He every day becomes more adroit and less industrious; so that it may be said of him, that in proportion as the workman improves the man is degraded.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville

And when, at last, I shouldered the coracle and groped my way stumblingly out of the hollow where I had supped, there were but two points visible on the whole anchorage.
— from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

At last it struck two.
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

At landing, I showed the custom-house officers my letter from the king of Luggnagg to his imperial majesty.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

At least, I suppose the weeping was on both sides; as it seemed Heathcliff could weep on a great occasion like this.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Stars of their own, and their own suns, they know; Their airy limbs in sports they exercise, And on the green contend the wrestler’s prize.
— from The Aeneid by Virgil

The Hurons thought that the soul had a head and body, arms and legs; in short, that it was a complete little model of the man himself.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

At least, it solaces to know That there exists a gold, Although I prove it just in time
— from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete by Emily Dickinson

The first is already logical in spirit; the last, in presenting an ingrained disposi
— from How We Think by John Dewey

I scarce know how the time passed, until at last I saw them, in the illumination of the deck lights, at length come on deck again.
— from The Lady and the Pirate Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive by Emerson Hough

Wherefore abide with me, my son, and learn in solitude those lessons of self-government without which no man is fit to rule others."
— from Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales by Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

Take six large lemons, pare off the rind, and cut the lemons and squeeze out the juice, and in the juice steep the rind, and put it to a quart of brandy—so far, brother, the court is with you—and let it stand in an earthen pot close stop’t three days, and then squeeze six more, and mix with two quarts of spring-water, and as much sugar as will sweeten the whole, and boil the water and lemons and sugar together, and let it stand till ’tis cool.
— from The Flowing Bowl A Treatise on Drinks of All Kinds and of All Periods, Interspersed with Sundry Anecdotes and Reminiscences by Edward Spencer

Even the more sound accusation of our want of originality must be reconsidered in face of so many facts to the contrary, facts which show us to be at least in small things very original, almost in the French sense of that word.
— from The Japanese Spirit by Yoshisaburo Okakura

For all the candles are out, and there is a bonfire making red weals upon the grey walls; then another dance; and a hundred times, “Auld lang syne,” until the college is quiet, and but rarely a light is seen through curtains and over battlements: and the long Oxford night begins.
— from Oxford by Edward Thomas

"At last!" I said to myself; "at last!"
— from Monsieur, Madame, and Bébé — Volume 01 by Gustave Droz

Then pour it into a Tub, and let it stand to cool, till it be blood warm, and then put by degrees a Pint of Ale-yest to it, to make it work.
— from The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened by Kenelm Digby

That "the Briton dearly loves a lord" is still true, but the love is rapidly disappearing.
— from Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie

Ex Post Facto , in law, a term designating something as done after and bearing upon something previously done; thus a law is said to be ex post facto , or retrospective, when it is enacted to punish an offence committed before the passing of the law.
— from The New Gresham Encyclopedia. Estremoz to Felspar Volume 4, Part 3 by Various