Satiated with empty pomp, and unmindful, perhaps, of her obligations to Pulcheria, she ambitiously aspired to the government of the Eastern empire; the palace was distracted by female discord; but the victory was at last decided, by the superior ascendant of the sister of Theodosius.
— 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

Accordingly, they all proceeded, according to their various appetites, to take their several pleasures, some wandering about the garden, whose beauties were not such as might lightly tire, and other some betaking themselves towards the mills which wrought therewithout, whilst the rest fared some hither and some thither, until the hour of supper, which being come, they all foregathered, as of their wont, anigh the fair fountain and there supped with exceeding pleasance and well served.
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

Again the matron springs with eager pace, And spreads her lord's return from place to place.
— from The Odyssey by Homer

He neither smoked nor talked, but bending his head first to one side and then to the other watched the smokers with evident pleasure and listened to the conversation of his two neighbors, whom he egged on against each other.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

On whom could the sweet soft voice, the light step, the delicate hand, the quiet, cheerful, noiseless discharge of those thousand little offices of kindness and relief which we feel so deeply when we are ill, and forget so lightly when we are well—on whom could they make so deep an impression as on a young heart stored with every pure and true affection that women cherish; almost a stranger to the endearments and devotion of its own sex, save as it learnt them from itself; and rendered, by calamity and suffering, keenly susceptible of the sympathy so long unknown and so long sought in vain?
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

‘He contemplated the wretched animal, that moved no more than an effigy: it sat with ears pricked and its sharp muzzle pointed into the doorway, and suddenly snapped at a fly like a piece of mechanism.
— from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

It is the painless state which Epicurus prized as the highest good and as the state of the gods; for we are for the moment set free from the miserable striving of the will; we keep the Sabbath of the penal servitude of willing; the wheel of Ixion stands still.
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

Dr. Semple was elected president; and Gwin, Sutter, Halleck, Butler King, Sherwood, Gilbert, Shannon, and others, were members.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

Two or three boat-loads were sent off, until, at last, all were thrown down, and the boats nearly loaded again; when we were delayed by a dozen or twenty hides which had lodged in the recesses of the hill, and which we could not reach by any missiles, as the general line of the side was exactly perpendicular, and these places were caved in, and could not be seen or reached from the top.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

to smite with evil, punish, Ac. 23.3.
— from A Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament by William Greenfield

She was extremely pleasant, and insisted upon showing them a picture which was "one of Mr. Drayton's favourites."
— from The White Shield by Myrtle Reed

But however this immaterial matter may be, I am glad to remember that I thoroughly liked Tom Sawyer, and said so with every possible amplification.
— from My Mark Twain (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance) by William Dean Howells

Thus some of their sovereigns, we are told, after the fatigues of the tournament, were wont to recreate their spirits with "elegant poetry, and florid discourses of amorous and knightly history."
— from The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic — Volume 1 by William Hickling Prescott

A dream hovered over her dark eyes, which had remained the eyes of a creole, and it seemed as if she had a difficulty in seeing through the dream; but the mouth, old as it now was, had a natural smile, with ecstasy playing around it.
— from Old People and the Things That Pass by Louis Couperus

And fill'd with tears I saw those two bright eyes, Which oft have turn'd the sun with envy pale; And from those lips I heard—oh! such a tale, As might awake brute Nature's sympathies!
— from The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch by Francesco Petrarca

From this excursion they all returned after dark, in terror of their lives lest the donkeys slip down the sheer precipices; but the scenery was “exquisite, past all beauty.”
— from The Brownings, Their Life and Art by Lilian Whiting

When Marsh declared passionately that he did not wish to see Ireland made into a place like Lancashire, he was only stating something that many Englishmen said with equal passion about the unindustrialised parts of England.
— from Changing Winds A Novel by St. John G. (St. John Greer) Ervine