His physicians and friends, rejoicing at so happy an event, and coming to congratulate him, found themselves very much deceived, it being impossible for them to make him alter his purpose, he telling them, that as he must one day die, and was now so far on his way, he would save himself the labour of beginning another time.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

In the dining-room they were met by Samoylenko, crimson in the face, wrathful, perspiring from the heat of the kitchen; he looked at them furiously, and with an expression of horror, took the lid off the soup tureen and helped each of them to a plateful; and only when he was convinced that they were eating it with relish and liked it, he gave a sigh of relief and settled himself in his deep arm-chair.
— from The Duel and Other Stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

The smallness of the house and thinness of the walls brought everything so close to her, that, added to the fatigue of her journey, and all her recent agitation, she hardly knew how to bear it.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

What I had to do, was, to turn the painful discipline of my younger days to account, by going to work with a resolute and steady heart.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

The liberty of Rome, which had been oppressed by the arms and arts of Augustus, was rescued, after seven hundred and fifty years of servitude, from the persecution of Leo the Isaurian.
— 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

The Empress said the Americans were favorites in Russia, and she hoped the Russians were similarly regarded in America.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

Through her worn frame a shiver ran As Saramá her tale began: “There stood the royal mother: she Besought her son to set thee free, [pg 454]
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki

His father was religious and sent him to a Jesuit college at Bourges, but he here secretly read the writings of Beranger and Courier.
— from A Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers of All Ages and Nations by J. M. (Joseph Mazzini) Wheeler

The next morning all the men and all the dogs [35] in the settlement, and a number of women was there, and during the day they caught seven young wolves; they didn’t run very far; and John Hall and John Sarver said they could take “old Rule” and “Sam Houston” and they could catch the Devil.
— from Pioneer Life in Illinois by F. M. Perryman

I said rudely, and somebody hammered on the door and opened it.
— from When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart

For a lifetime he had turned a deaf ear to religion, and steeped his soul in every current crime.
— from The Fiend's Delight by Ambrose Bierce

It did not require a strong hint of this kind to move grandfather, especially when the boy was around; for he not only loved to fish but he loved the boy who loved to fish, and was always planning something for his pleasure.
— from Days in the Open by Lathan A. (Lathan Augustus) Crandall

He then took Farfrae round and showed him the place, and the stores of grain, and other stock; and finally entered the offices where the younger of them has already been discovered by Elizabeth.
— from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

She has grown up in the chaos of a falling monarchy, and of a revolution, and she has amalgamized the two in her mind.
— from Queen Hortense: A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era by L. (Luise) Mühlbach

This hypothetic suggestion on the part of the Coromantee was also intended as a counsel; and, acting upon it, the sailor scrambled back over the raft, and seizing hold of the steering-oar, turned the Catamaran’s head straight in the direction of the newly-discovered land.
— from The Ocean Waifs: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea by Mayne Reid