Let us be wise as serpents; it is best to make hay when the sun shines; you see how the bee lieth still all winter, and bestirs her only when she can have profit with pleasure.
— from The Pilgrim's Progress from this world to that which is to come Delivered under the similitude of a dream, by John Bunyan by John Bunyan

Maggie shut up the book at once, with a sense of disgrace, but not being inclined to see after her mother, she compromised the matter by going into a dark corner behind her father's chair, and nursing her doll, toward which she had an occasional fit of fondness in Tom's absence, neglecting its toilet, but lavishing so many warm kisses on it that the waxen cheeks had a wasted, unhealthy appearance.
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

What blessings will He in the blessed life shower upon those for whom, even in this state of misery, He has been willing that His only-begotten Son should endure such sufferings even to death?
— from The City of God, Volume II by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

The stove was on one side, the beams lay slanting on the walls, and it looked as though the hut were just going to fall to pieces.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Nothing could have been more in accordance with Sam Weller’s feelings than the projected exposure of the real propensities and qualities of the red-nosed man; and it being very near the appointed hour of meeting, the father and son took their way at once to Brick Lane, Sam not forgetting to drop his letter into a general post-office as they walked along.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

And over that boundary line she had peeped.
— from Fathers and Sons by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

They quicken their pace when they get into the churchyard, for already they see the field thronged with country folk; the men in clean, white smocks or velveteen or fustian coats, with rough plush waistcoats of many colours, and the women in the beautiful, long scarlet cloak—the usual out-door dress of west-country women in those days, and which often descended in families from mother to daughter—or in new-fashioned stuff shawls, which, if they would but believe it, don't become them half so well.
— from Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes

These boxes looked so majestic that the drivers instinctively took off their hats as they lifted them down.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

These pictures were then used to select the best landing sites for the first manned lunar landings.
— from Rockets, Missiles, and Spacecraft of the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution by Lynne C. Murphy

In the first place, that precious egg, for whose future the Bee labours so indefatigably, becomes a valueless, cumbersome, hateful thing when it belongs to another.
— from The Mason-Bees by Jean-Henri Fabre

But of all the bad luck she had!
— from Sweet Cicely — or Josiah Allen as a Politician by Marietta Holley

“Sorry Merry had to soil his hands on the big loafer,” said Dick Starbright, taking off his hat and tossing back his mane of golden hair.
— from Frank Merriwell's Endurance; or, A Square Shooter by Burt L. Standish

Whereas, if we must pursue these Similes of Light, and Fire, (tho', like other Similes, they do not answer in every Particular) I should rather say, as I hinted in the Beginning of this Preface, that the Fire of Poetry arose in Homer , like Light at the Creation; shining, and burning, it is true, but enshrined in a Cloud: But was afterwards transplanted into Virgil , as into the Sun; according to the Account which Milton gives of Both: [16] Let there be Light, said God; and forthwith Light Ethereal, first of Things, Quintessence pure , Sprang from the Deep; and from her native East To journy thro' the airy Gloom began , Sphear'd in a radiant Cloud: For yet the Sun Was not;
— from The Preface to the Aeneis of Virgil (1718) by Joseph Trapp

{87} CHAPTER III A WALK THROUGH THE TOWER The raised portcullis’ arch they pass, The wicket with its bars of brass, The entrance long and low, Flanked at each turn by loopholes strait Where bowmen might in ambush wait (If force or fraud should burst the gate), To gall an entering foe.
— from The Tower of London by Arthur Poyser

The rioters danced about the blaze like so many frenzied demons.
— from Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia by William Gilmore Simms

The result of this was tension between Li Shih-min and his father and brothers, especially the heir to the throne.
— from A History of China by Wolfram Eberhard

'How that black lace stuff does become all you women!'—said Reggie Brooklyn, throwing a lordly and approving glance at her and his cousin Eleanor, as they all met and paused amid the crowd that was concentrating itself on the sacristy door; and Lucy, instead of laughing at the lad's airs, only reddened a little more brightly and found it somehow sweet—April sweet—that a young man on this spring morning should admire her; though after all, she was hardly more inclined to fall in love with Reggie Brooklyn than with Manisty's dear collie puppy, that had been left behind, wailing, at the villa.
— from Eleanor by Ward, Humphry, Mrs.

I do not know what the Sabbath-keeping shades of the old Puritans made of our presence at such a fete on Sunday; but possibly they had got on so far in a better life as to be less shocked at the decay of piety among us than pleased at the rise of such Christianity as had brought us, like friends and comrades, together with our public enemies in this harmless fun.
— from Literature and Life (Complete) by William Dean Howells