A window was raised, and a clear voice demanded “What name?”
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The two elder brothers would have pulled it down, in order to see how the poor ants in their fright would run about and carry off their eggs.
— from Grimms' Fairy Tales by Wilhelm Grimm

The wit of cheats, the courage of a w***e, Are what ten thousand envy and adore; All, all look up, with reverential awe, At crimes that ’scape, or triumph o’er the law; While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry— “Nothing is sacred now but villainy.”
— from An Essay on Man; Moral Essays and Satires by Alexander Pope

VI Arrived there, they passed in forth right; For still to all the gates stood open wide: Yet charge of them was to a Porter hight Cald Malvenù, ° who entrance none denide: 50 Thence to the hall, which was on every side With rich array and costly arras dight: Infinite sorts of people did abide There waiting long, to win the wished sight Of her that was the Lady of that Pallace bright.
— from Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I by Edmund Spenser

Accordingly, a Dog having begun to drink while running along, a Crocodile thus addressed him: “Lap as leisurely as you like; drink on; come nearer, and don’t be afraid,” said he.
— from The Fables of Phædrus Literally translated into English prose with notes by Phaedrus

It is only a disinterested regard for others, and especially for what comes after them, for the idea of posterity, of their country, or of mankind, whether grounded on sympathy or on a conscientious feeling, which ever directs the minds and purposes of classes or bodies of men towards distant or unobvious interests; and it can not be maintained that any form of government would be rational which required as a condition that these exalted principles of action should be the guiding and master motives in the conduct of average human beings.
— from Considerations on Representative Government by John Stuart Mill

Such at least were the recent limits of the black Calmucks, who remained about a century under the protection of Russia; and who have since returned to their native seats on the frontiers of the Chinese empire.
— 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

The writer well remembers an aged colored woman, who was employed as a washerwoman in her father’s family.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

‘How do you do, sir?’ said Mr. Lillyvick—rather sharply; for he had not known what Nicholas was, on the previous night, and it was rather an aggravating circumstance if a tax collector had been too polite to a teacher.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

To this period must be referred his intimacy with Racine, also a "Champenois," and a brother poet—an intimacy which was due to the good offices of Molière, whom La Fontaine had known, and, consequently admired and loved, when residing with Fouquet.
— from The Fables of La Fontaine Translated into English Verse by Walter Thornbury and Illustrated by Gustave Doré by Jean de La Fontaine

And right through the horse's body the pole of the car had passed, To a halter across his forehead was the pole with a wedge made fast: A red woman sat in the chariot, bright red were her eyebrows twain A crimson cloak was round her: the folds of it touched the plain: Two poles were behind her chariot: between them her mantle flowed; And close by the side of that woman a mighty giant strode; On his back was a staff of hazel, two-forked, and the garb he wore Was red, and a cow he goaded, that shambled on before.
— from Heroic Romances of Ireland, Translated into English Prose and Verse — Complete by Arthur Herbert Leahy

So sacred was the tree that no one would gather fuel or cut timber near it; and to curse, scold or quarrel in its neighbourhood was regarded as a crying sin which would be supernaturally punished on the spot.
— from Lion and Dragon in Northern China by Johnston, Reginald Fleming, Sir

He was resolved at any cost to rescue that girl.
— from Tom Slade : Boy Scout of the Moving Pictures by Percy Keese Fitzhugh

And in the 'Life of Themistocles,' Plutarch informs his readers that sneezing by the General on the eve of a battle was regarded as a certain sign of conquest.
— from Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce by E. R. Billings

We have before remarked that neither in size nor form are the wild roots at all comparable with the cultivated ones.
— from Science and Practice in Farm Cultivation by James Buckman

I would recommend, as a copious and judicious selection of Scottish tunes , "The Scottish Minstrel," by R.A. Smith (Purdie, Edinburgh).
— from Reminiscences of Scottish Life & Character by Edward Bannerman Ramsay

They prove conclusively that the Imperial Family believed that it was only abdicating its political power, whilst retaining all ancient ceremonial rights and titles.
— from The Fight for the Republic in China by B. L. (Bertram Lenox) Putnam Weale

The highest altitude reached by the balloon was three thousand feet, and this was registered about a couple of miles before we struck Highwood.
— from Faces and Places by Lucy, Henry W. (Henry William), Sir

Sometimes my munias take it into their tiny heads to sleep on a perch which runs across a corner of the cage, and is barely long enough to accommodate them all.
— from Birds of the Plains by Douglas Dewar

At regular hours the sea retreated, and great spaces were left uncovered everywhere, as if the Channel was slowly drying up; then with the same lazy slowness, the waters rose again, and continued their everlasting coming and going, without any heed of the dead.
— from An Iceland Fisherman by Pierre Loti