Many people would think that what a bookseller—or perhaps his clerk—knows about literature as literature, in contradistinction to its character as merchandise, would hardly, be of much assistance to a person—that is, to an adult, of course—in the selection of food for the mind—except of course wrapping paper, or twine, or wafers, or something like that—but I never feel that way.
— from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Charles Dudley Warner

The Visigoths resumed the exercise of arms, which they had neglected in a long and luxurious peace; a select band of valiant and robust slaves attended their masters to the field; and the cities of Gaul were compelled to furnish their doubtful and reluctant aid.
— 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

As to Harlequin and Columbine, I discovered immediately that they lodged (they are always looking after lodgings in a pantomime) at a very small clockmaker’s one story high, near the hotel; which, in addition to various symbols and devices, almost covering the whole front, had a great dial hanging out—to be jumped through, of course.
— from American Notes by Charles Dickens

THE WOLF AND THE SHEEP A Wolf was worried and badly bitten by dogs, and lay a long time for dead.
— from Aesop's Fables; a new translation by Aesop

The golden Hours on angel wings, Flew o'er me and my Dearie; For dear to me, as light and life, Was my sweet Highland Mary.
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns

"Do these animals live a long time?" Conseil asked.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne

Yet they a beauteous offspring shall beget; For that fair female troop thou sawest, that seemed Of Goddesses, so blithe, so smooth, so gay, Yet empty of all good wherein consists Woman's domestick honour and chief praise; Bred only and completed to the taste Of lustful appetence, to sing, to dance, To dress, and troll the tongue, and roll the eye: To these that sober race of men, whose lives Religious titled them the sons of God, Shall yield up all their virtue, all their fame Ignobly, to the trains and to the smiles Of these fair atheists; and now swim in joy, Erelong to swim at large; and laugh, for which The world erelong a world of tears must weep.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton

and with the help of Rashdall we may trace the story of the studies in arts, only to find that as [pg 28] far back as 1267, with different names sometimes, they have been through all the centuries essentially the same—Greek and Latin authors, logic, rhetoric, grammar, and the philosophies, natural, moral, and metaphysical—practically the seven liberal arts for which, as you may see by the names over the doors, Bodley's building provided accommodation.
— from The Old Humanities and the New Science by William Osler

She was clever at learning, and liked it, and she was sensible and quick-witted and very brave.
— from The Tapestry Room: A Child's Romance by Mrs. Molesworth

After thinking about it a little, and looking round upon the locale, she said,— "I will tell you how it must be.
— from The Widow Barnaby. Vol. 1 (of 3) by Frances Milton Trollope

During our gloomy vigil we were glad to hear the sounds of a caravan, toward which we groped our way, discerning, at length, a long line of camels marching to the music of their lantern-bearing leader.
— from Across Asia on a Bicycle The Journey of Two American Students from Constantinople to Peking by Thomas Gaskell Allen

Once it looked to Little White Fox as if he were beginning to understand that the stranger was not one of his cousins, for he stayed awake a long, long time and looked and looked and looked.
— from Little White Fox and his Arctic Friends by Roy J. (Roy Judson) Snell

Still, a little anxiety lingered in the mother's heart about the pomp of the next day.
— from St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 by Various

Then Skarphedinn said, "Stand we here and listen, and let us go stilly, for I hear the voices of men up along the river's bank.
— from The Story of Burnt Njal: The Great Icelandic Tribune, Jurist, and Counsellor by Unknown