“Allow me to disbelieve that,” Stepan Arkadyevitch replied gently.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

I wonder how he came here,” said a retired gentleman, who had been a tallow-chandler on Holborn Hill.
— from Sybil, Or, The Two Nations by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield

Clearly this double-headed fetish at the gateway of the negro villages in Surinam bears a close resemblance to the double-headed images of Janus which, grasping a stick in one hand and a key in the other, stood sentinel at Roman gates and doorways; and we can hardly doubt that in both cases the heads facing two ways are to be similarly explained as expressive of the vigilance of the guardian god, who kept his eye on spiritual foes behind and before, and stood ready to bludgeon them on the spot.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

We were in the dark, except for our lantern, which showed a roadway grown up with weeds.
— from Rizal's own story of his life by José Rizal

She was dreamy, and when she was on these pilgrimages she quite forgot her family, and only when she got home again suddenly made the joyful discovery that she had a husband and daughter, and then would say, smiling and radiant: “God has sent me blessings!” What went on in the village worried her and seemed to her revolting.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

‘Oh,’ returned Tom, with contemptuous patronage, ‘she’s a regular girl.
— from Hard Times by Charles Dickens

Mathai (Shimon), Adam Rudolf George Christoph, was born at Fürth, Germany in 1715, and was instructed in the Talmud by his father Jaidel, a teacher in the Beth-hamedrash there.
— from Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ by Aaron Bernstein

If he should go to the coast itself, he will have revealed to him a wondrous kaleidoscope,—alternate scenes of sweet, pathetic gentleness, and stern and rugged grandeur, all full of engrossing charm.
— from Romantic Ireland; volume 2/2 by Blanche McManus

The descendants of an old United States Army infantry platoon, with a fully developed religion centered on a slain and resurrected god—Normally, it would take thousands of years for a slain-god religion to develop, and then only from the field-fertility magic of primitive agriculturists.
— from The Return by John Joseph McGuire

Still, as Rosie Gruber sensibly observed: "There wasn't no use in worrying.
— from Six Girls and Bob: A Story of Patty-Pans and Green Fields by Marion Ames Taggart

I have had six months more of imprisonment, but humanity has been in the prison with us all the time, and now when I go out I shall always remember great kindnesses that I have received here from almost everybody, and on the day of my release I shall give many thanks to many people, and ask to be remembered by them in turn."
— from Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions Volume 2 by Frank Harris

Thursday evenings were set apart for prayer meetings in various places, and on the Sabbath the whole body assembled at the main hall to partake of the sacrament, and receive general instructions.
— from Life of Heber C. Kimball, an Apostle The Father and Founder of the British Mission by Orson F. (Orson Ferguson) Whitney

I did so and reassured Garrick while the cab started on a blind cruise around the block.
— from Guy Garrick by Arthur B. (Arthur Benjamin) Reeve

We knocked German Kaiserism out of the saddle, and Russia gave German Socialism a leg up.
— from The New Germany by George Young

Guinea-worms and tape-worms, fever and cholera, small-pox and dysentery, tetse-fly and sunstroke—all these have been distinguished by their absence: but as a counterbalance, so have Colonel Phayre’s green fields and gushing springs at Zulla, his perennial water between Sooro and Rayray Guddy, and his emporium of commerce at Senafe, which turned out a village of six mud-huts.
— from The March to Magdala by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

Gray sky and violet dying sun against blue sky and radiant golden sun.
— from Never Come Midnight by H. L. (Horace Leonard) Gold

Let the inexperienced collector be warned that this is, perhaps, the very worst wood that can be employed for the purpose; a strong effluvia, or sometimes a resinous gum, exudes from the wood of the cedar, which is apt to settle in blotches on the wings of the specimens, especially of the more delicate Lepidóptera, and entirely discharges the colour.
— from The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 19, No. 549 (Supplementary number) by Various