He was one of those men of a prompt, decisive character, who magnetized other men, and who on certain extraordinary occasions send an electric shock through a multitude.
— from The History of a Crime The Testimony of an Eye-Witness by Victor Hugo

Things had gone on just the same as ever since that evening; the wonders that had happened then had brought no changes after them; they were already like a dream.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

After this, it rained very hard, which wetted them to the skin; their feet slipped at every step they took, and they fell into the mire, whence they got up in a very dirty pickle; their hands were quite benumbed.
— from The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

Neither of them could do anything with a serious positive character: they could place a human figure before you with perfect verisimilitude; but when the moment came for making it live and move, they found, unless it made them laugh, that they had a puppet on their hands, and had to invent some artificial external stimulus to make it work.
— from Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy by Bernard Shaw

Moreover, Salome exasperated Herod's cruelty against his sons; for Aristobulus was desirous to bring her, who was his mother-in-law and his aunt, into the like dangers with themselves; so he sent to her to take care of her own safety, and told her that the king was preparing to put her to death, on account of the accusation that was laid against her, as if when she formerly endeavored to marry herself to Sylleus the Arabian, she had discovered the king's grand secrets to him, who was the king's enemy; and this it was that came as the last storm, and entirely sunk the young men when they were in great danger before.
— from The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus

But the terrible silence and emptiness seemed to symbolize her future—she felt as though the house, the street, the world were all empty, and she alone left sentient in a lifeless universe.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

This was a little old gentleman, who lived in the parsonage-house, and had resided there (so they learnt soon afterwards) ever since the death of the clergyman’s wife, which had happened fifteen years before.
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

She had but seen her some half-dozen times since Edward and Edith had returned from Egypt in the early spring, and Edith seemed to have developed a sort of sheath over her, a carapace that was insensitive to the touch.
— from Arundel by E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson

The flanking parties were quietly extending themselves out of sight, on each side of the valley, and the residue were stretching themselves like the links of a chain across it, when the wild horses gave signs that they scented an enemy; snuffing the air, snorting, and looking about.
— from McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader by William Holmes McGuffey

Stocks went on rising; speculation went mad; bankers, merchants, lawyers, doctors, mechanics, laborers, even the very washerwomen and servant girls, were putting up their earnings on silver stocks, and every sun that rose in the morning went down on paupers enriched and rich men beggared.
— from Roughing It, Part 6. by Mark Twain

So after exchanging greeting with his aunt and her family, he gets Miss Louise to one side, and explaining something to her that makes the child's eyes grow large, bright, and excited, she suddenly gives a scream of laughter and whispers: "I'll do it—if mother puts me on bread and water for a week.
— from Miss Dividends: A Novel by Archibald Clavering Gunter

However, there was certainly a stirring among earthenware somewhere towards the entrance of the cellar.
— from Sweethearts at Home by S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett

He was convinced that she too had shared an experience similar to his own, perhaps had even seen the bright, marvellous Deva faces peering, shining....
— from The Bright Messenger by Algernon Blackwood

"They were cut in gray stone, and each statue that was still standing had on its head an immense red stone, smoothly cut to the shape of a cylinder, at least a yard high,—as if it wore what you call a band-box hat, but with no brim.
— from Phaeton Rogers: A Novel of Boy Life by Rossiter Johnson

We now possess the record of numerous islands lifted above the waters, and others sunk beneath the waves, accompanied by storms and earthquakes similar to those which marked the destruction of Atlantis.
— from Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World by Ignatius Donnelly