When next told, it is that he ‘heard a noise resembling the fluttering of a dove,’ and on looking to the window saw ‘an unhappy female whom he had seduced.’
— from Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway

don't you see that accursed thing leering at us?" Dorian Gray glanced at the picture, and suddenly an uncontrollable feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him.
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The use of such a title, even as it appears under the reign of Constantine, is a strange and unconnected fact, which can scarcely be admitted on the joint authority of Imperial medals and contemporary writers.
— 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

Note 50 ( return ) [ Cicero (de Officiis, iii. 19) may state an ideal case, but St. Am brose (de Officiis, iii. 2,) appeals to the practice of his own times, which he understood as a lawyer and a magistrate, (Schulting ad Ulpian, Fragment.
— 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

When we form our judgments of persons, merely from the tendency of their characters to our own benefit, or to that of our friends, we find so many contradictions to our sentiments in society and conversation, and such an uncertainty from the incessant changes of our situation, that we seek some other standard of merit and demerit, which may not admit of so great variation.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

As I walked homeward, in hope of hearing from my mistress as usual by means of Miss Williams, I was surprised with the waving of a handkerchief from the window of a coach-and-six that passed by me at full speed: and upon further observation, I saw a servant on horseback riding after it, who, I knew by his livery, belonged to the squire.
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

We were all sorry for Carlo, the old familiar friend who had snapped at us for so many years; and the mysterious mode of his death made us very uncomfortable.
— from Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

On considering the strange and unaccountable fancies and contrivances of artificial reason, I have somewhere called this earth the Bedlam of our system.
— from The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) by Edmund Burke

To this demand there is no answer—except that, having left, in the eager haste and terror of a mother’s heart, the privacy of her own boudoir , she has neglected to enthral her tiny feet in their slippers, and utterly forgotten to throw over her Venetian shoulders that drapery which is their due.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 by Edgar Allan Poe

The Family, sulky and unwilling, faced with a choice of drastically reduced income or outright confiscation and preferring a portion of a loaf to none.
— from The Lani People by Jesse F. (Jesse Franklin) Bone

Mr. Belcher occupied always two seats, and usually four.
— from Sevenoaks: A Story of Today by J. G. (Josiah Gilbert) Holland

Use six strong forked-topped poles planted in an irregular square as uprights ( Fig. 28 ), and across these lay slender poles, fitting the ends well into the forked tops of the uprights ( Fig. 28 ).
— from On the Trail: An Outdoor Book for Girls by Lina Beard

Mark Elwood, much chagrined and discomposed at the discovery of such an untoward first reception of his brother, now ushered him into the brilliantly-lighted hall, where the two stood in such singular contrast that no stranger would have ever taken them for brothers,—Mark being, as we have before described him, a good-sized, and, in the main, a good-looking man; while the other, whom we have introduced as Arthur Elwood, was of a diminutive size, with commonplace features, and a severe, forbidding countenance, made so, perhaps, by intense application to business, together with the unfavorable effect caused by a blemished and sightless eye.
— from Gaut Gurley; Or, the Trappers of Umbagog: A Tale of Border Life by Daniel P. (Daniel Pierce) Thompson

“The Spanish army, under Ferdinand and Isabella, is besieging Granada.
— from In Our Convent Days by Agnes Repplier

Came now, like a bolt from the clear sky or the sudden clang of a fire-alarm bell, the threat of violation of this Eveless Eden by the intrusion of a pair of strange and unknown females.
— from The Ramblin' Kid by Earl Wayland Bowman

Into these huddled masses now crept a subtle and unseen foe, striking down his victims by hundreds and by thousands.
— from Stories from Thucydides by Thucydides

His head shook as though loosened from his neck, and his knees gave way so that he already saw the ground rising up toward him, when suddenly an unknown face emerged directly in front of him and attracted his attention, and gave him back his self-control.
— from Men in War by Andreas Latzko