For some years Wilson had been privately at work on a whimsical almanac, for 71 his amusement—a calendar, with a little dab of ostensible philosophy, usually in ironical form, appended to each date; and the Judge thought that these quips and fancies of Wilson’s were neatly turned and cute; so he carried a handful of them around, one day, and read them to some of the chief citizens.
— from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain

How she came back to the wagon and leaned down over him, and felt his breath upon her face, and again covered him up tenderly, and once more resumed her weary journey beside him, praying to God for his recovery.
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales With Condensed Novels, Spanish and American Legends, and Earlier Papers by Bret Harte

But Yorkville was at last decided on, an appellation preservative in part of the name just discarded in 1834 by Toronto.
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

As to Bazin, he went and lay down on a truss of straw; and as he had more imagination than the Swiss, he dreamed that Aramis, having become pope, adorned his head with a cardinal’s hat.
— from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

When he had become tired of looking out onto the empty street he slightly opened the door to the living room so that he could see anyone who entered the flat from where he was and lay down on the couch.
— from The Trial by Franz Kafka

In the very middle of the court [Pg 43] was a table, with a large dish of tarts upon it.
— from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Then the party rested, and there came towards them a whole array of feminine beauty, among which was a lovely damsel of refined form who foretold to Teigue the manner and time of his death, and as a token she gave him ‘a fair cup of emerald hue, in which are inherent many virtues: for [among other things] though it were but water poured into it, incontinently it would be wine’.
— from The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. (Walter Yeeling) Evans-Wentz

"You always were a lucky dog, Oliver," said Francis, with almost a wistful expression on his crafty face.
— from Brooke's Daughter: A Novel by Adeline Sergeant

Each of the Provinces was subdivided into chieftainries, of which there were at least double or treble as many as there are now counties.
— from A Popular History of Ireland : from the Earliest Period to the Emancipation of the Catholics — Volume 1 by Thomas D'Arcy McGee

He walked to the window and looked down on the darkening Green.
— from Left Half Harmon by Ralph Henry Barbour

[Pg 284] into the pyloric region, in the walls of which a large deposit of food material is stored, which gradually passes into the remainder of the alimentary tract and is there digested.
— from The Works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume 2 (of 4) A Treatise on Comparative Embryology: Invertebrata by Francis M. (Francis Maitland) Balfour

Marie was going to a charming green sward, when a little dog, of English blood, came running to her barking.
— from Marie; a story of Russian love by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

The survivors within a long distance of the coastline would have been few.
— from The Wonder Book of Volcanoes and Earthquakes by Edwin J. (Edwin James) Houston

"Breed and blood," as Sir Madoc used to say, "in every line of her portrait, from the bridge of her nose to the heel of her slipper;" for she was a lineal descendant of y Marchog gwyllt o' Cae Hywel , or "the wild Knight of Caehowel," a circumstance he valued more than all her personal merits and goodness of heart.
— from Under the Red Dragon: A Novel by James Grant

almost to the borders of Venezuela. Sieyès, Abbé , a conspicuous figure all through the French Revolution, the Consulate, and the Empire, who thought in his simplicity that the salvation of France and the world at large depended on sound political institutions, in the drafting of which he spent his life; was born in Frèjus, of the bourgeois class; represented Paris in the States General; sat in the Centre in the Legislative Assembly; renounced the Christian religion in favour of the Goddess of Reason; projected a constitution which was rejected; supported Napoleon; fled to Belgium on the return of the Bourbons, and returned to France in 1830, by which time he was politically defunct (1748-1836).
— from The Nuttall Encyclopædia Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge by P. Austin Nuttall

The night side of a planet is that which is turned away from the sun, and only glimmers faintly in the darkness, with a light destitute of warmth, a light in which all objects look strange, and totally different from what they do in the light of the sun.
— from Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in Germany by Georg Brandes

Away on the left was another large division of archers and men-at-arms drawn up in similar order, under the command of the Earl of Northampton; while, glancing backwards towards the windmill-crowned hill, Raymond saw the close ranks of the reserve division, composed of seven hundred men-at-arms and two thousand archers, under the direct command of the King.
— from The Winning of the Golden Spurs by Percy F. (Percy Francis) Westerman