Capt. George—for so he was styled in these parts, although, as we shall see, not a professional navigator—was a combined nautical and mechanical genius, who vigorously urged on Government and the forwarding community the adoption of a scheme of his for enabling loaded vessels to overcome the rapids of the St. Lawrence, and reach the upper ports without breaking bulk.
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

The exciting tales of war are connected with the history of many an English village, and many “little Wilhelmines” and labouring “grandsires” have discovered “something large and round,” traces of these ancient conflicts and “famous victories.”
— from English Villages by P. H. (Peter Hampson) Ditchfield

That fair young creature cannot believe there ever was any such lady and rejects the whole history on the threshold.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

The “will of God,” it appears, had long stood like a rock; the trouble was that mankind had neglected the “holy scriptures”....
— from The Antichrist by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

I seemed to have something like a right to seek counsel here.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

After this he overthrew Hunding and Rorik, seized Leire, and reunited the dismembered realm of Denmark into its original shape.
— from The Danish History, Books I-IX by Grammaticus Saxo

They now, stretching themselves after sitting so long, and replacing their purses and pocketbooks, entered the ballroom.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

V. be irresolute &c. adj.; hang in suspense, keep in suspense; leave "ad referendum"; think twice about, pause; dawdle &c. (inactivity) 683; remain neuter; dillydally, hesitate, boggle, hover, dacker[obs3], hum and haw, demur, not know one's own mind; debate, balance; dally with, coquet with; will and will not, chaser-balancer[obs3]; go halfway, compromise, make a compromise; be thrown off one's balance, stagger like a drunken man; be afraid &c. 860; "let 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would'"
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget

He was continually being carried away by day-dreams, which snapped off short like a rotten thread.
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The box was shut, locked, and returned to the bedroom.
— from The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

These books created such a widespread sensation that they were at once translated into several languages and ran through a great number of editions.
— from A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year. Volume 2 (of 3) by Edwin Emerson

Stir often, and when they are broken all to pieces, and thick as marmalade, take off, sweeten liberally, and rub through a colander.
— from The Dinner Year-Book by Marion Harland

She looked all round the schoolroom, and then said, in a whisper, “Mr. Langdon, we had a girl that stole, in the school, not long ago.
— from The Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes: An Index of the Project Gutenberg Editions by Oliver Wendell Holmes

News of his movements had reached Santiago and a strenuous effort was being made to head him off at San Luis, a railroad town fifteen miles north-west of that city.
— from Our War with Spain for Cuba's Freedom by Trumbull White

And now the gray eyes filled with tears, for these words sounded like a reproach to her.
— from Lover or Friend by Rosa Nouchette Carey

Several lakes are represented to exist in the interior, as shown by maps of Australia,—among them Lake Torrens, Lake Eyre, Lake Gardiner, and Lake Amadeus, apparently covering large areas; but these localities are little more than muddy swamps or salt marshes, which are completely dried up in summer.
— from Under the Southern Cross Or Travels in Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Samoa, and Other Pacific Islands by Maturin Murray Ballou

These tall specimens had slender boles and threw out their slender horizontal branches of great length on all sides, from the roots to the crown, the branches and the bole itself being armed with thorns two to four inches long, hard as iron, black or chocolate-brown, polished and sharp as needles; and to make itself more formidable every long thorn had two smaller thorns growing out of it near the base, so that it was in shape like a round tapering dagger with a crossguard to the handle.
— from Far Away and Long Ago: A History of My Early Life by W. H. (William Henry) Hudson

They had long since lost all resemblance to human beings, and all fought like demons.
— from The Boy Allies under Two Flags by Clair W. (Clair Wallace) Hayes

Already Pinar del Rio was overrun by bands of Cuban irregulars, who destroyed the cane fields of Spanish Loyalists and ravaged the tobacco plantations of the famous Vuelta Abajo.
— from The History of Cuba, vol. 4 by Willis Fletcher Johnson

So entirely was his confidence destroyed, that he suggested to Sir George White that he might have to surrender Ladysmith, and reported that the Colenso position could not be forced.
— from A History of England Eleventh Edition by Charles Oman