“ ‘I am afraid that that is quite impossible,’ said I. He had been watching me eagerly out of his small eyes, and I could see a shadow pass over his face as I spoke.
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

It can’t be helped!” said the count, shrugging his shoulders and speaking playfully of a matter that evidently distressed him.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

Within an hour she had climbed, as it were, that rugged road that led to the stars, and so passed out of Roaring Camp, its sin and shame, forever.
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales With Condensed Novels, Spanish and American Legends, and Earlier Papers by Bret Harte

A dictionary of obsolete and obsolescent words would not only be singularly rich in strong and sweet parts of speech; it would add large possessions to the vocabulary of every competent writer who might not happen to be a competent reader.
— from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

She can speak, for all the world, just like her papa,” she said, as she passed out of the room.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

He found the Boers encamped in a strong and sheltered position on high ground at Laing’s Nek—every Boer behind a rock.
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain

He was already pretty well versed in all the sciences of play; but he had every day occasion to see these arts carried to such a surprising pitch of finesse and dexterity, as discouraged him from building his schemes on that foundation.
— from The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete by T. (Tobias) Smollett

The high spirit and strong passions of Mrs. Rushworth, especially, were made known to him only in their sad result.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

“Hush!” IN AN HOTEL “L ET me tell you, my good man,” began Madame Nashatyrin, the colonel’s lady at No. 47, crimson and spluttering, as she pounced on the hotel-keeper.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

[231] In his enquiry into the present condition of the Gipsies, our author has apparently confined his remarks exclusively to the body in its present wandering state, and such part of it as left the tent subsequently to the commencement of the French war.
— from A History of the Gipsies: with Specimens of the Gipsy Language by Walter Simson

He wrote commentaries on the City of God of St. Augustine, some parts of which were censured by the Doctors of the Louvain, as too bold and too free.
— from The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 6 (of 9) Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private by Thomas Jefferson

As he laid aside the last sheet a sudden pallor overspread his face, and for a moment he leaned back in the fauteuil, quite faint and exhausted.
— from The Youth of the Great Elector by L. (Luise) Mühlbach

General Sheng’s Mohammedans were setting Shansi and Shensi provinces on fire.
— from China Revolutionized by John Stuart Thomson

ASSAY, draw a knife along the belly of the deer, a ceremony of the hunting-field. ASSOIL, solve. ASSURE, secure possession or reversion of.
— from Every Man in His Humor by Ben Jonson

Nell smiled as she poured out the tea—the smile which bravely checks the sigh.
— from Nell, of Shorne Mills; or, One Heart's Burden by Charles Garvice

Seldom has any President been visited with more violent and general assaults than he received, almost every opposition speaker assailing some part of the message.
— from Thirty Years' View (Vol. 2 of 2) or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850 by Thomas Hart Benton