At last I saw the figure of Hans as if enveloped in the huge halo of burning blaze, and no other sense remained to me but that sinister dread which the condemned victim may be supposed to feel when led to the mouth of a cannon, at the supreme moment when the shot is fired and his limbs are dispersed into empty space.
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

He has met with losses and disappointments in every shape, and occupies, at present, a most inferior business position, I am told.
— from Rose Clark by Fanny Fern

Everything she wore was loose and dashing in effect; she was a fanatic about cleanliness and freshness, and always looked as if freshly bathed and brushed and dressed.
— from Saturday's Child by Kathleen Thompson Norris

Around him, like a dweller in Eden, sport, harmless, fearless creatures—the lamb on the meadows, the roe in the forest.
— from The Chautauquan, Vol. 04, January 1884 A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture. Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. by Chautauqua Institution

Her constitution, however, was so severely affected that it was long a doubt if ever she would be well again.
— from Wanderings in South America by Charles Waterton

Some thieves are very honest fellows; it is largely a difference in ethical standards!
— from A-Birding on a Bronco by Florence Merriam Bailey

Pure-faced, pure-thoughted, folk are mine With whom to sit and laugh and dine; In every sunlit room is heard Love singing, like an April bird, And everywhere the moonlit eyes Of beauty guard our paradise; While, at the ending of the day, To the kind country gods we pray, And dues of our fair living pay.
— from The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems by Richard Le Gallienne

We visited several of the wilder settlements of the Tingians in Abra, then made a hard climb over Mount Pico de Loro and descended its eastern slopes to the Tingian village of Balbalasan in the Saltan River valley.
— from The Philippines: Past and Present (Volume 2 of 2) by Dean C. (Dean Conant) Worcester

The modest blue violets appear in such profuse abundance that they seem like shreds of the sky wafted by the spring breezes over the land and drifted into every swale and ravine.
— from Prairie Smoke, a Collection of Lore of the Prairies by Melvin R. (Melvin Randolph) Gilmore