But then the dark velvety voice rolled out: “Would ye hear the story How it unfolds itself... ” and they were silent.
— from The Garden Party, and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield

has enlarged the boundaries of human enjoyment; he has added vast regions of wit and good-humor, in which the poorest man may revel, and has bequeathed a never-failing inheritance of jolly laughter, to make mankind merrier and better to the latest posterity.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving

This was the very reverse of what General Grant, after four years' experience in Washington as general-in-chief, seemed to want, different from what he had explained to me in Chicago, and totally different from the demand he had made on Secretary of War Stanton in his complete letter of January 29, 1866.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

One good lady whom I took the liberty of expostulating with for not showing me quite so much respect as I thought due to her husband's old friend, had the candour to confess to me that she had often heard Mr. —— speak of me before marriage, and that she had conceived a great desire to be acquainted with me, but that the sight of me had very much disappointed her expectations; for from her husband's representations of me, she had formed a notion that she was to see a fine, tall, officer-like looking man (I use her very words); the very reverse of which proved to be the truth.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

The very rule of well-doing, if not subordinated to this rule, is dangerous, false, and contradictory.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Hannibal then came forward himself and said, “that he had exhibited these captives in order that they might see in the person of others a vivid representation of what they had to expect themselves, and might so lay their plans all the better in view of the actual state of affairs.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

The forge was shut up for the day, and Joe inscribed in chalk upon the door (as it was his custom to do on the very rare occasions when he was not at work) the monosyllable HOUT, accompanied by a sketch of an arrow supposed to be flying in the direction he had taken.
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The genealogy of the God Yu (of China) is traced through a line of princes to a very remote origin, while his whole life was a lesson of practical humility, and proclaimed at every step, "This is the way; walk ye in it.
— from The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors; Or, Christianity Before Christ by Kersey Graves

What, from that moment onward, was called the “Gospels” was the very reverse of what he had lived: “bad tidings,” a Dysangelium .
— from The Antichrist by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Their conversation was, as in the majority of salons elsewhere, a verbal rehash of what they had read in the morning papers.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

It is clear to anyone who will reflect, that on the day when Louis XVI permitted at the insistence of the Queen, the Comte d’Artois and M. de Vaudreuil to the representation at Grennevillier, he placed himself where he would be unable long to resist public curiosity, carried now to the heights by that very representation, of which everyone spoke, and by the address of Beaumarchais.”
— from Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence, Vol. 2 by Elizabeth Sarah Kite

As the vehicle rolled off westward he crouched in a corner and tried to wrestle with the problem that befogged his brain.
— from A Mysterious Disappearance by Louis Tracy

It was really heartrending to have to see the kinsfolk and friends of murderers who were condemned to death, and among the very rare occasions when anything governmental or official caused me to lose sleep were the times when I had to listen to some poor mother making a plea for a criminal so wicked, so utterly brutal and depraved, that it would have been a crime on my part to remit his punishment.
— from Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt

On those very rare occasions when a bridegroom can be found, the kith and kin of the happy pair make a welcoming path for Hymen by trickling coloured sands through a funnel so as to form a pavement decoration of hearts, doves, true-love knots, and the like, each artist in front of his own house.
— from From Gretna Green to Land's End: A Literary Journey in England. by Katharine Lee Bates

They are however bearable for them, after all, as is taught by experience; not so for the kings themselves, the very roots of whose power they undermine.
— from The Gâtakamâlâ; Or, Garland of Birth-Stories by Aryasura

Too amiable and too happy—and it must be added too indolent—to assert herself in the ordinary emergencies of family life, Mrs. Linley only showed of what metal she was made on the very rare occasions when the latent firmness in her nature was stirred to its innermost depths.
— from The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story by Wilkie Collins

As the beautiful craft swept by our lads with a flash of rushing waters, glinting copper, and snowy sails, a cheery voice rang out: "Well done, plucky boys!
— from Harper's Round Table, April 28, 1896 by Various

But at these words her voice rang out with passionate vehemence.
— from The Golden Slipper, and Other Problems for Violet Strange by Anna Katharine Green

The present writer has a vivid recollection of what, to him, was the infinite dulness of cricket.
— from Human Intercourse by Philip Gilbert Hamerton