Thus they received Simon at their borders, where they fought him, and continued the battle all that day; and the dispute lay whether they had conquered him, or been conquered by him.
— from The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus

She seated herself, for she was tired from her long tramp; and she began to rock gently and smooth out the folds of her silk parasol.
— from The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin

But it was a comfort that there could be no uneasiness in a connection with anything so beatific as the radiant image of my little girl, the vision of whose angelic beauty had probably more than anything else to do with the restlessness that, before morning, made me several times rise and wander about my room to take in the whole picture and prospect; to watch, from my open window, the faint summer dawn, to look at such portions of the rest of the house as I could catch, and to listen, while, in the fading dusk, the first birds began to twitter, for the possible recurrence of a sound or two, less natural and not without, but within, that I had fancied I heard.
— from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

When spring had once more broken forth on the earth, they both went out one day with their flocks, and as chance would have it, they drew near each other.
— from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm by Wilhelm Grimm

I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again, even though broken by the fear that he was so soon to cease to be my master, and by the knowledge that I was nothing to him: but there was ever in Mr. Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth of the power of communicating happiness, that to taste but of the crumbs he scattered to stray and stranger birds like me, was to feast genially.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

Descent gives a strength to the tenure of these tribes which the foreign nobles do not possess; for although, from all that has been said, it will be evident that a right of reversion and resumption existed (though seldom exercised, and never but in cases of crime), yet the foreigner had not this strength in the soil, even though of twenty generations’ duration.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

The Gendarmes strike down the young Citoyen with the flat of their swords.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

Lounging near the doors, and in remote corners, were various knots of silly young men, displaying various varieties of puppyism and stupidity; amusing all sensible people near them with their folly and conceit; and happily thinking themselves the objects of general admiration—a wise and merciful dispensation which no good man will quarrel with.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

Though the ensuing COLLECT and preceding SPECIMEN DAYS are both largely from memoranda already existing, the hurried peremptory needs of copy for the printers, already referr'd to—(the musicians' story of a composer up in a garret rushing the middle body and last of his score together, while the fiddlers are playing the first parts down in the concert-room)—of this haste, while quite willing to get the consequent stimulus of life and motion, I am sure there must have resulted sundry technical errors.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

“Well, the fact is, Morrel, I was thinking that I too am weary of life, and since an opportunity presents itself——” “Stay!” said the young man.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

Months later when, in South Carolina with the Fifty-fourth, he writes to his young wife: "I should have been major of the Second now if I had remained there and lived through the battles.
— from Memories and Studies by William James

Far behind them were the towering mountains with their forests of redwoods; those on the crest sharp against the stars.
— from The Californians by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

The thing was called Karavat ; it was a crescent-shaped knife, with chains attached to it forming stirrups, so adjusted that when the fanatic placed the edge to the back of his neck and his feet in the stirrups, by giving the latter a violent jerk his head was cut off.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 2 by Rustichello of Pisa

"Until our closing up on the Leipzig made it necessary to call the men to action stations, those who were free to do so had swarmed over the ship in search of the best points of vantage from which to watch the fight between the heavy cruisers.
— from Stories of the Ships by Lewis R. (Lewis Ransome) Freeman

in her presence—a little interest of a lofty, distant kind in her townspeople of the poorer sort, an occasional call upon or from some distant neighbor of a rank approaching her own; for the rest, embroidery in the newest patterns and most elegant style, some few books, chiefly religious and polemical works—and what can be drearier than Roman Catholic polemics, unless, indeed, Protestant ones eclipse them?—a large house, vast estates, servants who never raised their voices beyond a certain tone; the envy of all the middle-class women, the fear and reverential courtesies of the poorer ones—a cheerful existence, and one which accounted for some of the wrinkles which so plentifully decked her brow.
— from The First Violin A Novel by Jessie Fothergill

But yesterday, and his father's death had left him without one in the world on whom to fix a hope; and already, from his misery, there arose that one gleam, that now twinkled like a star in the sky of midnight.
— from St. Patrick's Eve by Charles James Lever

Then, as he saw by her face that the subject was not one for jest, he said, in his hearty way that Mary Penrose likes, "Why not let me buy the place, as mine was the first offer, put it in order, and then lease it to you for three years, with the privilege of buying if you find that your scheme succeeds?
— from The Garden, You, and I by Mabel Osgood Wright

The plesent newes reioyced much our men, wherevpon Cortes sente forthwith to Tlaxcallan for the Vergantines, Gonzalo de Sandoual , with two hundered Spaniards, and fiftéene horsemen, and commaunded that in their way they shold burne and destroy the towne where the fourty fiue Spaniardes, and thrée hundered Tlaxcaltecas were slayn, with fiue horses moe, when Mexico was last besieged: and y t village is in y e iurisdiction of Tezcuco , and bordereth vpon the territorie of Tlaxcallan , yea, and for that purpose hée would gladly haue corrected and punished the dwellers of Tezcuco , but time then permitted not y e same, although they had deserued more punishment than the others.
— from The pleasant historie of the conquest of the VVeast India, now called new Spayne atchieued by the vvorthy Prince Hernando Cortes, marques of the Valley of Huaxacac, most delectable to reade by Francisco López de Gómara

ABOUT 1569 GOTHIC ORNAMENTAL PIECES Book of Hours, printed for Simon Vostre at Paris in 1486 Henry Estienne settled in Paris in 1502 and was the first of an illustrious family of typographers.
— from The Art & Practice of Typography A Manual of American Printing, Including a Brief History up to the Twentieth Century, with Reproductions of the Work of Early Masters of the Craft, and a Practical Discussion and an Extensive Demonstration of the Modern Use of Type-faces and Methods of Arrangement by Edmund G. (Edmund Geiger) Gress

His hair was the flat black color of charcoal, and his skin was the texture of ancient parchment.
— from Secret Mission to Alaska Sandy Steele Adventures #5 by Robert Leckie