When Katerina Ivanovna heard that, she got up from her seat without a word, went to her writing-table, opened a box standing on it, took out a sheet of paper and laid it before Ivan.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

He produced another from the back of his neck, and laid it beside its predecessor on the counter.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

Finally then, we may conclude that in many organic beings, a cross between two individuals is an obvious necessity for each birth; in many others it occurs perhaps only at long intervals; but in none, as I suspect, can self-fertilisation go on for perpetuity.
— from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin

Undoubtedly, if the retreat becomes a rout, a portion of the artillery left in battery in front of the forest would, in all probability, be lost; but the infantry and cavalry and a great part of the artillery could retire just as readily as across a plain.
— from The Art of War by Jomini, Antoine Henri, baron de

Here a part of his fleet lost its way in the narrow branches of the river through want of a pilot, until he sent a man to pilot it and lead it back into the channel of the river.
— from The Anabasis of Alexander or, The History of the Wars and Conquests of Alexander the Great by Arrian

It has already lost its beauty; in a few moments more its mechanism would be irreparably injured.
— from Mosses from an Old Manse, and Other Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne

For many years, my opportunities of intercourse with Mr. Southey have been rare, and at long intervals; but I dwell with unabated pleasure on the strong and sudden, yet I trust not fleeting, influence, which my moral being underwent on my acquaintance with him at Oxford, whither I had gone at the commencement of our Cambridge vacation on a visit to an old school-fellow.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I was glad that Miss Matty seemed still a little incredulous; but I could not tell how much of this was real or assumed, with that self-control which seemed habitual to ladies of Miss Matty’s standing in Cranford, who would have thought their dignity compromised by the slightest expression of surprise, dismay, or any similar feeling to an inferior in station, or in a public shop.
— from Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Thus shallow more and more the blood became, So that at last it but imbru'd the feet; And there our passage lay athwart the foss.
— from The vision of hell. By Dante Alighieri. Translated by Rev. Henry Francis Cary, M.A. and illustrated with the seventy-five designs of Gustave Doré. by Dante Alighieri

Joaquim de Foyos has indeed related consistently with his own notions, the history of mankind and poetry in a way which is well calculated to set forth the particular merits of bucolic composition: otherwise history might soon have convinced him that pastoral life has scarcely ever been the passage from the savage state to civilization: that the kind of pastoral state which favours the ground work of bucolic poetry, has only arisen under particular circumstances in a few places; and has, even there been of little advantage to poetry: that Greek poetry no more originated in Arcadia, than German in Switzerland: that the oldest Greek poetry exhibits no trace of the pastoral character: that Theocritus first devoted himself to this style of composition at the voluptuous court of the Ptolemies in Alexandria: and that its revival in the romantic age, like its birth in Alexandria, presupposes a degree of social cultivation, whence the human mind longingly reverts to a more natural existence, on which it at last bestows ideal beauties.
— from History of Spanish and Portuguese Literature (Vol 2 of 2) by Friedrich Bouterwek

'Perhaps Miss Darrell usurps her place,' I replied a little incautiously, but I saw my mistake at once.
— from Uncle Max by Rosa Nouchette Carey

The Parliamentary elections were very near at hand, and Mutimer almost lived in Belwick; it seemed to Adela that duty required her to be near him, as well as to supply his absence from New Wanley as much as was possible.
— from Demos by George Gissing

“That’s right, bebee, you struck his face; now, once more, and let it be in the eye.
— from Lavengro: The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest by George Borrow

So he gathered a handful, and wreathed the sword with them; and then came a gladness into his mind, with which he awoke, and found it evening; he came back to himself with a kind of terror, and a fear darted into his breast; the windows were open, and there came in a scent of flowers; and he felt a great love for the beautiful earth, and for his quiet life; and he looked at the chest; and there came into his mind a strong desire to take the sword out, and lay it back in the church, and let things be as they had been; and so he sate and mused.
— from The Isles of Sunset by Arthur Christopher Benson

There are some who pretend to have an unlimited stock of this commodity, and are liberal in bestowing it upon all who approach them; but this alacrity in loving only confirms the maxim of Swift: for the little value of the kindness, which in this case falls to the share of each, proves that friendship is not to be so divided.
— from Adventures in the Moon, and Other Worlds by Russell, John Russell, Earl

I am obliged to say things and use words that at first may seem a little indelicate, but if you have grasped the fact that I am humbly trying to tell you the truth about God’s laws and sincerely believe that I am doing right in so telling you, there will be no misunderstanding about my motives.
— from Confidential Chats with Girls by William Lee Howard