It was altogether very extraordinary; flattering, but painful.
— from Persuasion by Jane Austen

It was a very extraordinary thing!
— from Emma by Jane Austen

But these ideas (which must be all of them innate, if anything as a duty be so) are so far from being innate, that it is not every studious or thinking man, much less every one that is born, in whom they are to be found clear and distinct; and that one of them, which of all others seems most likely to be innate, is not so, (I mean the idea of God,) I think, in the next chapter, will appear very evident to any considering man. 13.
— from An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2 by John Locke

The old King who in pleading with his daughters feels so intensely his own humiliation and their horrible ingratitude, and who yet, at fourscore and upward, constrains himself to practise a self-control and patience so many years disused; who out of old affection for his Fool, and in repentance for his injustice to the Fool's beloved mistress, tolerates incessant and cutting reminders of his own folly and wrong; in whom the rage of the storm awakes a [285] power and a poetic grandeur surpassing even that of Othello's anguish; who comes in his affliction to think of others first, and to seek, in tender solicitude for his poor boy, the shelter he scorns for his own bare head; who learns to feel and to pray for the miserable and houseless poor, to discern the falseness of flattery and the brutality of authority, and to pierce below the differences of rank and raiment to the common humanity beneath; whose sight is so purged by scalding tears that it sees at last how power and place and all things in the world are vanity except love; who tastes in his last hours the extremes both of love's rapture and of its agony, but could never, if he lived on or lived again, care a jot for aught beside—there is no figure, surely, in the world of poetry at once so grand, so pathetic, and so beautiful as his.
— from Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. (Andrew Cecil) Bradley

CHAPTER FOUR The Adventure of the Radical Candidate You may picture me driving that 40 h.p. car for all she was worth over the crisp moor roads on that shining May morning; glancing back at first over my shoulder, and looking anxiously to the next turning; then driving with a vague eye, just wide enough awake to keep on the highway.
— from The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

Carried away by her new ideas, Vera Semyonovna proved that the work that her brother was so engrossed in was conventional, that it was a vain effort of conservative minds to preserve what had already served its turn and was vanishing from the scene of action.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

But we are very easily trained to be content with a minimum of meaning, and to fail to note how restricted is our perception of the relations which confer significance.
— from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey

in the leaveler parts of the plain and river bottoms which are very extensive there is no timber except a scant proportion of cottonwood neat the river.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

When the first arrangements were completed, and we must say, to the honor of vagabond discipline, that Clopin’s orders were executed in silence, and with admirable precision, the worthy chief of the band, mounted on the parapet of the church square, and raised his hoarse and surly voice, turning towards Notre-Dame, and brandishing his torch whose light, tossed by the wind, and veiled every moment by its own smoke, made the reddish façade of the church appear and disappear before the eye.
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

Take, for instance, the description of the Iron Age ("Works and Days", 182 ff.) with its catalogue of wrongdoings and violence ever increasing until Aidos and Nemesis are forced to leave mankind who thenceforward shall have 'no remedy against evil'.
— from Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica by Hesiod

Cavalletto replied with a very emphatic finger-negative.
— from Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

It was a popularity party, but as she catered for patronage that needed notes from the élite, not from the vulgar, it was a very exclusive affair.
— from Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, No. 5, May 1849 by Various

The statements of the early Spanish writers are very explicit on this point, as the following quotations from their works will show.
— from An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs by Sylvanus Griswold Morley

Two chiefs, Mexkemauastan and Eh-Siss (the sun), were the leading men; the latter was a good old man, with a very expressive countenance.
— from Maximilian, Prince of Wied's, Travels in the Interior of North America, 1832-1834, part 2 by Wied, Maximilian, Prinz von

Legally an arrangement with a villain either ought not to bind the lord or else ought to destroy his power.
— from Villainage in England: Essays in English Mediaeval History by Paul Vinogradoff

Already there lay over her the shadow of the wrong done to the bright young English girl whose pretty ways and violet eyes
— from In Silk Attire: A Novel by William Black

The market square was almost vacated, except the baskets of provisions, &c., which were for sale; and yet many have since informed me, that when they returned to the market they found all as they had left it, nothing was lost.
— from The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, 1835 by Various

It was a very early criticism on the pair, that Voltaire wrote on more subjects, but that Rousseau was the more profound.
— from Rousseau (Volume 1 and 2) by John Morley

In years to come, he reflected gloomily, when the great building estate which was to have been developed more than a year ago was really opened up, there might be an opportunity where he was, a very excellent opportunity, too, for a young doctor of ability.
— from The Illustrious Prince by E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim