“And the woman was fair and lovely and bore him sons of fame; Men called them Hamond and Helgi, and when Helgi first saw light, There came the Norns to his cradle and gave him life full bright, And called him Sunlit Hill, Sharp Sword, and Land of Rings, And bade him be lovely and great, and a joy in the tale of kings.”
— from Myths of the Norsemen: From the Eddas and Sagas by H. A. (Hélène Adeline) Guerber

It is true, the extravagant severity of a like order rendered the execution of it almost impossible; for, in the midst of that concentred solitude, surrounded by water, and having but twenty-four hours after receiving the order to prepare for my departure, and find a boat and carriages to get out of the island and the territory, had I had wings, I should scarcely have been able to pay obedience to it.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Amongst the archives of the Rana to which I had access, I discovered an autograph letter of Raja Jai Singh, addressed at this important juncture to the Rana’s prime minister, Biharidas.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

But he lost no time in despatching a letter of recall, and he couched it in terms so eloquent, and so pathetic, that once more the poor woman was fain to overlook the past.
— from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo Edited with a Biography of Juliette Drouet by Louis Guimbaud

Our blame of the offender is grounded upon a law of reason, which requires us to regard this faculty as a cause, which could have and ought to have otherwise determined the behaviour of the culprit, independently of all empirical conditions.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

The Iliad , the tragic poetry of Greece,—Shakespeare, in the Tempest and Midsummer Night’s Dream ,—and most especially Milton, in Paradise Lost , conform to this rule; and the most humble novelist, who seeks to confer or receive amusement from his labours, may, without presumption, apply to prose fiction a licence, or rather a rule, from the adoption of which so many exquisite combinations of human feeling have resulted in the highest specimens of poetry.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Because the Rabbit had to lie down and lose the race the conjurer now, when preparing his young men for the ball play, boils a lot of rabbit hamstrings into a soup, and sends some one at night to pour it across the path along which the other players are to come in the morning, so that they may become tired in the same way and lose the game.
— from Myths of the Cherokee Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology by James Mooney

Now, as I have already shown, the theosophical ideas of the Cabala play no part in the system of Illuminism; the only trace of Cabalism to be found amongst the papers of the Order is a list of recipes for procuring abortion, for making aphrodisiacs, Aqua Toffana, pestilential vapours, etc., headed "Cabala Major."
— from Secret Societies And Subversive Movements by Nesta Helen Webster

No man has any data for estimating, far less right of judging, the results of a life of resolute self-denial, until he has had the courage to try it himself.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

Without a word or a look of reproach, Napoleon placed himself at their head, and his aides and generals rushed to his side.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden

It is ludicrously awful to see the luxurious inhabitants of London and Paris rushing over the Continent (as they say, to see it), and transposing every place, as far as lies in their power, instantly into a likeness of Regent Street and the Rue de la Paix, which they need not certainly have come so far to see.
— from Modern Painters, Volume 3 (of 5) by John Ruskin

Such a life of rounded activity, of arduous endeavor, of full, free self-expression is in itself the highest possible reward.
— from Practical Ethics by William De Witt Hyde

The bed had sudden breaks, formed by deep holes and ledges of rock running across.
— from The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California To which is Added a Description of the Physical Geography of California, with Recent Notices of the Gold Region from the Latest and Most Authentic Sources by John Charles Frémont

At one corner of the house a large oak reared its head above the second story.
— from Aaron in the Wildwoods by Joel Chandler Harris

"The Columbian line acquired at once considerable importance in the geographical and the political world, because of the proposal that was made to discard the Island of Ferro and take it for the prime meridian from which longitude would be reckoned east and west, and also because it was selected by Pope Alexander VI to serve as a line of reference in settling the rival claims of the kingdoms of Portugal and Castile with regard to their respective discoveries.
— from The Century of Columbus by James J. (James Joseph) Walsh

Then, warned by a chilliness, and lack of response, in her ladyship's manner, she modified her delight, and became apologetic again.
— from A Fair Barbarian by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I felt my memory sensibly affected, and could not connect my ideas through any length of reasoning, but by writing, which many days I was wholly unfitted for by the violence of continual headache.
— from The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4) by John Charles Dent

After a dragging day, they were locked into their box—no one had a chance to gimmick the wall, for the giant were watching them closely—and shortly afterward a load of raw vegetables was dumped in.
— from The Enormous Room by H. L. (Horace Leonard) Gold

"God helps them that help themselves," Benjamin Franklin had poor Richard say; Train said, "Build a line of railroad yourselves to connect with the Union Pacific Railroad at Cheyenne or Julesburg," the road that he had projected.
— from Colorado—The Bright Romance of American History by F. C. Grable