And they did not; but the national spirit of unselfishness led them to divide up with neighbors who were not at the distribution, and next Sabbath the poor preachers could hardly keep countenance before their vast congregations.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

She was blind, you see, to many things obvious to others—likely to tread in the wrong places, as Celia had warned her; yet her blindness to whatever did not lie in her own pure purpose carried her safely by the side of precipices where vision would have been perilous with fear.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

For they that see any strange, and unusuall ability, or defect in a mans mind; unlesse they see withall, from what cause it may probably proceed, can hardly think it naturall; and if not naturall, they must needs thinke it supernaturall; and then what can it be, but that either God, or the Divell is in him?
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

Now one of the instances in which this knight most conspicuously showed his prudence, worth, valour, endurance, fortitude, and love, was when he withdrew, rejected by the Lady Oriana, to do penance upon the Pena Pobre, changing his name into that of Beltenebros, a name assuredly significant and appropriate to the life which he had voluntarily adopted.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

And finally, on the way from the Gorbeau house to La Force, one of the principal prisoners, Claquesous, had been lost.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Quanquam autem harum e non paucis scholis explosarum notionum, praesertim prioris, causam hic non gero, maximi tamen momendi erit monuisse.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

One of those balls, properly placed, could have killed him; “Yet he depended, with the utmost self-possession, on the quickness of his eye and his agility.”
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain

The Hampshire people have been stupid enough to let one of the principal plotters, Colonel Holland, out upon bail, and he has made his escape.
— from Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams During the Revolution with a Memoir of Mrs. Adams by Abigail Adams

SYRACUSE NATIONAL POULTRY MAGAZINE 1911 COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY NATIONAL POULTRY PUBLISHING COMPANY H2 anchor WHY
— from The Dollar Hen by Milo Hastings

He had the sea-suits, the port-locks and the torpoon: what possible pattern could he weave them into to bring deliverance?
— from Under Arctic Ice by Harry Bates

Far from Napoleon being concerned as to probable political consequences, he asserted it would teach the Bourbons a lesson.
— from The Story of Napoleon by Harold Wheeler

On his rejection of her advances, she accused him to Theseus, at whose prayer Poseidon caused his destruction, by frightening his horses, when he was driving along the seacoast, and overturning his chariot.
— from Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois by George Chapman

But the Negro has been a peaceful person, consequently he developed no [36] nose hump.
— from The Colored Girl Beautiful by E. Azalia (Emma Azalia) Hackley

Before poore Pedro could have any intelligence, or so much as suspected any treachery against him; he was suddenly apprehended, and being called in question, stood not on any deniall, but confessed truly what he had done: whereupon, within some few dayes after, he was condemned by the Captaine, to be whipt to the place of execution, and afterward to be hanged by the necke.
— from The Decameron (Day 1 to Day 5) Containing an hundred pleasant Novels by Giovanni Boccaccio

Savonarola was very likely to have inside knowledge of the scheme, and the Pope positively charged him with having helped to engineer it.
— from The Historical Jesus: A Survey of Positions by J. M. (John Mackinnon) Robertson

For the pretty pleasure craft has been restored to its ancient moorings.
— from Gwen Wynn: A Romance of the Wye by Mayne Reid