Though on both sides, both in addition and division, either of space or duration, when the idea under consideration becomes very big or very small, its precise bulk becomes very obscure and confused; and it is the NUMBER of its repeated additions or divisions that alone remains clear and distinct; as will easily appear to any one who will let his thoughts loose in the vast expansion of space, or divisibility of matter.
— from An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2 by John Locke

But the storm was up again, and drowning every other sound in its fury.
— from The House by the Church-Yard by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

The erecting a spiritual jurisdiction amongst them would, in all probability, drive as many out of that communion, as a due execution of such jurisdiction hath hitherto drove from amongst ourselves.
— from The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 04 Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church — Volume 2 by Jonathan Swift

But to-night John's father, as a discarnate entity of some sort, seemed to haunt the dead silence of the house to which he had brought her so hopefully.
— from The Cottage of Delight: A Novel by Will N. (Will Nathaniel) Harben

Without any apparent attempt at description, either of scenery or individual character, both stand forth in strong and clear distinctness: Aodh, the far famed preacher of the word in Iona; and Reullura, beauty's star, with her calm, clear eye, to which visions of the future were often revealed; and those desolate, treeless islands, the savage shores of which, riven by primeval earthquakes, will be lashed by the waves of a wild, stormy sea, to the end of time.
— from Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 2 (of 2) by William Howitt

Again, a detailed examination of spiny plants practically excludes the hypothesis of mammalian selection altogether, and shows spines to arise as an expression of the diminishing vegetativeness—in fact, the ebbing vitality of a species.
— from Darwinism (1889) An exposition of the theory of natural selection, with some of its applications by Alfred Russel Wallace

I cannot now recollect a single school-friend at all definitely, except one strange little creature, with the look and the intelligence of a grown man; and I remember him chiefly because he seemed to care very much for me, not because I ever cared much for him.
— from Spiritual Adventures by Arthur Symons