I followed his example with Celi, who began to beat a retreat, and said that he only wanted to tell me something, and that he would fight afterwards.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

The bride and bridegroom sat at the head of the table, very prim and shining both of them, wordless, whilst the company raged down the table.
— from The Rainbow by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

She was born a mouse; I then changed her successively, according to her own wish, into a cat, a dog, an ape, a boar, an elephant, and a beautiful girl.
— from Folk-Tales of Bengal by Lal Behari Day

Being there come, I to the settling of some of my money matters in my chests, and evening some accounts, which I was at late, to my extraordinary content, and especially to see all things hit so even and right and with an apparent profit and advantage since my last accounting, but how much I cannot particularly yet come to adjudge.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Their effectual mode of controversy was to attack the infidels with the sword, and their habitation with fire: but the infidels, and some Christian neighbors, presumed to defend their lives and properties; and the flames which bigotry had kindled, consumed the most orthodox and innocent structures.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

So she begged the nightingale to fly to the beechwood, on the peninsula of Jutland, where a mound of stone and twigs had been raised to form the grave, and she begged the nightingale to persuade all the other little birds to build their nests round the place, so that evermore should resound over that grave music and song.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

It was not always so; and then, heavens!
— from Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy by Bernard Shaw

She shuddered and turned her head.
— from The inner house by Walter Besant

Thus tragical surmises floated in the air about Madame di Forno-Populo, that arch plotter whose heart was throbbing indeed with her success, and the hope of successes to come, but who had no tragical alarms in her breast.
— from Sir Tom by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

He was a skillful, not a dishonest, business man, who showed his foresight when he listened to Stanley and took him under his wing.
— from Marse Henry, Complete An Autobiography by Henry Watterson

No light shone at the head of the stairs, but a doorway on the left opened into a dimly lighted anteroom and this, in turn, through a large arch, opened on a large room brilliantly lighted by chandeliers––one in the centre and one near each corner.
— from Nan of Music Mountain by Frank H. (Frank Hamilton) Spearman

As the vessel gradually made her way southward and the hardships became more trying with the colder weather, the feeling aboard among the men who listened to the grumbler became more sinister.
— from The Strife of the Sea by T. Jenkins (Thornton Jenkins) Hains

Thus it was regarded as a [Pg 233] mark of the highest rank for girls to be cross-eyed, and Mayan mothers cut their daughters' hair on their foreheads so as to hang down over the eyes and make them squint.
— from The American Egypt: A Record of Travel in Yucatan by Frederick J. Tabor Frost

When she saw the green Fairy coming up the hill, neither lazy nor lame this time, she put the baby under her stool on which she sat so as to hide it, and turning one leg over the other she put her elbow on her knee, resting her head in her hand as if she were fretting.
— from A Picture-book of Merry Tales by Anonymous

Two old women meet the good soul, and take him 'to the Deity, Tha-Tha-Puli.'
— from Magic and Religion by Andrew Lang

Occasionally he was directed to practise sword exercise with chosen Mussulman swordsmen; and this he was glad enough to do, for it gave him amusement in plenty to teach these Easterns all manner of Western malpractices, tricks of swordsmanship of an obsolete and exploded nature such as would undoubtedly expose them, should they come to blows with an experienced fencer, to speedy defeat.
— from Boris the Bear-Hunter by Frederick Whishaw