They talk of the cornice, and frieze, and base, and entablature, and shaft, and architrave; and give the description and position of each of these members.
— from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume

Now this pleases one, my dear father and mother, to be so beloved.—How much better, by good fame and integrity, is it to get every one's good word but one, than, by pleasing that one, to make every one else one's enemy, and be an execrable creature besides!
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

The proposal was approved by all, except the Hollander, whose economy the wine had not as yet invaded; and, while he retreated soberly to his own lodgings, the rest of the society adjourned in two coaches to the temple of love, where they were received by the venerable priestess, a personage turned of seventy, who seemed to exercise the functions of her calling, in despite of the most cruel ravages of time; for age had bent her into the form of a Turkish bow.
— from The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete by T. (Tobias) Smollett

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeits of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on.
— from The Tragedy of King Lear by William Shakespeare

This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

Here the supersensible (freedom), which in this case is fundamental, by a determinate law of causality that springs from it, not only supplies material for cognition of other supersensibles (the moral final purpose and the conditions of its attainability), but also establishes its reality in actions as a fact; though at the same time it can furnish a valid ground of proof in no other than a practical point of view (the only one, however, of which Religion has need).
— from Kant's Critique of Judgement by Immanuel Kant

A background and entourage and flooring of deepest crimson threw her out, white like alabaster—like silver: rather, be it said, like Death.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

Image to yourself, my dear Letty, a spacious garden, part laid out in delightful walks, bounded with high hedges and trees, and paved with gravel; part exhibiting a wonderful assemblage of the most picturesque and striking objects’ pavilions, lodges, groves, grottoes, lawns, temples and cascades; porticoes, colonades, and rotundos; adorned with pillars, statues, and painting: the whole illuminated with an infinite number of lamps, disposed in different figures of suns, stars, and constellations; the place crowded with the gayest company, ranging through those blissful shades, or supping in different lodges on cold collations, enlivened with mirth, freedom, and good humour, and animated by an excellent band of music.
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. (Tobias) Smollett

The scholar, without good breeding, is a pedant; the philosopher, a cynic; the soldier, a brute; and every man disagreeable.”
— from The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness Being a Complete Guide for a Gentleman's Conduct in All His Relations Towards Society by Cecil B. Hartley

Surrounded by every comfort, the idolized recipient of fatherly and brotherly attentions, Esther grows still more pensive.
— from Oswald Langdon or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 by Levi Jackson Hamilton

"Why, really, my dear—" But before he can finish his excuse (probably not worth hearing), she has trotted up-stairs again to the nest, and is as busy as ever.
— from Two Years Ago, Volume I by Charles Kingsley

In reality, the sound was made by millions of particles of sand being hurtled through the air by an electric storm.
— from In the Musgrave Ranges by Conrad H. (Conrad Harvey) Sayce

He affirmed that he had served her majesty faithfully and dutifully in that especially which she had most at heart, relieving her people from a bloody and expensive war; and that he had always been too much an Englishman to sacrifice the interest of his country to any foreign ally whatsoever.
— from The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. Continued from the Reign of William and Mary to the Death of George II. by T. (Tobias) Smollett

and will not the effect of this be to confirm bad taste on the part of the demos, and beget and encourage it among the few who are better taught?
— from The Unpopular Review, Vol. 2, No. 4, October-December 1914, including Vol. 2 Index by Various

Ike was greatly astonished but admitted erroneous conclusions.
— from The Triumph of Virginia Dale by John Francis

The opera has always been aristocratic, expensive, and spectacular, and it continued the tradition of the highly decorated open-air festivals.
— from A Book About the Theater by Brander Matthews

Sir Thomas Plomer employed him as his broker, and, buying an estate, found it necessary to sell stock.
— from Old and New London, Volume I A Narrative of Its History, Its People, and Its Places by Walter Thornbury

And round the walls of the porches there are set pillars of variegated stones, jasper and porphyry, and deep-green serpentine spotted with flakes of snow, and marbles, that half refuse and half yield to the sunshine, Cleopatra-like, “their bluest veins to kiss”—the shadow, as it steals back from them, revealing line after line of azure undulation, as a receding tide leaves the waved sand; their capitals rich with interwoven tracery, rooted knots of herbage, and drifting 68 leaves of acanthus and vine, and mystical signs, all beginning and ending in the Cross; and above them, in the broad archivolts, a continuous chain of language and of life—angels, and the signs of heaven, and the labors of men, each in its appointed season upon the earth; and above these, another range of glittering pinnacles, mixed with white arches edged with scarlet flowers,—a confusion of delight, amidst which the breasts of the Greek horses are seen blazing in their breadth of golden strength, and the St. Mark’s Lion, lifted on a blue field covered with stars, until at last, as if in ecstasy, the crests of the arches break into a marble foam, and toss themselves far into the blue sky in flashes and wreaths of sculptured spray, as if the breakers on the Lido shore had been frost-bound before they fell, and the sea-nymphs had inlaid them with coral and amethyst.
— from The Stones of Venice, Volume 2 (of 3), by John Ruskin

You must remember that China has always been an exclusive country, and that the Chinese appear to have an ingrained hatred of foreigners.
— from With the Allies to Pekin: A Tale of the Relief of the Legations by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty