Why good wits ne'r weare scarlet gownes, I thought This cause, These men, mens wits for speeches buy, And women buy all reds which scarlets die.
— from The Poems of John Donne, Volume 1 (of 2) Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts by John Donne

V. St. Dewi is to the Welsh what St. George is to the English, St. Andrew to the Scotch, and St. Patrick to the Irish.
— from British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions by Wirt Sikes

Year after year he quietly and modestly amassed money, and when at length that snug and complete bachelor's residence at No. 201, Curzon Street, May Fair, lately the residence of the Honourable Frederick Deuceace, gone abroad, with its rich and appropriate furniture by the first makers, was brought to the hammer, who should go in and purchase the lease and furniture of the house but Charles Raggles?
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

According to her mistress, she was specially gifted in preparing venison.
— from Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z by Anatole Cerfberr

If, during the day, the sun is suddenly overcast by clouds and shadow succeeds to brilliancy, the Pêrak Malay will say “ Gerda is spreading out his wings to dry.”
— from Malay Magic Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula by Walter William Skeat

When the house’s attention was become fixed once more, Wilson said gravely, indicating the twins with a gesture— “These men are innocent—I have no further concern with them.
— from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain

As we see, grief itself is easily softened when we charge those who grieve with weakness and an effeminate mind; or when we commend the gravity and constancy of those who bear calmly whatever befalls them here, as accidents to which all men are liable; and, indeed, this is generally the feeling of those who look on these as real evils, but yet think they should be borne with resignation.
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth by Marcus Tullius Cicero

I asked her where she got it, and she said it came out of the woods and followed her; and she said it probably hadn't any mother or any friends and she was going to take it home and take care of it.
— from The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories by Mark Twain

Well, said Gymnast , I have failed,—I will undo this leap; then with a marvellous strength and agility, turning towards the right-hand, he fetched another frisking gambol as before; which done, he set his right-hand thumb upon the bow of the saddle, raised himself up, and sprung into the air, poising and upholding his whole weight upon the muscle and nerve of the said thumb, and so turned and whirled himself about three times: at the fourth, reversing his body, and overturning it upside down, and foreside back, without touching anything , he brought himself betwixt the horse’s two ears, and then giving himself a jerking swing, he seated himself upon the crupper——” (This can’t be fighting, said my uncle Toby .——The corporal shook his head at it.——Have patience, said Yorick .)
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Then, seeing that she was the intruder, and that he, risen to full height from the chair, showed no signs of addressing her, or even of actively ignoring her, but stood passive, as though she had summoned his attention and he was simply giving it, without prejudice to any explanation she might wish to make—begged his pardon (for Heaven knows what) in a voice of infinite apology and contrition.
— from The Post-Girl by Edward Charles Booth

We should get, in fact, twice as near to that star as we were before, and therefore its light would be increased for us fourfold.
— from Pleasures of the telescope An Illustrated Guide for Amateur Astronomers and a Popular Description of the Chief Wonders of the Heavens for General Readers by Garrett Putman Serviss

But, as he was still growling inwardly with disgust, the attorney started to step back, reeled and crumpled limply to the floor of the platform.
— from The Code of the Mountains by Charles Neville Buck

"It was a bit, at first, but we soon got into it.
— from In Brief Authority by F. Anstey

Jane Austen’s own novels were written at such widely differing times, and the interval between writing and publication was so great in some cases, that the subject suffers from some confusion in the minds of those who have not looked into the question closely.
— from Jane Austen and Her Times by G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton

Wooded swamps, groves inhabited by Squirrels, and patches of low timber are the places in which we make our homes.
— from Birds and All Nature, Vol. 4, No. 3, September 1898 Illustrated by Color Photography by Various