersed brook, into all the veins of the world, would he not collapse all at once?
— from The Birth of Tragedy; or, Hellenism and Pessimism by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

For this purpose her equipment, though varied, was inadequate.
— from Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

The brigadier had put his eye to the keyhole, and had discovered Andrea in a posture of entreaty.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

'No one could possibly have entered this room without our knowledge!' "Babaji advanced smilingly and motioned to each one to touch the warm, solid flesh of his body.
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

They clung around the necks of the big stone idols and shrieked as they skipped along the battlements, while Mowgli, dancing in the summerhouse, put his eye to the screenwork and hooted owl-fashion between his front teeth, to show his derision and contempt.
— from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

Up, and called at Michell’s, and took him and his wife and carried them to Westminster, I landing at White Hall, and having no pleasure in the way ‘con elle’; and so to the Duke’s, where we all met and had a hot encounter before the Duke of York about the business of our payments at the Ticket Office, where we urged that we had nothing to do to be troubled with the pay, having examined the tickets.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew?
— from An Essay on Man; Moral Essays and Satires by Alexander Pope

From the pages of Livy he had not imbibed the art, or even the courage, of a general: an army of twenty thousand Romans returned without honor or effect from the attack of Marino; and his vengeance was amused by painting his enemies, their heads downwards, and drowning two dogs (at least they should have been bears) as the representatives of the Ursini.
— 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

Many years before, the possessor had entered the naval service, and had, during the few months that he had served in the capacity of midshipman, been intrusted to the charge of Edward Forster.
— from Newton Forster by Frederick Marryat

Apparently his ear did not serve him sufficiently, for he took a small instrument out of a drawer, placed it on the chest, and then put his ear to that, changing the position of the instrument three or four times.
— from Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles by Wood, Henry, Mrs.

Persistently he endeavored to settle down for the nap, but with eyes either closed or open, all he could see was the child across the aisle.
— from Rosa's Quest Or, The Way to the Beautiful Land by Anna Potter Wright

Though we did not understand as yet the deeper meaning of Christ and of His words, we had at least nothing to unlearn in later times, or to feel that our parents had ever told us what they themselves could not have held to be true.
— from My Autobiography: A Fragment by F. Max (Friedrich Max) Müller

A dog when panting after exercise, or on a hot day, breathes loudly; but if his attention be suddenly aroused, he instantly pricks his ears to listen, shuts his mouth, and breathes quietly, as he is enabled to do, through his nostrils.
— from The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin

that even when he is discussing morals, and virtues, and even public affairs and politics, he endeavors to interweave, after the fashion of Pythagoras, the doctrines of arithmetic, geometry, and harmonic proportions with them.
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth by Marcus Tullius Cicero

To safeguard his parents from being jockeyed, and as a brotherly precaution, he enlists the services, on the sly, of the obliging Mr. Dunning.
— from The Big Drum: A Comedy in Four Acts by Arthur Wing Pinero

In the morning the pair worship the ancestral tablets and salute all the members of the family; among the poor this important ceremony occurs very soon after the pair have exchanged their wine-cups.
— from The Middle Kingdom, Volume 1 (of 2) A Survey of the Geography, Government, Literature, Social Life, Arts, and History of the Chinese Empire and its Inhabitants by S. Wells (Samuel Wells) Williams

This is nature's method of identification, and no record can be found of the digits of two persons having exactly the same characteristics.
— from Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World by Clifton R. (Clifton Rodman) Wooldridge