Strike, and strike home!—so shalt thou be satisfied, Kallikrates, and go through life a happy man, because thou hast paid back the wrong, and obeyed the mandate of the past.”
— from She by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard

Mrs. Vandemeyer smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
— from The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

Scarcely a substance herself, she grapples to conflict with abstractions.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

Soon after, she heard steps in the corridor;—they were the light, quick steps of hope; she could scarcely support herself, as they approached, but opening the door of the apartment, she advanced to meet Valancourt, and, in the next moment, sunk in the arms of a stranger.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

He makes them all mad, as well he might; and he that shall but consider that superstition of old, those prodigious effects of it (as in its place I will shew the several furies of our fatidici dii, pythonissas, sibyls, enthusiasts, pseudoprophets, heretics, and schismatics in these our latter ages) shall instantly confess, that all the world again cannot afford so much matter of madness, so many stupendous symptoms, as superstition, heresy, schism have brought out: that this species alone may be paralleled to all the former, has a greater latitude, and more miraculous effects; that it more besots and infatuates men, than any other above named whatsoever, does more harm, works more disquietness to mankind, and has more crucified the souls of mortal men (such hath been the devil's craft) than wars, plagues, sicknesses, dearth, famine, and all the rest.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

The counterpane was of patchwork, full of odd little parti-coloured squares and triangles; and this arm of his tattooed all over with an interminable Cretan labyrinth of a figure, no two parts of which were of one precise shade—owing I suppose to his keeping his arm at sea unmethodically in sun and shade, his shirt sleeves irregularly rolled up at various times—this same arm of his, I say, looked for all the world like a strip of that same patchwork quilt.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

His neat-fitting garments he wilfully shed And sacked himself strangely in checks instead; Denuded his chin, but retained at each ear A whisker that looked like a blasted career.
— from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

Hauen , v. to have, S; habben , S, S2; abbe , S2; haben , S; habe , S; han , S2, C2; haue , C2, PP; haf , S2; aue , 1 pr.
— from A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580 by A. L. (Anthony Lawson) Mayhew

What she had said she had said: and she had said “Divorce.”
— from The Marbeck Inn: A Novel by Harold Brighouse

At length the Pope stopped and said: "How strange it all was, Father Pifferi!"
— from The Eternal City by Caine, Hall, Sir

He would have got a bank-credit, manoeuvred with wind-bills, dashed out upon a large scale, and soon have seen his crop and stock sequestered by the Sheriff; but in those days a man could not ruin himself so easily.
— from The Pirate Andrew Lang Edition by Walter Scott

Instead of considering his brief in this cause merely as a means of obtaining a fee, instead of contenting himself to make some motion of course , which fell to his share, Alfred set himself seriously to study the case, and searched indefatigably for all the precedents that could bear upon it.
— from Tales and Novels — Volume 07 Patronage [part 1] by Maria Edgeworth

here’s somethin’ ,” exclaimed Big Waller, as the point of the stake with which he tore up the earth struck against some hard substance.
— from The Wild Man of the West: A Tale of the Rocky Mountains by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne

Sometimes, after she had stared at her until she was wrought up to the highest pitch of fancifulness, she would ask her questions and find herself ALMOST feeling as if she would presently answer.
— from A Little Princess Being the whole story of Sara Crewe now told for the first time by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Poor Maisie's was immense; her mother's drop had the effect of one of the iron shutters that, in evening walks with Susan Ash, she had seen suddenly, at the touch of a spring, rattle down over shining shop-fronts.
— from What Maisie Knew by Henry James

He had often taken it very seriously, and sometimes he said that he must forego the hope on which his heart was set.
— from The Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells

"Things have been going at sixes and sevens here since you went to get some new kind of blasting powder.
— from Tom Swift and His Big Tunnel; Or, The Hidden City of the Andes by Victor Appleton

With this proposal of shelter and security he sought the wood, in the bosom of which, beneath a sand-stone rock, in a forsaken pit, was poor Margery’s desolate abode.
— from The Broken Font: A Story of the Civil War, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Moyle Sherer