So saying, they went their ways, leaving Arriguccio all aghast, as it were he had taken leave of his wits, unknowing in himself whether that which he had done had really been or whether he had dreamed it; wherefore he made no more words thereof, but left his wife in peace.
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

We seem to be led to some hypothesis like this: in dreaming there is mental activity which in the waking state is either functionless or else below the psycho-physical threshold of sensibility; because much that is subconscious in the non-dream state is in the dream state fully conscious.
— from The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. (Walter Yeeling) Evans-Wentz

The marriage was to take place at Christmas, and the house in Gwynne Street was then to be let.
— from A True Friend: A Novel by Adeline Sergeant

The bear leapt towards them; they seized with four hands a pike that had been stuck in the earth, and each pulled it towards him; they gazed at the bear till two rows of tusks glittered from a great red mouth, and a paw armed with claws was already descending on their brows.
— 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

The “Lay of Chrysostom” met with the approbation of the listeners, though the reader said it did not seem to him to agree with what he had heard of Marcela’s reserve and propriety, for Chrysostom complained in it of jealousy, suspicion, and absence, all to the prejudice of the good name and fame of Marcela; to which Ambrosio replied as one who knew well his friend’s most secret thoughts, “Senor, to remove that doubt I should tell you that when the unhappy man wrote this lay he was away from Marcela, from whom he had voluntarily separated himself, to try if absence would act with him as it is wont; and as everything distresses and every fear haunts the banished lover, so imaginary jealousies and suspicions, dreaded as if they were true, tormented Chrysostom; and thus the truth of what report declares of the virtue of Marcela remains unshaken, and with her envy itself should not and cannot find any fault save that of being cruel, somewhat haughty, and very scornful.”
— from The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

f we are acquainted with your most pious devotion and fervent love of the blessed life; and know that by the protecting hand of God you have been converted to the true and Apostolic faith, in hope that even as you reign in your own nation, so you may hereafter reign with Christ.
— from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England by Bede, the Venerable, Saint

All dinner-time the spring sunshine was streaming in at the windows, throwing bright light on the white tablecloth and on Katya’s red hair.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Because, to the native mind, they set out to tell, not how magic originated, but how magic was brought within the reach of one or other of the Boyowan local groups or sub-clans.
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea by Bronislaw Malinowski

"I will tell you," said Cebes; "the argument seems to me to rest where it was, and to be liable to the same objection that we mentioned before.
— from Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates by Plato

And at that precise moment, his tough life starved and hammered out of his hardy body, the exhausted Fish was breathing his last—still in the traces; and Jan, in whom the fires of life, though better laid than those of ninety-nine dogs in a hundred, were burning very low just now—barely flickering, indeed—was concentrating such energies as remained in him upon gnawing feebly at his traces, for the double purpose of extracting some nutriment from them, if that might be, and freeing himself from their control.
— from Jan: A Dog and a Romance by A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

If the doctor has treated a gentleman for a severe wound with a lancet of bronze and has caused the gentleman to die, or has opened an abscess of the eye for a gentleman with the bronze lancet and has caused the loss of the gentleman’s eye, one shall cut off his hands.
— from The Oldest Code of Laws in the World The code of laws promulgated by Hammurabi, King of Babylon, B.C. 2285-2242 by King of Babylonia Hammurabi

The main characters are William Spring, the self-satisfied but good-hearted clerk, who takes his bearings by the woman of thirty-five or forty years ago, and fails to understand the modern girl; Stephen Ruggles, the ambitious lawyer, whom “thirty-five years with an eye kept exclusively on his own interest had tempered,” and who, in his dealings with women, “had always kept the master-hand” until Penelope swept him off his feet; Penelope Hazard, of the “amber-colored hair,” the “lithe, panther-like grace,” and the “incalculable moods”; and Sabina Moll, the heiress with the “blunt little face,” who “had moved along from the cradle protected by a body-guard of guineas” and who had “that indefinable air of sureness and, small as she was, of command ... which accompanies great wealth.”
— from The Book Review Digest, Volume 13, 1917 Thirteenth Annual Cumulation Reviews of 1917 Books by Various

Nabundak ang sakayan dihang mihíyak ang dágat paglabay sa dakung balud, The boat lurched downwards in the wake of the huge wave.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

The word whispered is not quite accurate, for their communication was carried on less by words than by looks and expressive signs; by which, in all such situations, men learn to supply the use of language, and to add mystery to what is in itself sufficiently terrible to the captive.
— from Peveril of the Peak by Walter Scott

The beautiful little troupiale, arrayed in plumage of rich orange and shining black, with delicate and well-shaped form, pours forth a variety of sweet and plaintive notes among the dry forest lands, and has gained from the Portuguese the name of the nightingale of America.
— from The Western World Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North and South America by William Henry Giles Kingston

It struck Richard, for the first time, how wonderfully like Alice that portrait of the beautiful lady was.
— from Checkmate by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Now, Nell, from Mrs. Lorton's talk of him, and his letter, had imagined Lord Wolfer as, if not an old man, one well past middle age; she was, therefore, rather startled when she saw that the gentleman who went straight to the bottom of the table, thus proving himself to be Lord Wolfer, was anything but old; indeed, still young, as age is reckoned nowadays.
— from Nell, of Shorne Mills; or, One Heart's Burden by Charles Garvice