My heart is as dry as that spring sometimes proves in a thirsty August, when I revert to the space that is between us; a length of passage enough to render obsolete the phrases of our English letters before they can reach you.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

The experience of evil enhances the value of any local or partial enjoyments.
— 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

Between these cases are lateral openings, perhaps eight feet wide and quite deep, and in these were placed the sick, besides a great long double row of them up and down through the middle of the hall.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

In that kingdom of Media there be many great hills and little of plain earth.
— from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Mandeville, John, Sir

2000-10-31: Removed a lot of parse errors against the DTD.
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea by Bronislaw Malinowski

Also, he bestowed upon a lady of pleasant exterior who, escorted by a footman laden with a bundle, happened to be passing along a wooden sidewalk a prolonged stare.
— from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

At the same moment a little oblong packet, enveloped in blue paper, fell from one of the pockets of the great-coat.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

To these peculiarities of words he has added a list of peculiar expressions and constructions.
— from Laws by Plato

A lot of people, even a few Rangers, needed a religious faith to feel complete; it wouldn't be a violation of the separation doctrine to try and help him regain his.
— from The Alembic Plot: A Terran Empire novel by Ann Wilson

You can tell that it is slow and plaintive, or brisk and lively, or perhaps even that it is defiant or stirring; but how insensible you are to the delicate shades of its meaning!
— from Gala-Days by Gail Hamilton

Reddy and Heady were in favor also of blocking up the narrow little windows set high in the walls of the cellar, well over the head of the tallest of the Crows; but Tug said that these windows were necessary for ventilation, and History was reminded of the Black Hole of Calcutta, so it was decided to leave the windows open for the sake of the air, even if it did give the Crows a loophole of possible escape.
— from The Dozen from Lakerim by Rupert Hughes

There was a look of pleased expectancy in her eyes as she saw him.
— from The Man Who Rose Again by Joseph Hocking

These gentlemen came to report the termination of their experiments at the very moment when the chancellor and lieutenant of police entered the room; the duc de la Vrillière had preceded them by about five minutes; the duc d’Aiguillon requested these gentlemen to be seated.
— from Memoirs of the Comtesse Du Barry With Minute Details of Her Entire Career as Favorite of Louis XV by Lamothe-Langon, Etienne-Léon, baron de

The mayor's face had taken on a look of patient endurance.
— from The Cassowary; What Chanced in the Cleft Mountains by Stanley Waterloo

It is curious to look back a little on past events.
— from Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4 by Thomas Jefferson

“'Where's Tom?' said the sick man, with a look of painful eagerness.
— from One Of Them by Charles James Lever

Still comparatively young, he had not yet learned that there are limitations of power, even to a king.
— from The Siege of Boston by Allen French