They provided, with the assistance of the provincials, a sufficient number of sheep and oxen, and invited the Huns to a splendid, or at least, a plentiful supper.
— 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

When the wine came, too, I thought it flat; and it certainly had more English crumbs in it, than were to be expected in a foreign wine in anything like a pure state, but I was bashful enough to drink it, and say nothing.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

The Christians of Persia were suspected, in time of war, of preferring their religion to their country; but as long as peace subsisted between the two empires, the persecuting spirit of the Magi was effectually restrained by the interposition of Constantine.
— 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

I noticed later that he always looked at people sidewise, as a work-horse does at its yokemate.
— from My Antonia by Willa Cather

After dinner, when the ladies had retired, Baptista joined in a laugh against Petruchio, saying “Now in good sadness, son Petruchio, I fear you have got the veriest shrew of all.”
— from Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

By way of providing a substitute for real—I mean intellectual—superiority, which is seldom to be met with, and intolerable when it is found, society has capriciously adopted a false kind of superiority, conventional in its character, and resting upon arbitrary principles,—a tradition, as it were, handed down in the higher circles, and, like a password, subject to alteration; I refer to bon-ton fashion.
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Counsels and Maxims by Arthur Schopenhauer

Now when Harald heard that his relation, King Magnus, would offer him a league and partition, so that Harald should have half of Norway with King Magnus, and that they should divide all their movable property into two equal parts, he accepted the proposal, and the people went back to King Magnus with this answer.
— from Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson

At that moment a loud and piercing shriek induced him to quicken his steps.
— from The Monk: A Romance by M. G. (Matthew Gregory) Lewis

The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the musician with the fiddle-bow in his hand who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound washing over him—why, certainly, he is at work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it’s a sarcasm just the same.
— from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

A priori synthesis in general and logical a priori synthesis.
— from Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept by Benedetto Croce

But we have now made it clear that we have hold of a profound philosophical truth as well; and a living and prolific social truth.
— from Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, April 1885 by Various

If not a present remedy, at least a patient sufferance.
— from The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 2 of 9] by William Shakespeare

By his immense energy, the magnetic power with which he infused his own convictions into other minds, the direct, practical way in which he set about the work, and his indomitable perseverance, Mr. Sibley attained at last a phenomenal success.
— from Scientific American Supplement, No. 531, March 6, 1886 by Various

It felt, also, like a permanent sensation.
— from Nothing But the Truth by Frederic Stewart Isham

The conclusion arrived at was that as little as possible should be said about the matter.
— from The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales by John Charles Dent

There in the night it was like a picture painted long ago and dimmed by time, yet shining out through the obscurity with its youth and loveliness and passion still intact.
— from True, and Other Stories by George Parsons Lathrop

Sister-schoolmates, gathering posies, Stop to hear the red-breast’s tune, And laugh at pretty squirrels running Up the trees, in leafy June.
— from Merry's Book of Puzzles by J. N. (John Newton) Stearns

That brief glimpse of Allie, like a picture seen through the shutter of a camera, remained long with the man, for her hair was unbound, her lips were parted, and her dark eyes were peculiarly brilliant; through the opening of her lacy negligee her round, white neck and swelling bosom were exposed.
— from Flowing Gold by Rex Beach

By-and-by, she said, breaking a long and patient silence: 'I beg your pardon, sir, but I am used to find Mr Riah at this time, and so I generally come at this time.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens