‘Your romance, sir,’ said Ralph, lingering for a moment, ‘is destroyed, I take it.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

SYN: Fitness, liability, susceptibility, suitableness, readiness, quickness, cleverness, proneness, tendency.
— from A Complete Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms or, Synonyms and Words of Opposite Meaning by Samuel Fallows

So she rushed after him, raising both her arms and crying: “Stop!
— from Pan Tadeusz Or, the Last Foray in Lithuania; a Story of Life Among Polish Gentlefolk in the Years 1811 and 1812 by Adam Mickiewicz

However, the essential lines of the social structure remain the same as those in Australia; it is always the organization on a basis of clans.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim

Despotism needs some such relaxation, and without it that hateful rule could not last.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Although she saw herself a widow, it is said she refused either to quit the convent or take the veil, until, not long afterwards, intelligence reached her that Lothario had been killed in a battle in which M. de Lautrec had been recently engaged with the Great Captain Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordova in the kingdom of Naples, whither her too late repentant lover had repaired.
— from The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

The duchess was ready to die with laughter when she saw Sancho's rage and heard his words; but it was no pleasure to Don Quixote to see him in such a sorry trim, with the dingy towel about him, and the hangers-on of the kitchen all round him; so making a low bow to the duke and duchess, as if to ask their permission to speak, he addressed the rout in a dignified tone: "Holloa, gentlemen!
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

If too little valued for this, they seldom obtain a footing at all, and if they do, are almost sure to be overthrown as soon as the head of the government, or any party leader who can muster force for a coup de main , is willing to run some small risk for absolute power.
— from Considerations on Representative Government by John Stuart Mill

Edith and Bob were still standing on top of the straw stack rocking with laughter at the ridiculous figure cut by Ruth, while their uncle stopped the team and hurried up the bank as fast as he could go.
— from Hidden Treasure: The Story of a Chore Boy Who Made the Old Farm Pay by John Thomas Simpson

I do not think any one ever rode from London to Brighton on one of these machines; and, when you come to consider the build and the limitations of them, and then think of the hills on the way, it is quite impossible that any one should so ride.
— from The Brighton Road: The Classic Highway to the South by Charles G. (Charles George) Harper

At length a strange sound rang out on the still hot air.
— from Witch-Doctors by Charles Beadle

The hill side is perforated with numerous caverns, many of which are tenanted by a singularly savage race of beings, who, differing in character from either Moors or Spaniards, appear to be descended from the aborigines of the country.
— from Excursions in the mountains of Ronda and Granada, with characteristic sketches of the inhabitants of southern Spain, vol. 1/2 by C. Rochfort‏ (Charles Rochfort) Scott

A few miles and the village itself came in sight, with a great church, as at Wakkerstroom, standing up like some simple rural cathedral over the little houses.
— from The African Colony: Studies in the Reconstruction by John Buchan

He took the younger man’s arm and dragged him on, skirting slowly round the “dead finish” till at length, late in the afternoon, it gave place to boree.
— from The Moving Finger by Mary Gaunt

Suddenly Sophia stopped reading and remarked: "If I remember right, Professor Dibbs has stated the argument more correctly in his little book on Currency .
— from Tourmalin's Time Cheques by F. Anstey