It was an unusually mild winter, with so little snow that Anne and Diana could go to school nearly every day by way of the Birch Path.
— from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

We had, to be sure, nearly every day a quarrel in which, yielding me publicly the palm of victory, he, in some manner, contrived to make me feel that it was he who had deserved it; yet a sense of pride on my part, and a veritable dignity on his own, kept us always upon what are called “speaking terms,” while there were many points of strong congeniality in our tempers, operating to awake me in a sentiment which our position alone, perhaps, prevented from ripening into friendship.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 by Edgar Allan Poe

I love a strong and manly familiarity and conversation: a friendship that pleases itself in the sharpness and vigour of its communication, like love in biting and scratching: it is not vigorous and generous enough, if it be not quarrelsome, if it be civilised and artificial, if it treads nicely and fears the shock: “Neque enim disputari sine reprehensione potest.”
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

But necessarily a number of persons were still alive in Stratford who, in the days of their youth, had seen Shakespeare nearly every day in the last five years of his life, and they would have been able to tell that inquirer some first-hand things about him if he had in those last days been a celebrity and therefore a person of interest to the villagers.
— from What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain

‘They (the damned) suffer ineffable torments; but it was permitted to relieve or console them with a certain degree of hope, so that they should not entirely despair.
— from Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway

On The Late Miss Burnet Of Monboddo Life ne'er exulted in so rich a prize, As Burnet, lovely from her native skies; Nor envious death so triumph'd in a blow, As that which laid th' accomplish'd Burnet low.
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns

ANT: Chary, sparing, niggardly, economical, dainty, close, retentive.
— from A Complete Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms or, Synonyms and Words of Opposite Meaning by Samuel Fallows

One gentleman, meandering in the Square, narrowly evaded dismemberment, and was fortunate in getting off with a slight bruise.
— from The Siege of Kimberley Its Humorous and Social Side; Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902); Eighteen Weeks in Eighteen Chapters by T. Phelan

The others kept their station: and this task, Whereon thou lookst, began with such delight, That they surcease not ever, day nor night, Their circling.
— from Divine Comedy, Cary's Translation, Paradise by Dante Alighieri

The insolence of Ishmael irritated the temper of Sarah; she procured his expulsion, and that of his mother from her household; retiring in disgrace, she narrowly escaped destruction in the wilderness, and afterward took up a casual residence in the vicinity.
— from Female Scripture Biography, Volume I by F. A. (Francis Augustus) Cox

She told me that she had grown up in Riverville and had walked up and down that street nearly every day of her life, and that she never knew till last year that those respectable fronts of houses opened on to interiors and into back yards that were a disgrace to any civilization.
— from Mary Ware's Promised Land by Annie F. (Annie Fellows) Johnston

The peril which she had so narrowly escaped decided the missionary to be severely just with his servant.
— from The Lost Trail by Edward Sylvester Ellis

At last, however, I crept to a place from which I could look out between two buildings, keeping in the deep shade myself, and I can see now every detail of what met my eyes as plainly as if it was all before me at this minute.
— from The Life Story of a Black Bear by Harry Perry Robinson

After the great fire of 1577, when the conflagration seemed “like Etna in eruption,” the whole structure narrowly escaped demolition to make place for a new building of Palladian architecture.
— from Venice and Its Story by Thomas Okey