He twined himself up to her, as she half knelt by the settle, and converted her shoulder into a support.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

This legend is the subject of a modern poem so fraught with the spirit of the mediæval heart, pining in its dogmatic prison, that I cannot forbear quoting it here:— All day Aquinas sat alone; Compressed he sat and spoke no word, As still as any man of stone, In streets where never voice is heard; With massive front and air antique He sat, did neither move or speak, For thought like his seemed words too weak.
— from Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway

The clocks were striking midnight and the rooms were very still as a figure glided quietly from bed to bed, smoothing a coverlet here, settling a pillow there, and pausing to look long and tenderly at each unconscious face, to kiss each with lips that mutely blessed, and to pray the fervent prayers which only mothers utter.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

However, Saul was not disposed to persevere long in the state wherein he was, for when he saw that David was in great esteem, both with God and with the multitude, he was afraid; and being not able to conceal his fear as concerning great things, his kingdom and his life, to be deprived of either of which was a very great calamity, he resolved to have David slain, and commanded his son Jonathan and his most faithful servants to kill him: but Jonathan wondered at his father's change with relation to David, that it should be made to so great a degree, from showing him no small good-will, to contrive how to have him killed.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

But as soon as Cantacuzene had subdued and pardoned his enemies, he was anxious to justify, or at least to extenuate, the introduction of the Turks into Europe, and the nuptials of his daughter with a Mussulman prince.
— 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

But now, strange to say, in the shafts of such a cart he saw a thin little sorrel beast, one of those peasants’ nags which he had often seen straining their utmost under a heavy load of wood or hay, especially when the wheels were stuck in the mud or in a rut.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

He stood in act to speak, or rather stammer, But sage Antonia cut him short before
— from Don Juan by Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron

and why when those tears were pouring from her eyes did her soft arm clasp him so?
— from The End of a Coil by Susan Warner

This was the brother of the strange, wild-looking man whom she and Colin had seen in the forest long, long ago, and who had perished in the hour of vengeance.
— from French and English: A Story of the Struggle in America by Evelyn Everett-Green

"Jump on that, Scraggsy," quoth McGuffey softly and cast his silken engineer's cap on the deck at Scraggs's feet.
— from Captain Scraggs; Or, The Green-Pea Pirates by Peter B. (Peter Bernard) Kyne

It was three against one, and that one a very poor witness, for Mose was overawed by his surroundings and contradicted himself several times out of pure fright.
— from Old Man Curry: Race Track Stories by Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan

'I think it is when we forget, that the dreadful things in life, the sins and cruelties, happen,' she said.
— from Franklin Kane by Anne Douglas Sedgwick

"So far from being reprehensible that I did not suspect such a crime," he said, "I should rather be chargeable with malignity had I been capable of so sinister a suspicion.
— from The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Complete (1555-84) by John Lothrop Motley

Greta gave a little scream, and caught her sister's dress.
— from The Works of John Galsworthy An Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy by John Galsworthy