This will explain pretty clearly, I flatter myself, the game I was playing; and, though some rigid moralist may object to its propriety, I say that anything is fair in love, and that men so poor as myself can’t afford to be squeamish about their means of getting on in life.
— from Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

That popular writer, who derives his reputation from the Decameron, a hundred novels of pleasantry and love, may aspire to the more serious praise of restoring in Italy the study of the Greek language.
— 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

It is, indeed, the most sacred place in Benares, the very Holy of Holies, in the estimation of the people.
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain

But it must be acknowledged that the most successful portrait was incontestably that of Master Jup.
— from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

As I have fully treated this subject in another work, I will here give only a few details on one alone of the most striking peculiarities of the flowers of orchids, namely, their pollinia.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

Mingled with these groups, were three or four match-making mammas, appearing to be wholly absorbed by the conversation in which they were taking part, but failing not from time to time to cast an anxious sidelong glance upon their daughters, who, remembering the maternal injunction to make the best use of their youth, had already commenced incipient flirtations in the mislaying scarves, putting on gloves, setting down cups, and so forth; slight matters apparently, but which may be turned to surprisingly good account by expert practitioners.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

The patient and sure-foot mule of the Alps may be trusted in the most slippery paths.
— 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

That moment Samuel Parris came up followed by the three sailors his courage had rescued.
— from Silent Struggles by Ann S. (Ann Sophia) Stephens

It was even already a little the effect of this communion that Mrs. Stringham perceptibly faltered in her retort to Mrs. Lowder's joke.
— from The Wings of the Dove, Volume II by Henry James

What is the most striking part of this canto?
— from Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature by Ontario. Department of Education

The Mother Superior passed her hand slowly across the brow, white and smooth like satin.
— from Sister Dolorosa, and Posthumous Fame by James Lane Allen

As Nero was chewing away, the man slowly put out his hand toward the lion's paw, which was out between the bars.
— from Nero, the Circus Lion: His Many Adventures by Richard Barnum

“By the way,” continued Hamish casually, “I picked up a little present for him when I was over in Millport this morning, something practical and yet fancy.”
— from Dig Here! by Gladys Allen

This lion's whelp, himself a lion with a chimera's head, this man so positive where facts were concerned, was all romance, all poetry, all enthusiasm in imagination and language: one recognized the lover of Sophie [369] , exalted in sentiment, capable of sacrifice.
— from The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England, Volume 1 (of 6) Mémoires d'outre-tombe, volume 1 by Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de