“Pshaw!” hissed the Wren, with ruffled aggression, “Pluck him, I say, and then bid him fly!”
— from Children of Christmas, and Others by Edith Matilda Thomas

Not only, however, did they refuse to betray Macdonald, but they did not even wish to quit him, until they had, as it may be said, drawn him out of Russia and placed him in safety.
— from History of the Expedition to Russia Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 by Ségur, Philippe-Paul, comte de

The only man of us who had the heart to tell the angelic Gabriel off was his brother orderly, a respectable and patriotic Huish, if such a combination can be conceived.
— from Notes of a Camp-Follower on the Western Front by E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

General Wayne crosses the river, and places himself in such a manner as to arrest the enemy's march, if he should attempt to retreat towards Carolina.
— from Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette by Lafayette, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier, marquis de

He “bobs up” (no other term can describe it) through every kind of repression and persecution; he is saucy and insouciant; he is comically repentant when at the last he is hanged, and his last faint squeak is very mock-pathetic.
— from Philip Hale's Boston Symphony Programme Notes by Philip Hale

Who had guessed So rare a phœnix housed in such a nest?
— from Griselda: a society novel in rhymed verse by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

To believe in a real and personal Heaven is surely not to deny earth with its tragedy, its sorrows, its splendid possibilities.
— from New Worlds For Old: A Plain Account of Modern Socialism by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

Armed with a power which is all but irresistible, and stripped of that which alone can retain and purify her influence, she steps upon the arena of life ready to act her part in the demoralization of society.
— from Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations The Veil Lifted, and Light Thrown on Crime and its Causes, and Criminals and their Haunts. Facts and Disclosures. by William F. Howe