So the tailor took his needle, and with a few large stitches put some of the planks together; and he sat down upon these, and sailed about and gathered up all pieces of the boat; and then tacked them together so quickly that the boat was soon ready, and they then reached the ship and got home safe.
— from Grimms' Fairy Tales by Wilhelm Grimm

Apropos of this hotel you will be interested to know the manager who runs the house has just come home from the Waldorf and from London where he has been learning how to do—people.
— from Letters from China and Japan by Harriet Alice Chipman Dewey

She was struck, quite struck, when, on returning from her walk and going into the East room again, the first thing which caught her eye was a fire lighted and burning.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

he said with a forced laugh.
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales With Condensed Novels, Spanish and American Legends, and Earlier Papers by Bret Harte

Old Barney was a fine looking old man, of a brownish complexion, who was quite portly, and wore a dignified aspect for a slave.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

If a controversy arise betwixt a prince and some of the people, in a matter where the law is silent, or doubtful, and the thing be of great consequence, I should think the proper umpire, in such a case, should be the body of the people: for in cases where the prince hath a trust reposed in him, and is dispensed from the common ordinary rules of the law; there, if any men find themselves aggrieved, and think the prince acts contrary to, or beyond that trust, who so proper to judge as the body of the people, (who, at first, lodged that trust in him) how far they meant it should extend?
— from Second Treatise of Government by John Locke

Its contents were as follows: "Let all those who were soldiers under our father, and who, when they overran Syria and Phoenicia, and laid waste Judea, took the Jews captives, and made them slaves, and brought them into our cities, and into this country, and then sold them; as also all those that were in my kingdom before them, and if there be any that have been lately brought thither,—be made free by those that possess them; and let them accept of [a hundred and] twenty drachmas for every slave.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

Before long they came to a cat, sitting on the path, with a face like three rainy days!
— from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm by Wilhelm Grimm

In crossing the pavement to the fly she looked back; and there was a frightened light in her eyes.
— from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

May Nuttall was a fine lady, finely appareled.
— from The Man Who Knew by Edgar Wallace

And then, before the Interpreter could speak, she exclaimed, with a forced laugh of embarrassment, "How silly of me to talk like this—you will think that I am going insane."
— from Helen of the Old House by Harold Bell Wright

Ho for Cavaliers!" He never fought for the King's cause—though he fought a duel in Paris with a French lord who took Charles's name in vain, and killed his man too.
— from The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened by Kenelm Digby

The house was an old-fashioned, wide-spread, oak-beamed, brick building, with a fine lime-lined avenue leading up to it.
— from The Strand Magazine, Vol. 05, Issue 28, April 1893 An Illustrated Monthly by Various

He was, indeed, one of the most keen-witted of his great nation, though, like many other children of the Fatherland, he had on the surface of his worldly wisdom a fine layer of Teutonic sentimentality.
— from The Friends of Voltaire by Evelyn Beatrice Hall

"I feel like a pot of boiling tar with a fire lighted under me," growled the veteran angrily; "consarn these rocks, I'd give a whole lot for a bit of that shade we left behind us.
— from The Boy Aviators in Africa; Or, an Aerial Ivory Trail by John Henry Goldfrap

I leaned on the rail by the gangway and looked along the wooden wharf to where a few lights twinkled in the distance.
— from Aliens by William McFee

Abijah, as we said, being a particularly high Calvinist, was recreating himself by carrying on a discussion with a fat, little, turnipy brother of the Methodist persuasion.
— from Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp by Harriet Beecher Stowe

I saw my successor, William Allen, fairly launched.
— from The Royal Institution: Its Founder and First Professors by Bence Jones

On the walls of the School were hung a map of the World on Mercator's projection and a map of Africa; a large scroll with elementary illustrations of Natural History—typical beasts, birds, reptiles, fish and insects, of sizes as disproportionate as the inhabitants of a Noah's Ark. There were also placards with arithmetical figures, letters of the alphabet and single syllable combinations: M a, ma; b a, ba; l e, le , etc.
— from The Man Who Did the Right Thing: A Romance by Harry Johnston