"The ghost glided on more swiftly" "He heard somebody galloping after him" "Out on the landing stepped Virginia" "Chained to it was a gaunt skeleton" "By the side of the hearse and the coaches walked the servants with lighted torches" "The moon came out from behind a cloud" I When Mr. Hiram B. Otis, the American Minister, bought Canterville Chase, every one told him he was doing a very foolish thing, as there was no doubt at all that the place was haunted.
— from The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde

And though she rue not that to life she brought The whale and elephant, who deep shall read Will justify her wisdom in his thought; For when the powers of intellect are wed To strength and evil will, with them made one, The race of man is helpless left indeed.
— from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri

"Say, you, Boss Simpson," he began suddenly, as the last shower of sparks went up into the air, "you don't—smell nothing, do you—nothing pertickler, I mean?"
— from The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood

214 A somewhat analogous practice is the ordeal by diving, described by the late Sir W. E. Maxwell as “a method of deciding a disputed point which was occasionally resorted to in Perak in former times.
— from Malay Magic Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula by Walter William Skeat

And when the queen saw the lion she cried and fled, and prayed her knights to rescue her.
— from Le Morte d'Arthur: Volume 1 by Malory, Thomas, Sir

After an experiment of three centuries, your gaols being full, and your treadmills losing something of their virtue, you have given us a substitute for the monasteries.”
— from Sybil, Or, The Two Nations by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield

The leading spirit of these suicides was Eulogius, [14] a priest who belonged to an old family of Cordova, always noted for its Christian zeal.
— from The Moors in Spain by Stanley Lane-Poole

Still he has a good appetite, and one day last summer, besides his meals, he ate: One pocketful green apples (pippins), One pocketful green apples (Ben Davis), Three large steins rhubarb, One hatful green gooseberries, Two ginger cookies, without holes, Three ginger cookies, with holes, One adult cucumber, with salt on same, One glass new milk, Two uncooked hen eggs, on half-shell.
— from Bill Nye's Chestnuts Old and New by Bill Nye

I wonder if those over whom the Lord says, "Let them alone," are ever conscious at the time that the order has gone forth, and that they are to feel their consciences pressing home this matter no more?
— from Four Girls at Chautauqua by Pansy

The wind stopped screaming around the little ship as Smitty cut its gravitors back in, halting its helpless plunge.
— from The Machine That Floats by Joe Gibson

Indeed, the infant is often ushered into the world amid the din and clamour of music and song which serve to drown the mother's cries of pain, or to express the joy of the family or the community at the successful arrival of the little stranger.
— from The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day by Alexander Francis Chamberlain

The ship's crew had kindled a fire on the long strand near the boats, and we heard their noise getting louder and louder above the sound of the sea plashing upon it—evidently through their making free with liquor.
— from The Green Hand: Adventures of a Naval Lieutenant by George Cupples

Thence to White Hall again, and thence away, and took up my wife at Unthanke's, and left her at the 'Change, and so I to Bennet's to take up a bill for the last silk I had for my vest and coat, which I owe them for, and so to the Excise Office, and there did a little business, and so to Temple Bar and staid at my bookseller's till my wife calls me, and so home, where I am saluted with the news of Hogg's bringing a rich Canary prize to Hull:
— from Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete 1667 N.S. by Samuel Pepys

Blair says that every needless part of a sentence "interrupts the description and clogs the image;" and again, that "long sentences fatigue the reader's attention."
— from The Philosophy of Style by Herbert Spencer

The hatefulness of usury is brought into strong relief in Molière’s celebrated scene in The Miser (Act ii., Sc. i.): La Flèche : Suppose that the lender sees all the securities, and that the borrower be of age and of a family of large property, substantial, secure, clear and free from any incumbrances, there will then be drawn up a regular bond before a notary, as honest a man as may be found, who to this effect shall be chosen by the lender, to whom it is of particular importance that the bond be properly drawn up.
— from Elements of Morals With Special Application of the Moral Law to the Duties of the Individual and of Society and the State by Paul Janet

The latter sent the following message to the 77 grand-master: “Berenkish and his party were heretofore your declared enemies; I, on the other hand, was bound to you by true attachment.
— from The History of the Assassins, Derived from Oriental Sources by Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph, Freiherr von