The crowd was gathering now, and an egg came flying and struck her in the eye, and broke and ran down her face.
— from The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories by Mark Twain

The religion of the Bedouins, as the Sire de Joinville reports, amongst other things, enjoined a belief that the soul of him amongst them who died for his prince, went into another body more happy, more beautiful, and more robust than the former; by which means they much more willingly ventured their lives: “In ferrum mens prona viris, animaeque capaces Mortis, et ignavum est rediturae parcere vitae.”
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Then the youth went to the gallows-tree and sat down underneath it, and waited for the evening; and because he felt cold he lit himself a fire.
— from The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

They told me how the Speaker Lenthall do refuse to sign the writs for choice of new members in the place of the excluded; and by that means the writs could not go out to-day.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

I stood there, not daring to move; he was still confronting us, an immense figure in his white nightshirt, crowned with the pink and violet scarf of Indian cashmere in which, since he had begun to suffer from neuralgia, he used to tie up his head, standing like Abraham in the engraving after Benozzo Gozzoli which M. Swann had given me, telling Sarah that she must tear herself away from Isaac.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

He mounted the steps from the garden in haste, eager that some prey should not elude him, and forced his way through the crowd in the hall and past the two jesuits who stood watching the exodus and bowing and shaking hands with the visitors.
— from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

If the breadth of the Euphrates at Bir and Zeugma is no more than 130 yards, (Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. ii.
— 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

He invited me most kindly to come to his box, asked me where I came from, where I was going to, etc., and begged the pleasure of my company at supper for the same evening.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Whirling the one sword round his head, A great wheel in the sun, He sent it splendid through the sky, Flying before the shaft could fly— It smote Earl Harold over the eye, And blood began to run.
— from The Ballad of the White Horse by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

In the evening, and before the morning flames, We praise, we bless, we magnify your names.
— from A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems by Algernon Charles Swinburne

About them, the plain breathed deep sleeping power—and the long road stretched from the west to the east and brought them home.
— from Mr. Achilles by Jennette Lee

063 "'Mutton,' answered she, 'so I don't ask you to eat any, because I know you despise it.' "'No, Madam, no,' cried he: 'I despise nothing that is good of its sort; but I am too proud now to eat of it.
— from Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) Edited with notes and Introductory Account of her life and writings by Hester Lynch Piozzi

So sure as a boat put off for shore, and came within shot, bang! went the great goose-gun; a shower of slugs and buck-shot whistled about the ears of the enemy, and before the boat could reach the shore, Jacob had scuttled up some woody ravine, and left no trace behind.
— from Wolfert's Roost, and Miscellanies by Washington Irving

Crispin, valet to Ergaste, assisted by Lisette, the old man's housekeeper and nurse, personifies first the male and then the female relative from the rural districts so well that Géronte orders them out of his house in disgust, swears that he will not leave them a sous, and sends for a notary to draw his will in favor of Ergaste.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

Captain Owen mentions a curious effect of a drought on the elephants at Benguela on the western coast of Africa:—“A number of these animals had some time since entered the town in a body to possess themselves of the wells, not being able to procure any water in the country.
— from The Rain Cloud or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain in Various Parts of the World by Charles Tomlinson

The time was now drawing to a close that we had purposed to spend in Norway, because we desired to return to England and be present at the regattas which usually take place towards the latter part of July, or commencement of August along the southern coast of England; and therefore it became necessary that we should move with more expedition from place to place than we had hitherto done.
— from A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden 2nd edition by William A. Ross

Every now and then the world is visited by one of these delusive seasons, when “the credit system,” as it is called, expands to full luxuriance, everybody trusts everybody; a bad debt is a thing unheard of; the broad way to certain and sudden wealth lies plain and open; and men are tempted to dash forward boldly, from the facility of borrowing.
— from The Crayon Papers by Washington Irving

If now the relations of England to European affairs bring him to British ground, he is arrived at the very moment when modern history takes new proportions.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 03, January, 1858 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various