He tried to pull himself away from Lyamshin, scratching and punching him as far as he could with his arms behind him.
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

["Out of the coronet of a Count of France a dexter arm in armour embowed grasping in the hand a sword all proper, hilt and pommel or, the blade piercing a fleur-de-lis of the last"].
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

Is this handwriting the same as that upon the pearl-box addresses?" "I have them here," she answered, producing half a dozen pieces of paper.
— from The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle

Certainly, sentiment and passion had a way of shrinking out of sight in Miss Cornelia's presence.
— from Anne's House of Dreams by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

No one can doubt, that the convention for the distinction of property, and for the stability of possession, is of all circumstances the most necessary to the establishment of human society, and that after the agreement for the fixing and observing of this rule, there remains little or nothing to be done towards settling a perfect harmony and concord.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

They stretched him on the ground and untied him, but still he did not awake; however, they rolled him back and forwards and shook and pulled him about, so that after some time he came to himself, stretching himself just as if he were waking up from a deep and sound sleep, and looking about him he said, "God forgive you, friends; ye have taken me away from the sweetest and most delightful existence and spectacle that ever human being enjoyed or beheld.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

If we add to this all the tarring, greasing, oiling, varnishing, painting, scraping, and scrubbing which is required in the course of a long voyage, and also remember this is all to be done in addition to watching at night, steering, reefing, furling, bracing, making and setting sail, and pulling, hauling, and climbing in every direction, one will hardly ask, "What can a sailor find to do at sea?" If, after all this labor—after exposing their lives and limbs in storms, wet and cold, "Wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch; The lion and the belly-pinched wolf Keep their fur dry;—" the merchants and captain think that they have not earned their twelve dollars a month, (out of which they clothe themselves,) and their salt beef and hard bread, they keep them picking oakum—ad infinitum.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

The very fact that the mind, though acknowledging the imperfection of its own ideal, unconsciously asserts, that somewhere, in some mind, there is an ideal, in which a perfect hand joins a perfect arm, and a perfect foot a perfect leg, and these a perfect trunk; and a perfect neck supports a perfect head, adorned by perfect features, and thus there is a perfect ideal, is decisive that such an ideal exists.
— from Know the Truth: A Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation Including Some Strictures Upon the Theories of Rev. Henry L. Mansel and Mr. Herbert Spencer by Jesse Henry Jones

It was Philip’s plan, who had engaged the seats, and promised himself an evening with Ruth, walking with her, sitting by her in the hall, and enjoying the feeling of protecting that a man always has of a woman in a public place.
— from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Charles Dudley Warner

Why could not she lean over balconies in Swiss chalets, or enshrine her melancholy in a Scotch cottage, with a husband dressed in a black velvet coat with long tails, and thin shoes, a pointed hat and frills?
— from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Saint Sorlin and Perrault had argued directly from the permanence of vigour in lions or trees to the permanence of vigour in man.
— from The Idea of Progress: An Inguiry into Its Origin and Growth by J. B. (John Bagnell) Bury

All were full of projects either of honour or recompence— one was for decreeing him a statue, another proposed him a pension, and a third hailed him the father of the country.
— from A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, Complete Described in a Series of Letters from an English Lady: with General and Incidental Remarks on the French Character and Manners by Charlotte Biggs

The party sent out under Pineda, by Garay, the Governor of Jamaica, to establish a settlement at Panuco, had all been destroyed; and the Governor, ignorant of this fact, now sent another body, under Camarjo, to aid Pineda in his labors.
— from The adventures of Hernan Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico by Francis L. (Francis Lister) Hawks

Cards and music enlivened every evening; and the games she played were those of the fashion of the day, and she always played high, and always won.
— from Rattlin the Reefer by Edward Howard

As he passed his wife by the window, he stopped and put his arm about her questioningly.
— from One of Ours by Willa Cather

He had everything that children need to make life bright and joyous: kind parents, a dear sister, a pretty home, and, best of all, a loving, trusting, sunshiny nature, which made it easy for him to be very happy and loving, and made it easy too for others to love him in return and to feel pleasure in being with him.
— from The Oriel Window by Mrs. Molesworth

The boys, of course, heard of this and the Salvation Army people had another bond between them and the soldiers.
— from The War Romance of the Salvation Army by Grace Livingston Hill

German sovereigns and princes have always been great on uniforms, and Prince Albert undoubtedly suffered severely from this hereditary failing.
— from Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol. 1 (of 4).—1841-1857 by Charles L. (Charles Larcom) Graves

There was little or no infanticide in Babylonia, but the death-rate in these steaming alluvial plains has always been very high.
— from Outspoken Essays by William Ralph Inge