So they finished their supper in great joy and contentment, and presently retired to rest between clean sheets, safe in Toad's ancestral home, won back by matchless valour, consummate strategy, and a proper handling of sticks.
— from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Don't put him out, sir.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

At last, while, full of indignation, she tried, with all her might, to puff herself out, she burst her body on the spot.
— from The Fables of Phædrus Literally translated into English prose with notes by Phaedrus

The adroit artist was asking Mr. Casaubon questions about English polities, which brought long answers, and, Will meanwhile had perched himself on some steps in the background overlooking all.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

Delay not your coming, lest the present happy opportunity should pass by."
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

To strive after "spirituality," in cases where this is not pure hypocrisy or self-deception, seems to me to be either a misunderstanding, a disease, or a cure, I wish myself, and all those who live without the troubles of a puritanical conscience, and who are able to live in this way, an ever greater spiritualisation and multiplication of the senses.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Though he must be prepared to meet the difficulties caused in the contact of races, of civilisations, by the conversion of persons holding one set of mythical ideas to belief in another set of different, more attractive, and often more advanced stage.
— from The Danish History, Books I-IX by Grammaticus Saxo

He told him that, when he felt his end to be very near at hand, he would send him, in gratitude for the kindness which the Persian had once shown him, that which he held dearest in the world: all Christine Daae's papers, which she had written for Raoul's benefit and left with Erik, together with a few objects belonging to her, such as a pair of gloves, a shoe-buckle and two pocket-handkerchiefs.
— from The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

Ryabovsky had told her she was not an artist, and to pay him out she wrote to him now that he painted the same thing every year, and said exactly the same thing every day; that he was at a standstill, and that nothing more would come of him than had come already.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Perhaps I shall hear a solitary loon laugh as he dives and plumes himself, or shall see a lonely fisher in his boat, like a floating leaf, beholding his form reflected in the waves, where lately a hundred men securely labored.
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

"Who is Monsieur Fremond?" said the abbe, pouring himself out something to drink.
— from The Conspirators The Chevalier d'Harmental by Alexandre Dumas

Both of these parties had organized several self-defence contingents, and it was to be expected that the disgrace of Kishinev would not be repeated at Homel, and that, in the case of an attack, the Jews would give a good account of themselves.
— from History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, Volume 3 [of 3] From the Accession of Nicholas II until the Present Day by Simon Dubnow

Some believe Pierre hypocritical; others say: "He cannot fool Heaven!"
— from Oswald Langdon or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 by Levi Jackson Hamilton

Who is there gross enough to pride himself on superior wisdom because Kepler believed that the earth was a vast animal which breathed and reasoned, or to claim the palm of comparative merit because Sir Thomas More listened to the babbling of a pretended prophetess, and Luther waged what he considered 320
— from The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 Volume 23, Number 4 by Various

She had formed a pacific habit of suiting her remarks to his point of view, to save an outburst.
— from Strangers and Wayfarers by Sarah Orne Jewett

"What a pity," he often said, "that so excellent a man should be so obstinate.
— from Memoirs of the Courts of Louis XV and XVI. — Volume 2 Being secret memoirs of Madame Du Hausset, lady's maid to Madame de Pompadour, and of the Princess Lamballe by Mme. Du Hausset

Spearing fish from a platform built on piles a little way out to sea is also popular here amongst {119} the boys, and their well-trained eyesight comes into play; having once spotted a fish they seldom miss him with their spear.
— from The Savage South Seas by E. Way (Ernest Way) Elkington

If a friend be engaged when you request her to dance, and she promises to be your partner for the next or any of the following dances, do not neglect her when the time comes, but be in readiness to fulfill your office as her cavalier, or she may think that you have studiously slighted her, besides preventing her obliging some one else.
— from Martine's Hand-book of Etiquette, and Guide to True Politeness by Arthur Martine

The first man who came to Purple Valley prospecting had often stopped his work and looked at The Stone in a half-fear that it would spring upon him unawares.
— from Pierre and His People: Tales of the Far North. Complete by Gilbert Parker