I could not give any connected detail yesterday; but the suddenness, and, in one light, the unseasonableness with which the affair burst out, needs explanation; for though the event of the 26th ult., as you will conclude, immediately opened to me the happiest prospects, I should not have presumed on such early measures, but from the very particular circumstances, which left me not an hour to lose.
— from Emma by Jane Austen

"That body is a matrix of the thirty-five ideas required by God as the basic or causal thought forces from which He later formed the subtle astral body of nineteen elements and the gross physical body of sixteen elements.
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

90 But as soon as Constantius, after the battle of Mursa, became master of the sea-coast of Dalmatia, a band of noble exiles, who had ventured to equip a fleet in some harbor of the Adriatic, sought protection and revenge in his victorious camp.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

The sensible decision was that notwithstanding many declarations and more music, not even notwithstanding the choice and a torch and a collection, notwithstanding the celebrating hat and a vacation and even more noise than cutting, notwithstanding Europe and Asia and being overbearing, not even notwithstanding an elephant and a strict occasion, not even withstanding more cultivation and some seasoning, not even with drowning and with the ocean being encircling, not even with more likeness and any cloud, not even with terrific sacrifice of pedestrianism and a special resolution, not even more likely to be pleasing.
— from Tender Buttons Objects—Food—Rooms by Gertrude Stein

Unhallow'd man, that scorn'st the sacred rede, Hark, how the testimony of my truth Sounds heavenly music with an angel's hand, To testify Dunstan's integrity, And prove thy active boast of no effect.'
— from The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott

T HE first effect of this leap into the unknown was a fit of low spirits new to the young man's education; due in part to the overpowering beauty and sweetness of the Maryland autumn, almost unendurable for its strain on one who had toned his life down to the November grays and browns of northern Europe.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

Up and to my office, where we sat all the morning, and I dined with Sir W. Batten by chance, being in business together about a bargain of New England masts.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

So is he now in execution Of any bold or noble enterprise, However he puts on this tardy form.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

Grown-up people are in the same position with regard to words they do not know, but which they come across in a book or newspaper, e.g. demise .
— from Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin by Otto Jespersen

At first I regarded this merely as a bit of native extravagance of statement, but in 1882, when I was shipwrecked on Peru (or Francis Island), one of the Gilbert Group, the local trader, one Frank Voliero, and myself saw one of these eels engaged in an equally extraordinary pursuit.
— from Âmona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other Stories" - 1902 by Louis Becke

Soon after this letter, the army was reinforced by Smallwood's regiment, and by two regiments from Pennsylvania, with a body of New England and New York militia, which increased it to twenty-seven thousand men, of whom one fourth were sick.
— from The Life of George Washington: A Linked Index to the Project Gutenberg Editions by John Marshall

'Precise image'—is not that perhaps a bit of national exaggeration?"
— from Ancestors: A Novel by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

Whenever a batch of newcomers entered, he rose to drink with them; and, at such times, after pouring off his liquor with a rich melancholy, shedding tears after every swallow, he would make an exploring tour of the room on his way back to his corner, stopping to look under each chair inquiringly and ejaculate: “Why, where kin he be!”
— from The Gentleman from Indiana by Booth Tarkington

It is much to be a brother of New England, but it is more to be a friend ( applause ); and this tie I have pleasure in confessing to-night.
— from Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 20 (of 20) by Charles Sumner

SUMNER Mr. President and Brothers of New England:—For the first time in my life I have the good fortune to enjoy this famous anniversary festival.
— from Model Speeches for Practise by Grenville Kleiser

per half member was all that was available in the funds, and after being off nearly eight weeks the money gathered in from helping friends amounted to 5s.
— from A History of the Durham Miner's Association 1870-1904 by John Wilson